Full-blown crises are thankfully rare but just occasionally you may find yourself having to deal with a natural disaster of the magnitude of Hurricane Sandy. Here’s our advice for handling it like a pro.

Location

If you’re in another country such as the US during a natural disaster, the first thing you should do is book a hotel room or extend your booking, especially if you’re not sure how long you’ll be stranded for. Hotel rooms tend to get booked up immediately when natural disasters strike and finding somewhere to stay can be very difficult.

Working with your team

You will of course need to inform your team of your circumstances as soon as possible. It may be useful to have your alternative contact details saved as a draft email so you can rapidly share this information with key contacts. This can also help avoid nasty surprises on your phone bill caused by calls to your mobile while abroad. Use cheap alternatives like Skype instead.

It’s worth making sure you can access important files too. Now’s the time to sort out access to office networks via VPN. If you can work

The ‘slow work’ concept emphasises the need to work slow and focus on efficiency, flexibility and quality. During a natural disaster, everyday flexible working plans go out the window and individuals make a decision on how they work, if they can work.

Triage your work by deciding what is urgent and important. Forget about all the unimportant tasks and if necessary forget about the important things and focus on the urgent tasks.

We hope that you never get caught -up in a natural disaster but if you do and you need to work, make sure you have a strategy in place.