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Beware of Complacency! What HR Managers
Should Be Doing for the Post-September 11th Workplace

December 2001

In the days and weeks immediately following the September 11th attacks, HR was called upon to play a key, albeit traditional, role related to addressing employees’ emotional, logistical, and information-related needs during the aftermath of the crisis. For many workplaces at or near Ground Zero in New York and Washington, D.C., attending to the basics of recovery is still underway. But for organizations situated elsewhere, there has been more of a return to ‘business as usual.’

Should HR return to ‘business as usual’ now that the crisis response phase is over? Emphatically, no! In a world so materially changed by the events of one day, a return to business as usual would be ‘complacent’ (defined by Webster as “self-satisfaction accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies”). And at a time when Americans have highly salient concerns about their personal, economic, and national security, there is a proactive and potent role for HR to take. But it’s not likely to be covered in the pre-September 11th strategic or tactical plans. Thus, the requirement for an agile HR function IN OUR rapidly changing 21st century world.

On September 11, the unimaginable occurred. We watched with horror, grief, and helplessness as our workplaces were attacked. And we all lost in this. We lost family, friends, colleagues, customers, vendors, neighbors, fellow citizens, and welcomed international guests. We also lost a sense of security related to previously mundane elements of our work, such as traveling by air, opening our mail, and for many located in high-rise urban offices, just being at work. And experts forecast that the United States is forever changed, and should be forever changed, since the reality of international terrorism hit American soil.

Some of the feelings of insecurity will fade with time. But the biggest mistake we can make, as HR managers and as business leaders, is to promote security without new means of being secure, to promote awareness without new means of being aware, to promote strength without new means of being strong; and to promote economic viability without new strategies to IMPROVE viability. HR have the opportunity, if not the obligation, to be part of what defines the new and improved workplace; to ensure a reassessment of security practices; to assess the efficacy of OUR crisis planning and response practices; to assess the agility and speed of the organizational recovery, and then to recommend and implement improved practices that will make our workplaces more secure, more effective, and more resilient to threats of all sorts.

Three steps to lead into the future

THE over-arching questions that HR should answer and act on are: (1) WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM WHAT HAPPENED AND HOW WE RESPONDED? and (2) BASED ON WHAT WE LEARNED, WHAT SPECIFICALLY WILL WE DO DIFFERENTLY MOVING FORWARD?