The Noggin Blog

When surveyed, senior facilities managers admit that their respective organizations are unprepared to deal with the security risk to the built environment. That is even as risk, including threats like workplace violence, environmental incidents, and active shooter incidents, continues to grow.

In this modern, heavily mediatized age, we’ve become painfully familiar with the most common, crisis communications gaffes: the public announcements that are quickly back tracked; the press conferences more notable for the (mis)behavior of officials than the content of the statements made; and the live interviews of angry families deriding a lack of candor and communication from officials.

In 2018 corporate security incidents came for everyone. Unfortunately, 2019 proved no better. But despite the fact that corporate security incidents invite public scrutiny more swiftly than ever, the number of organizations with an appropriate (security) crisis management and communications plan remains stuck around the 50 percent mark worldwide.

From the Christchurch terrorist attack to the Australian bushfires, crises this year increased in scale and impact. What does this troubling trend portend for organisational resilience in 2020 and beyond?

Safety teams have long understood employee health and safety to lie at the intersection of health protection and promotion. In turn, those teams have developed sophisticated programs to enhance worker wellbeing and prevent injury and illness.

Nowadays, firms can expect some form of value-destroying corporate crisis at least twice a decade. And even those numbers might be too optimistic. In fact, a 2018 Forrester survey found that a full 100 percent of companies experienced a critical event in the last two years. Many dealt with multiple.

In 2018 corporate security incidents came for everyone. So far, 2019 hasn’t been much better. Through it all, one of the year’s bigger, under-covered trends has been the underinvestment in security personnel. How serious is the issue?

Identifying safety and security threats and their consequences to your clients is a key task for boutique consultancies and larger advisory firms, alike. But the safety and security technology market is growing nearly as fast as the underlying safety and protective security issues those solutions seek to address. How then to know which software solutions to recommend and how to implement them once they’ve been chosen? 

The modern workforce is changing and changing fast. Nowadays, most firms – from industry incumbents to plucky startups – employ third-party contractors to perform essential business tasks.

Ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements is critical to your business. But crisis and business continuity planning – often mandated by law – shouldn’t be a box-ticking exercise. Unfortunately, too many firms fall into the trap. What risks do those companies face treating crisis preparedness as a compliance-first practice?