A crisis is an unexpected event or sudden occurring that leads to major unrest among employees. A crisis is an emergency that disrupts an organization’s regular functioning routine, leading to instability. Crisis management is the art of dealing with a sudden occurrence and trying to put operations under control. Crisis-management describes an organization’s strategy and preparedness in dealing with unrest and ensuring the employees’ work routine is not tampered with.
How Does a Crisis Management Plan Work?
If a crisis occurs, a crisis-management plan is put in place to outline who will take part in the crisis management and what role they will play. A crisis management plan is created based on the possible risks available for the organization. Some of the essential elements included in a crisis-management plan include:
● Activation protocol
● Chain of command
● Risk analysis
● A command center plan
● Response actions plan
● Internal and external communication programs
● Resources
● Training
● Review
How to Create a Crisis Management Plan
An organization plan gives you an idea of the risks you should expect and what to do if your organization runs into any risks. The following steps are crucial in creating a plan:
1. Pinpoint the Risks
While identifying the risks, start with the significant natural calamities likely to affect the organization. Also, determine whether it may be an in-person robbery or an online attack. From there, you can assign the appropriate team to carry out the operations.
2. Define how to Activate the Plan
Different types of crises deserve different kinds of alertness and treatment. If your organization is in an area full of tornados, there are different urgency levels to deal with the situation depending on the storm’s severity.
The same goes for a cyber attack crisis; you will employ different levels of urgency to respond to the matter at hand.
3. Set Out a Chain of Command
Any organization that regularly solves crises has a chain of command. In a chain of command, the top leader makes the final decision. Meanwhile, every party in the chain of command is supposed to report to the person above them in authority. Hence the need to have a chain of command in a crisis management plan so that the decisions will always be based on the management plan.
4. Have a Detailed Response Plan
The response plan should be by the crisis being faced in the organization. The response plan should be relevant to the crisis and take the shortest time possible to resume normal operations.
5. Provide Training for the Chosen Team
A proper training program is vital so that the involved parties know what to expect and how to put everything under control. A prepared team is taught to manage crises under pressure and stressful conditions. As a team, ensure you run safety drills and use equipment if any is involved, such as fire extinguishers.
6. Review and Test in Intervals
Once in a while, it is essential to review your crisis-management plan and ensure it remains relevant to the crisis expected and your response is still effective. Identify changes and ensure you have all it takes as a team to prevent a crisis from escalating.
How to Identify Crisis
There are different ways of detecting crises before they happen and get out of hand. They include:
● Spotting signals to detect changes in the environment.
● Pulling in data and accessing the situation before the crisis happens and becomes worse
● Develop a culture to stick the pieces together to gauge the kind of crisis that is likely to occur.
● Formulating plans that will aid in curbing the situation if the crisis occurs
You need to be prepared to deal with a crisis as an organization. A crisis can jeopardize the reputation and functionality of an organization and lead to loss hence the need to formulate a crisis-management plan to help recover from the crisis impacts. Apart from natural disasters, other types of crisis include biological hazards, human activity, and accidents.