PROTECTING YOUR BUSINESS
How To Create a Comprehensive Crisis Management Plan
By Jill Odom
NOTHING IN LIFE IS CERTAIN AND WITHOUT A CRISIS MANAGEMENT plan in place, particular tragedies and crises can be debilitating for your business.
“If you have a vision for your company, then part of the vision should withstand possible scenarios that you’re going to encounter,” says Joe Lewis, LIC, chief op- erating officer for Yard Solutions, based in Groveport, Ohio.
Dan Engling, vice president of safety and industrial health services for KE- RAMIDA, Inc., points out that often a crisis becomes one because it was not anticipated.
“Responsible, forward-looking compa- nies will see the value in preparing and verifying preparations,” Engling says. “This is done most effectively before the crisis begins.”
Deb Hileman, president and CEO of the Institute for Crisis Management, says the various crises over the past three years have revealed a deep lack of pre- paredness across all kinds of companies. “No organization is immune from a crisis that can harm revenue, profits, mar- ket share, regulatory environment, brand promise, community reputation and even
its very survival,” she says. “Management teams who fail to prepare for proba- ble issues place their organizations in jeopardy.”
WHAT TO INCIDENTS PLAN FOR When creating your crisis management plan, consider the likelihood of specific hazards occurring. Lewis says while a hurricane isn’t something they’d need to prepare for in Ohio, tornadoes are a possibility they should have a plan of action for, even if they are rare. “Deciding the likelihood of crisis can be as critical to your business as under- standing your core technical competen- cies,” Engling says. “The easiest way of assessing this is to plot historical events over time and project that trend into the future. However, this can lead to some major issues like wrongly attributing effects to unrelated causes.” Expert groups can be brought in to understand and identify diverse catego- ries of risk and risk avoidance methods.
Engling says company leaders should understand when it’s time to bring in support. Hileman says most companies are somewhat prepared for the obvious crises like natural disasters but are unprepared for ‘smoldering crises.’ These are ongoing problems that can result in full-blown crises like sexual harassment allegations, issues of fraud or even possible workplace shootings. Lewis says it’s well within the realm of possibility for a disgruntled employee or an unwell individual to decide to target your facility. “Although the possibility of having a workplace violence incident is remote for most companies, the impact such an event can have is palpable, especially if the company fails to take even basic precautions to prepare its employees for such an incident,” Hileman says. “Every organization should conduct active shooter drills at least annually.” While the word ‘crisis’ might just have you thinking about a natural disaster, this can include everything from not getting your H-2B workers to the death of criti- cal personnel.
“One crisis that we, unfortunately, see often is the unexpected passing of senior
32 The Edge //January/February 2023
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