For most of us, the Blizzard of 2013 is a minor inconvenience and a bit of an adventure.  Dennis and I had to do about 30 minutes of shoveling, but are fortunate to have power.  Some parts of our town are experiencing flooding, but our public works and emergency services employees are doing their best to keep things running smoothly.

I made this video this morning of high tide at Short Beach.  The audio's a bit tough to hear due to the wind, but you'll  note the excellent job our DPW has done keeping the roads clear.

Our 56 and 60 year old backs are very grateful to the guys who plow our driveway.  They were here late last night and early this am, sparing us the monumental task of shoveling the driveway.

The winner, however, of today's storm heroes award are the staff at Brooksby Village where my Dad lives.  He's got Alzheimer's and lives on a skilled nursing unit.  See the note below from the manager about their storm response.  We're sending a thank you gift to the staff, but you seriously can't thank people enough for this type of dedication.  I write a lot here about employee engagement and customer service.  These people seriously set the gold standard.  Thank you Todd, and all of the wonderful people who work at Brooksby!

Good Morning Families/Friends,

Sending you a quick update that we are continuing to manage through the day.  For the most part, all is going well.  We had 41 staff members from Continuing Care sleep over last night.  Many of those staff that worked last night are unable to get home and spending today sleeping so they are well rested for work later.  So lots of tired but very committed people.

Our day started by seeing our team of 6 culinary staff walk through the front door at 5:30am ready to start a long day of feeding 200 residents and lots of staff.

Those nursing staff that didn't sleep over have done a great job getting to the facility despite the challenging commute and buried conditions at home.

The leadership team that arrived to support the storm yesterday morning is still here and plans to stay as long as necessary to keep things running smoothly.

Many of our housekeepers have stayed the night and are helping to support the residents today.

We are all pitching in to work the dining rooms and ensure our residents still have activities to attend throughout the day.

This is shaping up to be a pretty special experience to be a part of.  Hope you are all safe.

More to come.

Todd

I don't know about the rest of you, but I am taking this blizzard seriously.  The picture on the right was taken in my hometown of Rockport, Massachusetts in the aftermath of the blizzard of '78.  A lot of people lost homes or had significant property damage. My two siblings and I were all home from college for winter break and trapped with our parents and one of my Dad's customers for five days.  My Dad was kind enough to take the guy in because he waited too long to leave work and the roads were impassable by the time he did.  Day one of being snowbound feels like an adventure.  Day five becomes a gulag - especially if everybody has to be on their best behavior to preserve that important customer relationship.

As we've written about before, extreme weather wreaks havoc on businesses as well as households.  I  live in a coastal town, in fact a town surrounded on all sides by water, connected to the mainland by a causeway.  This blizzard is not only expected to dump more than 2 feet of snow on us, but will also persist through two high tide cycles.  High winds and heavy precipitation at high tide are a combination that can have lethal impact for a town like ours.  I met with our Fire Chief this morning and talked to him about what his team was doing to prepare.  He's got to balance budget and public safety concerns - not an easy equation to balance in what's expected to be a storm of the century.

Assuming the power stays on, I'll blog video updates over the progression of the storm.  You'll find part 1  here , which will explain the Brigham's vanilla title above.  If you live in this storm area, I hope you're home and dry.  Governor Patrick has already ordered everybody off the roads by 4 PM.   Stay safe everybody!

The Super Bowl was also big news this week, and included some of our prior research about sports-induced absenteeism was covered in a variety of news stories:

Other Items of Interest This Week:

A better way to do performance reviews: http://www.inc.com/tom-searcy/a-new-approach-to-annual-performance-reviews.html?nav=featured

What not to say to a working mom: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/devon-corneal/what-not-to-say-to-a-working-mom_b_2566952.html

Astounding graphic about paid maternity/paternity leave around the world: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/maternity-leave-paid-parental-leave-_n_2617284.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Challenges of a temporary worker: http://thecynicalgirl.com/the-challenges-of-a-permanent-temporary-worker/

Kronos Posts, Articles and Media Coverage This Week:

Calgary Co-op Achieves New Levels of #Staffing Effectiveness with #Kronos: http://ow.ly/hoI5n

Experience workforce innovation that works at our local customer conferences: http://ow.ly/hlc2u #free #KronosLive

#Kronos Reports Exceptional First-Quarter Results; Workforce Management #Cloud Revenue Increases 106% http://ow.ly/hr5ip

Values Drive Success and Innovation at Workforce Management Company, #Kronos. http://ow.ly/hr6TB via @Forbes

Find out how best-in-class orgs are working smarter by leveraging ongoing #training in our #webinar with @Madtarquin. http://ow.ly/hqW2m

Great article on @Forbes featuring our CEO @AronAin. Values Drive Success & Innovation at #WFM Company, Kronos. http://ow.ly/hrc6S

Find out what 100 #dining #executives have to say about optimizing their workforce. Download the Pulse Report today: http://ow.ly/hqWkH

KnowledgePass: Little Cost for Big Benefits! Find out how easy access to education can improve your productivity. http://ow.ly/hqX5h

2/12 Webinar: Labor Strategies for Surviving the #AffordableCareAct. http://ow.ly/hqXIL

Theatre Emotions http://ow.ly/hlbAW via @KronosUK @andrewbusby

RT @GreggLean: Competitive Manufacturing in the UK http://ow.ly/hgLi8

6 Considerations for Handling Complex Scheduling Challenges in Retail http://ow.ly/hpEBU via @fmoreno44

RT @SmarterCafe: #Kronos customers are moving to the #Cloud. Here's how one did it. http://ow.ly/hrGta

RT @smartercafe: Tough for #healthcare pros to help patients while wrapped in #redtape. http://ow.ly/hvsv4

Change is “sometimes” Good http://ow.ly/hxtsM via @ToddBlackHRMS

Is Managing a Global Workforce the Next Big Challenge for Manufacturers? http://ow.ly/hxtEV via @simonmacpherson @KronosUK

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