The Noggin Blog

As of mid-February, over 64,000 cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) have been reported, with wartime measures increasingly becoming the norm throughout mainland China. The reach of the coronavirus, however, is global. The World Health Organization (WHO) has already declared a public health emergency of international concern.

Protecting places of mass gathering means controlling risk. Safety and security risk, however, can come from virtually any aspect of the operation, a daunting prospect for venue owners and operators. And that risk tends to increase – not shrink – as the size and complexity of the operation grows.

Hiring employees to perform remote and isolated work often helps businesses improve their productivity. But lone work isn’t without operational risk. For one, managing the safety risk to lone worker populations is part and parcel of a PCBU’s (Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking) duty of care obligation.

Even mere months ago, business leaders might have been forgiven for thinking that in this age of advanced healthcare systems and technologies, the risk of public health incidents to their business’ viability remained remote. By now, though, the ongoing Wuhan coronavirus should have disabused them of the notion.

A full 100 percent of companies experienced at least one critical event in the last two years, according to a 2018 Forrester study. And the effects of those crises can be catastrophic, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises who run a higher risk of business closure.

As crises grow in kind and intensity, organizations need to take an intelligence-gathering and constant-monitoring approach to building their crisis management competency. This largely cyclical mode of lifecycle crisis management tends to be more strategy-oriented than the tactics-first approach implicit in the popular pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis models. For instance, the British crisis management standard, BS 11200, adopts a fairly cyclical framework that includes the following stages:

Let me begin by observing that risk management appears to be at a similar state of maturity as was literacy in the 15th century Europe and in both cases technology and globalisation are the main driving forces for change.

When it came to major safety and security threats, 2019 was one for the record books. Unfortunately, 2020 is shaping up to be no better, giving conclusive proof to firms – if they needed it – that it’s well past time to seriously consider from where top threats will come for your organization this year.

Implementing asset management principles enables PCBUs (Persons Conducting a Business or Undertaking) to quickly realize new value from existing assets. But those same principles also yield unexpected benefits for Safety programs, as well. Not sure what they are, or how to accrue them?