Don’t forget the people!

Staff and customers are an often neglected part of both the planning and response phases of crisis management. David Perl provides a checklist of some of the key things to consider in this area.

In the past, business continuity and crisis management has focused on tangible assets, essentially recovery of systems and data and re-establishment of facilities and services. This all changed in the aftermath of 9/11, where it was realized that the human factor was as critical as the technology and buildings.

Watching the heart wrenching suffering of the people affected by the Madrid bombings has reinforced the need to ensure your contingency plans pay regard to the people elements as well. I have listed below just a few of the many aspects that should be given consideration:

1. Identify suitable skilled staff to form your crisis response team. Take into account minimum numbers, in a long running crisis people will burn out if not enough backups exist.

2. Take into consideration recent personnel circumstances. Young families and elderly dependents can all affect the availability and willingness of your crisis team.

3. Be aware that in a crisis, your crisis team’s core personality traits will be accentuated. I have seen internal politics, competitiveness, jealousy, insecurities and a whole host of other issues all bubble to the surface within crisis management teams.

4. Ensure strong leadership during a crisis - this will be crucial if you are to have any chance of weathering the storm.

5. Develop a workable plan - I like lots of checklists. Your crisis team will not have time to read a thick manual in a crisis. Remember, Noah built the Ark before the rains came.

6. Clearly define the organization's expectations of the crisis teams and in turn what they can expect. Issues such as overtime payments and relocation/hardship cover needs to be considered.

7. Train the team around your crisis response and exercise the plans on a regular basis. Human performance increases with training and practice. This was something crucial I learnt from my medical training!

8. Give your crisis team some education on how people react in a crisis and how people cope with grief - use specialists for this.

9. Develop relationships with the external suppliers that you may need to call upon, especially if dealing with loss of life. The role of counseling (or more accurately Psychological Debriefing) in the aftermath of human loss or serious injury is now thought to do more harm than good, but what you will certainly need in the immediate aftermath are people skilled in providing psychological first aid.

10. Do not shirk your responsibilities as an employer when dealing with real tough stuff. Whatever the cause of the crisis, if it involves human suffering, your staff will want to know that they are working for a caring and compassionate organization.

11. Consider the best way to communicate with all your staff on a frequent basis - even those not involved in the crisis response. In our experience, personal face to face team briefings are best.

12. Test your call out notification system out of office hours. Dedicated systems exist to simplify this task.

13. Ensure that all employee records are current and include home and mobile numbers. You should also have their emergency contact number and their relationship with the emergency contact listed for all staff. Update this information quarterly.

14. Make sure HR can be contacted out of hours - you will need their input if your staff are impacted in any way.

15. Make it easy for staff to communicate with your organization during a crisis. Set up a free phone number that gives out a pre-recorded message of the latest factual information.

16. People will be desperate for information and in a crisis your phones could get jammed very quickly. Consider outsourcing this area to a specialist supplier.

17. Use your website for disseminating information to your staff and customers.

18. If invoking a remote site, consider all the practical and logistical issues in advance; transport, accommodation, catering, child care, shift patterns etc.

19. If you have a crisis overseas a whole host of other issues will come into play. Time differences, language barriers, variable medical standards, cultural differences in dealing with death and bereavement, poor or non-existent local support, involvement of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office etc. will all come into play. 

20. Be aware of the protocols of death notification for the country you live in.

21. Provide ongoing support to those who have been personally affected by the crisis. This could include regular hospital visits, frequent communication and possibly attending funerals.

22. Give consideration to the most sensitive way of returning the personal effects of staff if dealing with fatalities.

Dealing with the human factors is perhaps one of the most challenging and rewarding areas of crisis management. Hopefully your crisis will never involve injury or death, as nothing can fully prepare you and your crisis team for dealing with these issues. However, with good planning, training, and a first class crisis response, you and your organization can deal with the unthinkable. The reputation of your organization could even be enhanced, as one that really does care about its people, whether staff or customers.

Finally: The above is just the tip of the iceberg. Even if you feel you have all the above items covered, it can still pay to have an external specialist company audit your plans. Even better would be to have specialists conduct your annual simulation exercise (We presume you are testing annually as a minimum!?). They will offer an objective and non-judgmental view on your crisis response capabilities and give invaluable feedback on issues that perhaps had not been considered.

David Perl

"Crisis Communication - When the Heat's On, People Matter Most"

Crisis Training Quote
"Leaders need to be optimists. Their vision is beyond the present."
Rudy Giuliani

Suggested Reading:

Risk Issues and Crisis Management (PR in Practice S.)
by Michael Regester, Judy Larkin

Asian Post-Crisis Management: Corporate and Governmental Strategies for Sustainable Competitive Advantage by Usha C. V. Haley (Editor), Frank-Jürgen Richter

School Crisis Management: A Hands-On Guide to Training Crisis Response Teams
by Kendall, Ph.D. Johnson, Ronald D. Stephers

Managing Crises Before They Happen: What Every Executive Needs to Know About Crisis Management by Ian I. Mitroff, Gus Anagnos

Crisis Management in the Tourism Industry
by Dirk Glaesser

Crisis Management in Anesthesiology
by David M., M.D. Gaba

Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitable
by Steven Fink

Harvard Business Review on Crisis Management (A Harvard Business Review Paperback)
by Norman R. Augustine

Crisis Management and Brief Treatment: Theory, Technique, and Applications
by Albert Roberts

Everyday Crisis Management: How to Think Like an Emergency Physician
by Mark L. Friedman

Nuclear Diplomacy and Crisis Management (International Security Readers)
by Sean M. Lynn-Jones