Crises come out of the blue and generally with little to no warning. A prime example is the recent COVID-19 pandemic which many economies worldwide are still recovering from. Virtually all businesses became affected by its quick and sudden spread, and those unprepared for such a situation suffered greatly from it, either through significant losses or, at worst, causing them to shut down. This is why every organisation, enterprise, and business should develop its own crisis management plan.
The expression “failing to plan is planning to fail” may be cliched already, but it still holds significant weight during times of crisis. Businesses that have prepared accordingly for incidents like natural disasters, PR crises, workplace accidents, and data breaches have a higher chance of surviving than those that trudge on without establishing procedures, policies, and structures for such emergencies.
How a crisis management plan benefits a business
Crisis management planning offers businesses a slew of advantages which include:
Identifying potential threats in advance
Emergencies come in many different shapes and sizes, ranging from cyber threats to natural disasters. While it is impossible to identify every single one, planning your crisis management strategy will uncover more potential dangers than you have initially thought of. This expands your plan’s coverage and makes the company more resilient against the unexpected.
Fosters a culture of communication
A strong and direct line of communication is one of the critical elements of crisis management. Thus, communicating the plan to the staff and practicing its procedures will help foster good communication among various departments and teams.
Raises company morale
Knowing that the business has plans in place and is prepared to deal with any crisis promotes a stronger sense of security and well-being. Employees will feel reassured that their company is actively looking out for them and their job security.
Reduced downtime when disaster strikes
Downtimes are inevitable in times of crisis, and the longer they go on, the more income is lost. Crisis management ensures this downtime is minimised as much as possible by providing the specific steps necessary for the business to be operational once again.
The key steps to drafting a crisis management plan
As mentioned before, it is near impossible to prepare for every single potential crisis. However, with thorough and careful planning, organisations can be better equipped to overcome a vast range of disasters and have a strong skeleton structure to work on based on similar emergencies in their planning. Below are the main steps to creating a management plan for your business.
1. Identify the risks
For this step, start big and work your way to more major incidents, such as cyber-attacks, natural disasters common to the region, robberies and in-person attacks. From there, it becomes simpler to define risks into categories specific to your organisation.
2. Establish the conditions as to when the plan should be used
Not all incidents are equal in nature and intensity, so they deserve varying levels of alertness. Take cyber-attacks, for instance. Crisis management plans should have different responses according to the severity of attacks, such as when the hackers are trying to break into the company’s communication networks like email or its entire network infrastructure.
Thus, ensure to stipulate the varying levels of urgency in the plan and detail which elements should be activated depending on the level of the incident. Moreover, establish escalation protocols to ensure clear guidelines for when an incident changes over time or turns out to be more severe than initially thought.
3. Set the chain of command
A chain of command is necessary for everyone to know what to do, even with a plan already in place. Incidents are not always static and can change at any moment. Thus, someone from top management should be able to relay updated instructions to the correct people in response to new developments.
4. Lay out response plans depending on the circumstances
Similar to urgency levels and their activation conditions, the response plans must be set out according to the crisis at hand. For example, dealing with a PR incident is entirely different from protecting the business premises from natural disasters.
Taking a modular approach is a highly recommended way to lay out these plans since it allows businesses to plug and play in different situations. This saves the need to write completely different plans for every potential disaster, and it saves the team from having to memorise different approaches.
5. Review and practice the plan periodically
A plan is only as good if it remains relevant down the line and can be applied by all at a moment’s notice. Thus, crisis management plans must be reviewed regularly and updated to ensure they remain effective.
Conducting real-world drills of the plan is also essential to prevent members from getting rusty and verify if all aspects work. After the exercises, analyse the results to pinpoint if any necessary changes must be made.
Conclusion
A crisis management plan can make or break a business. How your company responds when faced with an emergency will decide its future, which is reason enough to learn how to make a proper plan in case of any other unexpected crisis down the line.
Learn more about the fundamentals of crisis management with Aventis’ 1-Day Crisis Management and Communication Strategies online course in Singapore, where students can develop a deeper understanding of crises and manage them accordingly with the right tools, plans, and strategies. Click here for more information on the course.
