At 8:07 a.m. on January 13, 2018, phones across the state of Hawaii blared an incoming message: BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
At 8:45 a.m., a follow-up message was issued. This one assured terrified residents that the message was a false alarm, and no such missile was incoming.
For those across the state, it was a terrifying and stressful morning. Knowing that such a mistake was not only made, but allowed to continue for 38 minutes of terror, is jarring.
Once the adrenaline died down everyone was left with one question: H__ow could this happen?
What went wrong in Hawaii?
Two months later, the finer details of the now-infamous incident have come to light. While original statements suggested that the employee had “pressed the wrong button," the actual event was a combination of communication safeguard failure and bad process design.
In a surprise drill call, a supervisor deviated from the drill script, stating, “This is not a drill." One employee tuned in midway through the call, missing the introduction that explained this was a practice call. He issued the emergency warning, convinced he'd done the right thing.
So what? Just retract the alert, right? Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple. As a spokesperson for Hawaii's emergency statement department said, “There was no cancellation button. There was no false alarm button at all."
The situation was so bad that a retraction was posted to Facebook and Twitter before an official false alarm alert could go out.
Changes are being made to the system to avoid this happening again, but the fact is that it happened because of someone who ran late, panicked, and wasn't able to fix his mistake because of a badly designed software. These problems don't seem so far from home.
The disastrous trio of disengagement, poor training, and the wrong tools could strike any business.
Why a Hawaii incident could happen to your small business
The Hawaii missile alert was caused by mistakes that could happen to anyone. And yes, anyone includes you and your business.
Just because you aren't running a government office in charge of monitoring inbound ballistics, a business flub could still massively impact you and those around you.
Maybe it's because your employees aren't paying attention. Or maybe your staff isn't properly trained. Or the tools you're using for your business are out-of-date or don't meet your specific business needs. Whatever the reason, mistakes happen, and they can be devastating to your business.
According to USAToday, only 20% of businesses survive their first year of operation.
Are you reading that? A whopping 80% of businesses crash and burn before their first birthday, and the leading cause of those failures are incompetence issues, including poor employee training and bad tech decisions.
Via StatisticBrain
If you don't address the major dangers of ill-fitting tech tools, inadequate employee training, and staff disengagement, your business's “Hawaii Incident" isn't a possibility: it is inevitable.
Duct tape fixes are not an option, but training managers have a lot of power to avoid these failures.
How can training managers help keep businesses alive?
That StatisticBrain study goes on to reveal that a lack of focus and training are often some of the biggest culprits for small business failure. That means that training managers are on the front lines of avoiding disaster.
Let's identify some specific training and focus problems that can lead to small business failures and talk about solutions. Just because it's a problem doesn't mean that it can't be fixed.
The problem: Untrained employees
Employees who aren't trained properly make mistakes, as in Hawaii where an employee decided to ad lib on a testing script that needed to be by the book. Proper training on protocols may have prevented the false alarm from ever happening, and it might just be what saves your business.
Learning new things at work is challenging. Most people have an ingrained way that they like to do their job (regardless of whether or not it's actually the best way to do it), and they don't want to take the time away from their job to devote the attention needed to learn something new or make a change.
Trust me, I work with corporate training technology for a living. I've seen how difficult the learning curve can be, and the busier your office is, the less time they have to devote to learning.
But this is a huge problem, because untrained employees are much more likely to leave your company and cost you money. If you're in an industry that calls for safety training, the risks are even higher. Accidents are three times more likely to happen to new, untrained employees than to employees who've been fully trained.
The solution:
Learning management software makes employees learn important information faster. If your software is simple and intuitive, it won't add a learning curve on top of the time it takes to complete training.
If you don't use a well-designed LMS, your employees will lose more time to in-person training, they'll be unable to go back and easily reference what they learned when they need a refresher, and your business will lose out on the advantages that your competitors with LMSs have.
You can also help by projecting enthusiasm about the changes. If you're showing the way, your team will follow.
The problem: Disengaged employees
The system test in Hawaii began with the verbal acknowledgement that it was only a test. But one employee was late to the meeting, a sign that he may have been disengaged. A higher level of attention could have stopped the false alarm before it was ever started.
Workplace burnout and disengagement are nothing special or surprising, but it's a problem that impacts your whole business. In the United States, the losses caused by disengaged employees are up to $550 billion per year, according to Gallup.
Even the most rockstar employee can get worn down. And a worn down employee isn't going to be open to learning new methods and using new tools—the intellectual challenge just becomes another chore.
The solution:
It is imperative that you engage your employees. The only way to combat employee burnout and disengagement is to find ways to help them feel that their work is worthwhile.
You can help engage them by taking an interest in what they do. Learn to articulate what every given position in your company does and how it impacts the company as a whole. Proving to your employees that you know what you're talking about when interacting with them will show them that you care about them and their specific job, rather than paying them lip service.
This specificity also comes in handy when your employees are doing well. When praising and rewarding employees, look for things they really care about. Try surveying your employees on what matters most to them in the workplace, or have one-on-one meetings with managers to get a better feel for what motivates each team.
Find out what your employees care about, what will really make them feel appreciated and motivated, and make use of it.
The problem: Using the wrong tools
In Hawaii, the poor user interface was a big part of the problem. Not only did it raise the risk of a false alarm, it made the problem much worse once it had already happened.
Using the wrong tools is a massive drain on your business's resources in terms of time, money, and effort. In 2016, software failures cost the U.S. $1.1 trillion, and resulted in over 315 lost years of time.
A failure could mean a lot of different things, from a software bug to wasted time trying to force the wrong type of software to work.
The solution:
Start close to home before branching out to new programs.
Do an audit of your current software. Ask yourself a few hard questions: Is it really working for me? How long does it take to do regular tasks? Could it be easier? Does it do everything I need it to? Here's a helpful guide that can get you started on a proper software audit.
Make sure that everything you have actually fits your needs. If it's not a good fit or you need more help, then you can start the search for newer, better programs.
Figure out what you need and why you need it before looking into anything new. Reading a few articles that can explain what different software types and features are will be helpful.
Don't go into anything blind. The research phase should be the longest phase of your software search.
Bringing it all together
We all want to avoid a Hawaii false alarm incident. Maybe to save your job or maybe to save your company's reputation, it's worth helping your employees avoid mistakes and making sure your software is up to scratch.
Are you avoiding small business failure? What methods are you using? Hit me up in the comments below or tweet me @CapterraHalden and tell me about it.