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About That Workforce Contingency Plan You Meant To Establish

WASHINGTON, DC—Metro's abrupt shut down highlights how dependent the region is on this aging infrastructure.

By Erika Morphy | erikamorphy | | Updated on March 16, 2016
DC metro station DC metro station
WASHINGTON, DC—In what it says is a first, the Washington DC Metro Transit Authority has abruptly shut down the metro system for a safety inspection following fires caused by an electrical component on the third rail. Metro officials emphasized that the likelihood of passenger danger was low but couldn’t rule it out, hence the surprising decision made on Tuesday to immediately shut down the transportation system. To longtime watchers of the metro system it has been clear that its infrastructure was aging and increasingly unreliable. Then, it 2009 it proved to be unsafe, with the Red Line’s crash in which eight people were killed and at least 80 injured. In a separate incident recently one person died and several were sickened by smoke inhalation from a tunnel fire. On the more mundane level complaints about delays and malfunctions on the system are lodged daily. There is little businesses can do about the transit system except lobby for better maintenance and expansion. But they can — if they haven’t already — put emergency plans in place ready to be activated in such situations. Hopefully metro will get its act together and a surprise shut down won’t be necessary in the future.  But there are other scenarios for which Washington DC area companies, unfortunately, must be ready. Indeed, one of Transwestern’s “megatrends” for 2016 was the issue of preparedness for both natural and manmade disasters and the importance of commercial real estate to keep properties resilient against such events. In retrospect they might have added workforce contingency plans as well. A good place to start, for the latter at least, is with the suggestions by James C. Dinegar, president and CEO of the Washington DC Board of Trade, made in an open letter to the community.
  • Offer flex-time to arrive late and/or leave early to avoid the rush hour;
  • Encourage those who can to work from home;
  • Apply liberal leave policies so that people may use unplanned vacation days to take off;
  • Provide ways to underwrite or pay in full for cabs, UBER or other transit options;
  • Pay for parking;
  • Encourage ride-sharing among the staff;
  • Have everyone who uses MARC or VRE rail to monitor their websites for any schedule implications
  • Reserve spots on commuter buses where possible
  • Secure parking spots in your building where possible
  • Reconsider meetings to decide whether to reschedule, do by phone, etc. If you are hosting meetings, get word out on start-times and any changes to the schedule.

“There will be plenty of time to express dismay about this situation – but right now we all need to pull together and get through this with as minimal disruption as possible,” Dinegar wrote. “Not easy to do, but if you can prepare and communicate options to your company, we will all be better ready to deal with the difficulties we will face without an operating rail system.” Or whatever else – natural or otherwise – could be thrown at us.

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