Today on the Daily Grind, Rob Almond, CEO, NEST, discussed disaster planning and crisis management, and provided key takeaways as multi-site facilities businesses continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. NEST is a national multi-site facility services and management company that helps build, manage and track construction and facilities maintenance management projects.
Almond discussed how NEST has been working with St. Joseph’s University. “During the last few years, and more importantly, the last few weeks we have been meeting with graduating seniors to discuss crisis management planning, awareness and preparedness,” Almond explained.
“Our relationship with St. Joseph’s goes back roughly ten years now, as a sponsor of their business policy competition. Each graduating class has a cap stone class project during which they select a publicly owned company – they identify challenges the company is facing and develop a business plan to guide the company through those issues. For six years, two semesters per year, I served as a judge when the final six projects were presented.
What we discovered was interesting. Almost every semester one group had presented a case study about a NEST customer. We have always found it fun to and beneficial to share the information from the graduating class with our client. One time the seniors had the opportunity to present their findings to the client. We also allowed the students to sit in on our business review with the client. That was always our intent – to bring them into a real world setting and provide them that experience.
Five years ago, we pivoted and went to their financial planning and business intelligence department and created a co-op program. They presented some of the analytics and reporting we had developed earlier as it now relates to the current Covid-19 crisis. So again, we’re really all about providing students the opportunity to interact with real organizations.
As we look forward to getting back to normal, everyone has choices. You could wait to see how things will go. However, we all agree that’s not going to be the case. Everything’s going to be different going forward, from this type of virtual conferencing, to the way we conduct business.
Obviously, we know brick & mortar is not going away, but things are going to be different. Maybe that includes less of a store presence and more of a curb-side delivery presence. Therefore, you’ve got to think differently. One student asked me for advice, and I suggested two things:
1. Give back. No matter how small the gesture is. Right now, that’s so important. Even if it’s just putting on some gloves and helping am elderly neighbor with their trash. People are going to ask what you did during the crisis. Have a positive answer.
2. Realize opportunities are going to change Job offers from a month ago may be gone. Don’t let that discourage you. Take advantage of what is there. Take it as a challenge and adapt to the challenges and opportunities this crisis has presented.
