Leading with Resilience – Lessons from the CrowdStrike Outage

Delayed/grounded flights. Inaccessible services. Lost data. Delayed payroll.

All these and more were the effects of the recent CrowdStrike outage that impacted nearly 8.5 million devices worldwide. As the world recovers from the immediate aftermath of the crisis, the incident remains a stark reminder of how vulnerable our tech processes can be.

It highlights the need for better business continuity planning (BCP) and backup arrangements to minimize the impact from such outages. Cyberattacks and software vulnerabilities are getting more complex and can pose a variety of threats to businesses.

These threats can range from severe financial losses to long-term reputational damage. However, as companies grapple to fix the customer side of impact, it is easy to forget about another key set of stakeholders – the employees.

Employees of a company that has been at the epicentre of a threat or outage may face a variety of negative impacts:

Damage to reputation: The damage to the reputation of a company may also damage the credibility of its employees. They may be seen as less reliable and trustworthy by the market, reducing their perceived value to other employers. For example, not every employee at Enron would have participated in wrongdoing. However, any job applicant with Enron on their resume may be subjected to higher scrutiny.
Lack of timely payment: With an outage or attack, if payroll systems go down, employees may not be paid on time. Also, with the focus being on customer-facing issues to be fixed ASAP, payroll may take extra time to fix. Not only would this be upsetting to employees, but also it may be a compliance issue in some states.
Short-term workload increase: To mitigate the effects of the outage or attack, employees may be pulled into longer shifts and have more stressful working hours. This could create a downward spiral where some people quit due to stress, putting more pressure on those who remain, making their workforce experience (Wx) suffer.
Long-term cultural impact: As part of an effort to have tighter controls and more supervision, the leadership may react by putting in monitoring systems, restricting flexible work, etc. These measures could further reduce the Wx and prompt people to look for jobs with better cultures.
Layoffs: In a quick move to appease shareholders, the company may decide to trim the bottom line by laying off some employees. This could create fears of ongoing layoffs and also demotivate people.

Any outage, threat, or unprecedented business disruption is bound to create significant negative impact. Life can quickly be thrown out of gear with tech-related disruptions. A comprehensive BCP can mitigate the impact, but only if you extend your BCP to include both – customers and employees. Only by protecting the interests of your people, you can lead them towards protecting the interests of the customers you serve.

To talk about HR systems and processes that can protect you in such events, reach out to us at [email protected].

About the Author

Sumit Singla

Founder of eleventHR Consulting.

Sumit has been working in HR & HR consulting roles for 16+ years across sectors and verticals and specializes in organization design, wellbeing, storytelling & design thinking, and performance management. In his career with consulting firms such as Aon, Deloitte, and Accenture, he has successfully led programs aimed at total HR transformation for clients. Recently, as Associate Director for India Consulting at Deloitte, he worked with clients on cultural transformation and HR process and policy design. He also organized and spoke at conferences and events about a variety of topics relevant to HR today. Now self-employed, he works with clients across the globe on a variety of HR solution areas.

Howard Nizewitz

Howard’s extensive expertise in compensation management comes with a 25-year track record of implementing strategic and successful compensation programs in the financial services and technology industries with a global and regional focus. His tenure includes positions at Barclays, Citigroup, and JPMorgan. Other areas of expertise include HR consulting, Deferred compensation, incentive plan design, and talent management. If you want to learn more, please contact Howard at [email protected] or schedule a free consultation on the compteam.net website.