Risk & Contingency Planning - Corporate Responsibility to Employees
(International Politics - Risk & Threat)
Up until quite recently, it was relatively easy to identify what areas of risk, industry, businesses or NGO’s would face be it man-made or natural and what measures should be put in place to try and protect them and more importantly their employees. However, in this climate of increasing global terror and the emergence of more sophisticated asymmetric attacks, no sector or organisation is totally secure from the new uncertainties of how these attacks will develop and from which direction they will come and the consequences that may arise for that organisation after an event. This holds true whether the organisation is home based or has international commitments. The main perceived threat now is the quasi-military style attack from identifiable terror groups, which have increased dramatically in the past few years particularly on soft civilian targets. In addition there is also the more alarming threat of having to deal with a new, added phenomena of so-called “clean skin or lone wolf” terrorists who fly under the radar.
Attacks, particularly terrorist attacks in whatever shape or form they take are going to continue to grow in the coming years with an expanding area of operations as more and more individuals and groups become radicalized. How an organisation responds to a crisis not only determines the severity, cost and long-term environmental damage depends in large part on how well it is prepared and that requires the development of pre-planning measures.
However, terrorist attacks although the major concern, are not the only threats an organisation may face. Additional areas of focus should also be placed on unconventional opponents such as pressure groups, activists, single-issue zealots, disgruntled employees or criminals whether white collar, cyber hackers, organised or opportunists. Therefore, response plans to deal with these additional threats should also be in place and regularly updated.
Some organisations I have worked with in the past were varied in size and commitment. The larger players, mostly those with international commitments did have extensive response plans in place as a matter of course and have had these plans in place for a number of years (although in a number of cases some had lapsed or were not regularly updated), smaller organisations particularly small NGO's, have relatively few. Some had used the services of various security companies to help them formulate their contingency plans, some had done their own thing and one small company I worked with who were thinking of branching out to a frontier market overseas had based the totality of their contingency planning on a Google search of the country! What was evident in a number of these cases was the fact that project or contingency pre-planning was not a high priority with some and the budget for developing pre-planning project modules and building these into their overall contingency plans reflected this. This fact alone is a risk in itself as I highlight at the end of this article,
What I did find when liaising with a few of the larger organisations was that some form of project pre-planning at the top level was usually well in place. However, when drilling down on this, what I usually found was that all the knowledge was retained at the top with very little filtering further down the chain (especially when plans were updated). I have had several harrowing experiences as a Consul in the Diplomatic Service being asked to step in and try and recover situations in conflict areas where there was either no or very little company planning for the situation or, if there was,their employees on the ground knew virtually nothing about them.
It is worth noting that a call to an Embassy by a company whose employees are in trouble, is no guarantee of a successful outcome especially in unstable, conflict areas. In virtually all of my crisis call-outs, UK and other foreign companies who had British or EU personnel (in countries where their native country had no embassy) working, had not even bothered to register them with the embassy, so I never knew how many people I actually had to deal with until I arrived on the scene. Of course, if anything went wrong, it was the fault of the embassy. Frustrating and unfair!!
Whenever asked to review an organisations contingency plans, my main concern aside from their lack of pre-planning modules, was that they were far too reactive – with the emphasis being always in dealing with events after they had occurred. I tried to impress upon them the need for a more strategic and early proactive approach in dealing with volatile situations before matters escalate and reach a tipping point. Sometimes they agreed, sometimes they did not. This aside, in my opinion, it is imperative that organisations should model data not only on how they would respond as a result of high impact critical events but also on continuously monitoring developing volatile situations locally. It is vital that local, at the "sharp end" tools are developed, continuously monitored and updated and fed in real time back to corporate HQ's, this would help to evaluate decisions and weigh potential policy options and their consequences again before a crisis develops.
Project pre-planning is not only necessary it is a vital tool that will in the end protect and safeguard the organisation and employees. Without this vital tool, unpreparedness and the lack of the urgent need for rapid decisions, shortage of time and lack of resources and trained personnel can lead to chaos during a time of crisis. Time and circumstances in a crisis means that normal channels of authority and communication cannot be relied upon to function routinely with the stress of the situation leading to poor judgment, resulting in confusion and loss. Pre-planning and preparedness makes it possible to respond faster, more appropriately and efficiently, and to make decisions on the basis of more reliable information. Staff, at all levels are more likely to respond more effectively if training, analysis, planning, pre-positioning and information collection have occurred, coordination mechanisms have been established and if needed, simulation exercises held.
Whether your operation is large or small, a carefully thought out and thoroughly rehearsed contingency plan with which ALL employees are conversant with, is the most effective tool you can have to prevent a crisis situation from becoming a catastrophe. The importance of pre-planning for an emergency or critical event cannot be over-stressed. Developing a cohesive plan may be one of the most important business decisions an organisation will ever make.
I am afraid that the days when the attitude of "it can't possibly happen here" that prevailed amongst many organisations have gone as we now know from recent events. No matter how large or small your operation or where you are located geographically….. “it can happen here”
One important final thought - when it comes to skimping on budgets and relegating this vital planning tool to the back burner - we now live in a litigious society where more and more employees are taking their employers to court citing lack of care, training or awareness. Most of these legal actions have found for the plaintiff resulting in usually six figure awards. Organisations cannot inoculate themselves from legal action as a result of lack of preparedness. Anyone can file a suit, and organisations should expect that one will follow any serious incident. Therefore, it is no longer prudent to believe that it won’t happen. That said, organisations should have in place the strategic pre-planning modules to mitigate their employee liability risk. Many that acknowledge their duty of care obligations have begun to do just that. Those that have not are putting their companies and their employees at risk.
To end, I cite some recent examples below.
“In June 2012, Steve Dennis was abducted from a refugee camp in Kenya, along with three other aid workers. A fifth aid worker was killed in the violent kidnapping. He says a leg injury and post traumatic stress disorder has made it difficult to find new employment. Now, a court has ordered the Norwegian Refugee Council, or NRC, to pay Dennis 4.4 million Norwegian Krones ($678,000 CDN). The court ruled the aid group was "grossly negligent" in its handling of the kidnapping.” (CBC Radio 2 Dec 2015)
“An international development organization was sued in Washington, D.C. for injuries that resulted from a water tower accident in Mali (Adelson v. AED, et al.).
A faith-based, humanitarian organization was sued in New York by a former employee that had been kidnapped in Sudan. She alleged that her employer had not adequately prevented her from being a target. (Wagner v. Samaritan’s Purse).
A USAID contractor was sued in Maryland by the family of its project manager who had been murdered in Pakistan (Vance v. CHF International).
An infrastructure engineering company is being sued in California by a former employee who had been wrongly imprisoned in Qatar, who alleges that his employer did not properly warn him of the risk to his legal rights associated with accepting that posting. (Huang v. MWH Global).
Cases like these are no longer rare. Organizations that do business internationally are targets, and defendants are not just limited to government contractors. One need only consider a recent lawsuit against a private school in Connecticut to understand that point. In Munn v. The Hotchkiss School, a student alleged that her school had breached its duty to her when, during a school trip to China, she contracted a rare tick-borne disease. The jury in that case agreed, and entered a judgment against the school for $41.7 million” (The International SOS Foundation 25 June 2015)
