Get Your Workforce Ready to Respond to Y2K Failures

Abstract

Private and public organizations around the world have been fixated on the potential Y2K crisis that is now nearly here. Whether Y2K turns out to be a minor operational annoyance or a fullscale technological disaster, U.S. organizations alone have already spent over $1 trillion on Y2K compliance measures. In spite of the precautions taken and preparations made thus far, the authors find that few organizations have addressed the core issue of what human efforts will be required to maintain operations in the midst of the crisis. The authors' research demonstrates that, while tremendous resources have been poured into averting computer-related disasters, considerably less is being done to prepare workforces to respond to customers' needs should system failures occur. If and when Y2K problems happen, customers will not care whose system "went down." They will care only about how well a company responds to their problems. "Because workforce and customer service constituents appear to be underrepresented at the Y2K table," state the authors, "we strongly recommend that experts in areas including compensation, benefits, staffing, and training get involved in the Y2K problem now."