Disasters – of any kind – are chaotic by nature. When the unexpected inevitably comes, you may find yourself uncertain of your next steps or what to get started on first as you start preparing to deal with a disaster.

Take the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance. Its impact has touched every corner of our businesses, our families and the economy. Everyone remains isolated as we try to stop the spread, which has seriously disrupted most of our normal processes and operations.

With that in mind, let’s talk about how to care for your people in case of future hardships. More specifically, let’s talk about your employees: how do you make sure, in a time of limited resources, that your employees can continue to work, get paid and take care of their families? And, going off of that concern, how do you set up communication channels as everyone attempts to work from home?

Let’s start with the main concern, which is making sure there are enough resources to go around. This will come down to advance business financial planning on your part. Making sure there are cash reserves dedicated to weathering storms, literal or otherwise, is essential. Doing so will give your employees some peace of mind so that, at the very least, they don’t have to fear for their jobs.

Further measures include preparing emergency housing for employees and their families in case homes are affected by the disaster or disruption in question, establishing a backup site so that you can continue operating outside your main location and having everyone set up for direct deposit to make payment seamless, even in rough times.

Speaking of offsite operations, are you prepared to have your employees work from home, as so many are doing in response to the coronavirus crisis? Consider familiarizing yourself with a communication platform like Basecamp, Asana or Trello to handle remote task management, and a meeting software like Zoom or GoToMeeting so everyone can stay in touch, even from far away.

On the same note, it wouldn’t hurt to put together training materials for the platforms you choose to expedite the learning curve and minimize the interruption to your workflow.

It’s never easy to steer a business through a major event like a natural disaster, economy crash or pandemic. But at the end of the day, that’s exactly why you have a team. Set yourself up now with all the things you’ll need to take care of your people and make sure the show goes on.