In our last blog we discussed the four basic plans your organisation should have in place for best-practice crisis management.
This week, we look at a few examples of how these plans might look in a real incident.
Scenario One:
There’s been a small flood in the office. Water has flooded many workstation areas, staff have had to evacuate, and you’ve been advised that it will be a few weeks to repair the damage. In the meantime, the workstations cannot be occupied.
Which plans come into play here?
The Emergency Plan and Team would have been deployed as you evacuated the building – there would have been possible danger with building damage and power outages.
However, the event was not major, so the Critical Incident Management Team was not required.
The Business Continuity Team had to refer to the BCP to determine where the staff would be located until the repairs were completed. The ICP was also referenced as there were a number of stakeholders that needed to be notified that office arrangements had changed.
Scenario Two:
There have been allegations of serious staff misconduct (e.g., theft, sex assault, corruption). The company keeps operating; however, the Critical Incident Management Team has been activated as there is now an investigation. Shareholders and suppliers are concerned, and there may be a possible ASX notification, staff briefings etc.
In this case, no Emergency Plan or BCP is required, but the CIMP and ICP are activated.
Scenario Three:
There has been a major cyber-attack that has shut down your online systems, causing significant impact to the business. Staff are unable to do most of their core work functions and you cannot continue to deliver your normal services/production.
In this scenario, all plans and teams would be activated.
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As you can see, creating four plans that address clear, separate levels of response makes sense, and it works.
The scale and detail of each plan and team is dependent on the size of the company. Having clear boundaries makes it easier for staff and stakeholders to follow, and facilitating training and testing can be directly relevant to the team.
We hope this explanation assists in understanding the four plans and teams required to place your company in the best position should an incident (no matter what severity) occur.
In the meantime, if you would like to know more about emergency, business continuity or crisis plans, please contact us at office@crisisshield.com.au or call Allan Briggs on 0417 160 120.
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