Disaster Recovery: Helpful Resources for Supply Chain Professionals from LinkedIn Learning

First Harvey, and now Irma.

The impact on people's lives from these disasters is enormous. Every community that is struck by these storms will be relying on supply chains to work properly as they begin the difficult work of cleanup. Supply chain professionals will need to quickly assess the damage to their logistics infrastructure and then begin the process of recovery.

As you prepare to respond to these disasters, you should also consider learning some new tools that will make you more effective.

Prepare to work smarter, not harder. Time is your most precious resource during disaster recovery.

Here are seven courses from LinkedIn Learning that you can watch online right now, or download with the LinkedIn Learning app. Each of them could help you navigate the challenges you'll be facing in the next few weeks, and help your team be more responsive to the needs of your community, your customers, and your supply chain.

Twitter Essential Training by Jess Stratton. Twitter is an online messaging platform that has become essential for communicating during a crisis. Government agencies, news organizations, and businesses all use Twitter to send and receive short messages, along with pictures and videos. This course explains how Twitter works, and walks you through the process of creating and using your own Twitter account.

By the way, here are 10 Twitter accounts that I'm following closely right now:

@NWS @fema @RedCross @ALANaid @CNN @UPS @FreightWaves @_Riskpulse @WSJLogistics @AmericanShipper.

If you'd like to follow me on Twitter, I'm @stanton_daniel.

Project Management Foundations: Leading Projects by Daniel Stanton. Project leadership becomes really important when supply chains are recovering from a crisis. The DIRECT framework helps leaders stay focused on the six essential issues that every project team needs to address: Define, Investigate, Resolve, Execute, Change, and Transition.

GIS on the Web by Dr. Jason VanHorn. Keeping track of what's happening, and where it is happening, is critical during disaster recovery. This course shows you how to use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to build online maps that can provide your entire team (including your customers and suppliers) with visibility into the status of your supply chain.

Google Docs Essential Training by Jess Stratton. Google Docs allow you to create reports and spreadsheets in the cloud so that everyone on your team can view and edit them at the same time. You can limit the access to authorized users, or you can make them available to anyone. No more slow downloads of attachments, and no more time lost trying to figure out which version of a document is the most current.

Leading Change by Britt Andreatta. During the recovery effort your team is going to be forced to deal with a lot of changes. This course provides important insights on how to lead your team through these changes and focus on the things you need them to do.

Crisis Communications by Laura Bergells. Natural disasters often trigger a chain of negative events, from injuries to environmental contamination. This course walks you through the process of building a crisis communications team so that you can get ahead of issues rather than being caught off guard.

Nonprofit Management Foundations by Leslie Crutchfield. Many of your community's long-term needs will not be met by the government or by private industry. If you feel an obligation to fill some of these gaps yourself, this course shows you how to create and grow a non-profit organization successfully.

It's amazing to see how people come together in response to a natural disaster, and supply chains play an important role.

By learning to use the right tools, at the right time, supply chain professionals can amplify our impact. We owe it to our communities to learn how to leverage processes and technologies that will help our teams focus their time, energy, and resources on the activities that are most needed at each step in the recovery.

About the Author: Daniel Stanton is President of SecureMarking(TM) and Associate Professor of Operations Management at the Jack Welch Management Institute. He is the author of Leading Projects and Business Acumen for Project Managers on LinkedIn Learning, and Supply Chain Management for Dummies from Wiley.

#LinkedInLearning #Irma #HurricaneIrma #Harvey #HurricaneHarvey #SupplyChain #HUMLOG #ALANAID