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How casual are you?

Certain times of the year (approaching Christmas, over summer holidays or at the end of the school or academic year) could be called the casual season for many organisations. That's when the number of casual employees in your organisation grows significantly, sometimes even outnumbering your permanent employees.

For some other industries work force casualisation is a continuing trend, rather than a seasonal one.

For all organisations, casual and new employees deserve special consideration in your crisis planning process.

Where training may ensure your ongoing employees know what to do if something goes wrong, the best way to ensure casual employees know what to do is to establish systems which do not rely on in-depth knowledge, skills or experience.

Spelling out the steps to be undertaken, by whom and in what circumstances is the first step to developing appropriate systems for your business.

Systems will help your casual staff become valuable team members, as well as ensuring any minor incident is less likely to escalate into a major one, or even a crisis, just because it was handled by a casual employee.

Quote of Note

"When dealing with people, remember that you are not dealing with creatures of logic but with creatures of emotion."

Dale Carnegie

© Kerrie Mullins-Gunst
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