By Ray Monteith
Few businesses, if any, had a playbook to manage the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
Its onset forced organizations to mobilize quickly in order to respond to rapidly evolving events with, in many cases, incomplete and constantly changing information. Many were forced to make sudden and substantial changes to how they do business. Some organizations had to shut down completely. Others, deemed essential, have adapted by making massive adjustments to how and where their employees work. Businesses have activated crisis and continuity management plans if they had them in place or hurriedly cobbled a response plan together in the absence of pre-planning.
Now, almost as suddenly as things closed, regional governments are looking at how to stabilize economies and how and when businesses can begin to reopen. And while the best time for crisis and continuity management planning is before the onset of a critical event, even those with plans in place have been forced into uncharted territory. It makes it essential to develop a pandemic crisis action plan for navigating the way forward.
Organizations need a pandemic crisis action plan to equip them to quickly adapt to this dramatically altered business environment and develop strategies to manage change and sustain operations. To be resilient in the face of this crisis, they need to quickly formulate and implement tactics to protect their brand, maintain market share, retain value, protect supply chains, reinforce client relationships and, most importantly, protect their employees.
The evaluation of mission critical and business critical resources is key to the effective pandemic crisis action plan. Asking and answering questions regarding how long the organization can operate without a particular function or process will help to identify and prioritize functions according to how critical they are to sustained operations. Those activities that a business cannot do without are mission critical and need to be supported and adequately resourced to ensure continuity of operations. Business critical activities are essential to maintaining business operations and are the next priority.
As the current situation evolves, key response considerations are to protect people, property, and sustain operations by:
- Constantly assessing the local and regional situation
- Identifying and communicating operational priorities
- Identifying and supporting mission and business critical operations
- Assessing operational impact
- Planning for contingencies
- Monitoring staff welfare and operational sustainability
No business could have had a playbook for the current situation; a pandemic crisis action plan was unlikely to have been on any radar. But organizations that are able to “think on their feet,” react, and respond quickly will be best positioned to navigate the “new normal” successfully.
HUB International’s risk management professionals help clients achieve organizational resilience in the face of crisis and disruption through risk, continuity and crisis planning services.
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