What would you do?: Your [.*] team went to a conference- accident claimed their lives

[TheCotMan]

Your [.*] team while en route to a conference, encountered an accident, and they are all dead. Now what?

[.*] = Your development team, planning, R&D, etc

Did they document their projects? Will you be able to have someone else continue where they left off? When will you be able to get your business back up and running? Did/does your business have a policy requiring your [.*] team to not all go on trips together? What have you done to limit risk with accidents and travel and your various departments?

Is there something you are supposed to do with payment to living relatives?

Will you attend their funeral?

Do you make an announcement at work? Email? Snail Mail? In-person? How do you handle this event and ensure the business continues to grow, such that those left living will still have a job next week, next month, next year? Who cleans out their office spaces? When do you reallocate their office spaces for other people to use?

What would you do, if you were a manager/director of such a company?

[Gadsden]

Re: What would you do?: Your [.*] team went to a conference- accident claimed their l

Formally fire them for not showing up for work.

Your [.*] team while en route to a conference, encountered an accident, and they are all dead. Now what?

[.*] = Your development team, planning, R&D, etc

Did they document their projects? Will you be able to have someone else continue where they left off? When will you be able to get your business back up and running? Did/does your business have a policy requiring your [.*] team to not all go on trips together? What have you done to limit risk with accidents and travel and your various departments?

Is there something you are supposed to do with payment to living relatives?

Will you attend their funeral?

Do you make an announcement at work? Email? Snail Mail? In-person? How do you handle this event and ensure the business continues to grow, such that those left living will still have a job next week, next month, next year? Who cleans out their office spaces? When do you reallocate their office spaces for other people to use?

What would you do, if you were a manager/director of such a company?

[Nikita]

Re: What would you do?: Your [.*] team went to a conference- accident claimed their l

I Do not have any knowledge regarding the first half of your questions, I know we all travel together, if there was an unfortunate accident, we would be f*cked.
.......but I will go ahead and give you my opinion regarding the rest of your post.

Will you attend their funeral?

Yes, and it would be appropriate to try to allow all employees time to attend and also hold a work sponsored memorial at the office. A counsler should be contacted to have available, or benefits covered employee help line for those that need to talk about or deal with their greif.

Do you make an announcement at work? Email? Snail Mail? In-person?

Direct co-workers who worked or interracted with the deceased on a regular basis need to be gathered up and told together as a group, and then later expand it to outer circles with an office memo/newsletter. Clients can be told with a phone call and informed who they will need to contact regarding their continued business. For smaller or less personal clients a letter informing them that due to unexpected death their business contact has changed and list the new liaison information.

How do you handle this event and ensure the business continues to grow, such that those left living will still have a job next week, next month, next year?

Rehire and Re-evaluate current staff for promotion, inquire who will be able to take on additional work or who feels comfortable taking over their work.

Who cleans out their office spaces? When do you reallocate their office spaces for other people to use?

Family will be invited to come or send someone on their behalf to collect to their loved ones belongings, if they can not do so within an appropriate time frame ( remember they are grieving) tell them you will gather their belongings and will drop it off or store it for them. Family will only concern themselves with pictures, personal items and mementos, there is usually someone they know who they will ask to pick it up for them, such as the secretary or another colleague/golfing buddy etc. If they want to come to gather their things themselves, consider meeting them on a Saturday or after hours to minimize the impact of the spouse/family member being bombarded with condolences or memories. not to be insensitive but its also best for the employees, you do not want crying mothers or wives disrupting employees and possibly prolonging the grief of the office. It is best left unseen.

What would you do, if you were a manager/director of such a company?

Besides shit a brick...all of the above and pray It doesn't fold the business.


By the way, i've liked these questions you have been posting lately Cot, they add a lot of value and reference. :-)

[xor]

Re: What would you do?: Your [.*] team went to a conference- accident claimed their l

Shock
Sadness
Make Interoffice Announcement
Call Customer
Send Flowers & Card
Goto Funeral
Goto Memorial Service assuming more than one person is dead
Hire Consultants with lots of initials after their names
Start chanting "We are (insert company name)" :)
Write movie script :)
Sell movie rights :)
Make lots of money than who cares about the project :)

xor

The American way :)

[Samurai Drifter]

Re: What would you do?: Your [.*] team went to a conference- accident claimed their l

Did they document their projects? Will you be able to have someone else continue where they left off? When will you be able to get your business back up and running?

These questions are all highly dependent on the situation. I'd like to think I would have measures in place to support such a problem, though.

Did/does your business have a policy requiring your [.*] team to not all go on trips together? What have you done to limit risk with accidents and travel and your various departments?

Well, where air travel was used/required, members of my [.*] team would all take different flights. If for some reason they were taking trains, they would go on different ones. No more than 3 per car, probably. (Of course, I have little knowledge of how big these teams tend to be.)

Is there something you are supposed to do with payment to living relatives?

This is also dependent on the situation. If it was concievably the company's fault in any way, I'd give them reasonable compensation. If there were relatives in dire need of financial aid, it would probably be in my best interests to give them reasonable assistance.

Will you attend their funeral?

If I knew them well enough. If I had little more interaction with them than as a boss, then I would just send flowers.

Do you make an announcement at work? Email? Snail Mail? In-person?

I'd probably do a mass-email to everyone that had contact with them. That insures that everyone who checks their email (and they'd damn well better, in my company) will get the message.

How do you handle this event and ensure the business continues to grow, such that those left living will still have a job next week, next month, next year?

I don't have much experience with this type of decision, but I suppose I'd hire appropriate replacements and try to carry on as before.

Who cleans out their office spaces?

Whoever's job it is to, I guess. Maybe I'd have their peers do it.

When do you reallocate their office spaces for other people to use?

Probably the week after the offices are cleaned out.

[astcell]

Re: What would you do?: Your [.*] team went to a conference- accident claimed their l

We cover that here at work. "What if" all the senior folks are killed/quit/get abducted by aliens, and so on. And then they take the junior people and stick us in their boss's jobs to watch how badly we do things. It also humbles folks into understanding that the boss does more than just go to meetings.

On a previous job my boss died at 46. Only he and I knew "everything." My job for the next eight weeks was to spill my brains on paper, and be very careful driving home.

[mouseling]

Re: What would you do?: Your [.*] team went to a conference- accident claimed their l

My job for the next eight weeks was to spill my brains on paper, and be very careful driving home.

Astcell, given what you do and where you spend most of your time, I sincerely hope that you are very careful driving home all the time!

-mouse

[astcell]

Re: What would you do?: Your [.*] team went to a conference- accident claimed their l

Astcell, given what you do and where you spend most of your time, I sincerely hope that you are very careful driving home all the time!

-mouse

I'm always aware of the fact I am driving an armored vehicle and it is here to protect ME, not money or anything. Kind of humbling.