Crisis management

Alongside Business Continuity Planning and Enterprise Risk Management, an effective Crisis Management Plan (CMP) will support you to quickly and effectively respond to a range of possible scenarios.

Every organisation will face its own particular risks, although there will be some risks that are common to most organisations, such as fire, flood, and security. Likely crisis scenarios to consider will vary with each setting and should be determined by your own assessment.

Risks can fall into numerous categories:

• Strategic – re-organisation, change of leadership, diversification
• Operational – Loss of a critical system, business interruption, service delivery failure
• People - Personal injury, employee relations, pandemic
• Regulatory - GDPR breach, non-compliance, governance
• Financial – income, fraud, fundraising,
• Hazard – Fire, flood, and environmental pollution.

When assessing the crisis risks, organisations should still consider those events/situations that could have the most serious consequences, even where the likelihood of occurrence is deemed to be low.

A crisis management team should be formed, with appropriate levels of authority, experience, and expertise. The team should include representatives from Senior Management, Human Resources, Legal, IT Services, Finance, General Operations, Site Facilities, and Communication/PR.

Time spent now planning for crisis scenarios and testing your proposed responses with your team will improve your business resilience and demonstrate to key stakeholders that you are proactively managing your risks.

With so many potential crises, it is unlikely that a single CMP will be suitable for all circumstances. There will be several actions that are common to all CMPs, but there should be at least one formal documented procedure for each of the categories - Physical, Human, and Technological.

Our Crisis Management guidance can help you review your existing plans or develop new ones.

Read more about planning for a crisis