Traumatised staff need special consideration, leadership and guidance.

Everyone in the business community feels for their Cantabrian counterparts and the enormous challenges they are overcoming every day to stay in business. And even when all the logistics are back to normal, they will be dealing with traumatised staff who cannot just swing back into action after what they have been through.

My staff have been through a harrowing natural disaster where they have feared for the lives of their families and their homes. How do employers help their staff through this kind of trauma?

Employers will have tremendous pressure upon them. If they own the business then they are probably seeing the business they worked so hard for, crumble to dust within a few seconds. The focus of the manager is to get the business up and running again, yet they also have to consider one of the most important assets, their staff.

Be there, be supportive and tell them how it is. Do not try to cover up the truth and if you do not know something, say so. The manager needs to provide leadership and guidance in such an event and they should also assign a second level team to provide advice and assistance to personnel. Let this second level team do the day to day support and guidance while the manager provides the decisions and direction. Although the survival of the business is critical to everyone, staff are absolutely crucial and they are part of your business family. You will find that for the extra effort you make for your staff, not only in terms of monetary or physical support, but consideration at a personal level to them, you will get back several times over with loyalty and appreciation.

Should we bring in counsellors to help staff recover?

If your business had been badly hit and your personnel have seen things they should never have to see, such as people badly injured and killed, I think it would be prudent to make available a counselling service. Make sure your counsellors are qualified and trained to give advice and are appropriate for your people. Give consideration to their background, race and religion.

The signs you should look for in someone who needs counselling are that they want to be by themselves, they are not talking about the incident, are showing uncharacteristic behaviour, and they complain of lack of sleep and flashbacks. I would not force them to use the company-assigned counselling service, but I would make the offer. If they prefer to use their own, that is fine. If you force them to use someone they do not want to, and the counselling makes them feel worse, you and your company will be blamed for it.

We have some staff overseas, how do we keep them in the loop?

Email, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, use whatever electronic media you can to communicate with them. Make sure all messages are copied to them. This should be part of the role of your communications team. If they have skills that can be used, for example answering customers' queries, make them the first responders over email or by phone. They are probably sweeping the New Zealand newspapers websites, listening to the internet, radio and watching streaming TV. That is fine, it is keeping them up to date but they will be stressed. Your overseas employees will be working with clients who may not realise the personal anguish they are going through, so the employee needs to be able to cope with this.