How to prepare for crisis?

The crisis is serious, violent, an adverse change of watershed importance (according to online encyclopedia "Wikipedia"). Given the fact that all emergency situations generally cause a panic, irrational action, fear and confusion, you might want to prepare the company for the occurrence of such threats, and train employees to know how to act when the crisis comes.

A crisis response plan allow you to achieve collective support, prevent post-trauma stress

reactions, and portray management as wise and caring. It fulfills three primary goals (according to Mark Braverman, Ph.D.publication) :

1. Prevention of posttraumatic stress reactions by reaching affected individuals and groups before they have a chance to seal over

2. Communication of crisis-related information in order to contain fears and control rumors

3. Fostering of confidence in management as in control of the crisis and demonstrating concern for employees' welfare.

A crisis response plan contains the following components:

· Consultation with management

· Determination of communications procedures

· Meetings with affected groups

· Assessment and counseling of individuals at risk

· Follow-up and recommendations

Also Mark Braverman create special checkilst. So now we can ask us some basic questions and see how are we prepared for crisis.

Checklist: Are you Crisis Prepared?

• Has conducted a “crisis audit”

In order to be crisis prepared, every company should conduct an assessment of its

readiness to meet crises. This will include both an audit of what crises they are likely

to face, as well as an evaluation of systems. Audit methods may include survey

questionnaires, focus groups, interviews with individuals from upper and line

management and specialized functions, and review of existing policies, procedures

and resources that bear on prevention and response to crisis.

• Has developed policies, procedures, and available specialists as result of audit.

Being prepared means following through by training personnel in policies and having

meaningful procedures for timely and coordinated response. Too many companies

have crisis plans “on the books” but fumble when a real crisis presents itself. Here is

where the involvement of top management separates the truly crisis prepared from the

crisis prone.

• Has a cross-functional crisis response team.

The team, as described above, is a crucial component of crisis readiness. Don’t allow

managers, however seasoned, to deal with crises alone! Crisis response requires

teamwork, and it requires an ongoing process of consultation, information collecting,

and decision-making. Only a team can do this right.

• Has progressive, well designed work-family and preventive health policies.

Crisis will be a fact of life for companies and the people who work in them. Crisis

prepared companies take into account that stress will take its toll in increased

accidents, absenteeism, family, mental health and substance abuse problems, poor

performance, and faulty judgment. Employees need flexibility in their work

schedules to stay healthy, and they need access to good general health and mental

health services, including Employee Assistance Programs.

• Takes charge of disability and Workers Compensation programs.

Some crises involving poor working conditions or overly stressed employees begin as

“standard” occupational health claims. Crisis prepared workplaces have systems in

place to detect these situations and, in a proactive, non-punitive fashion, take

coordinated action to resolve the problem before it becomes a crisis. Downsizings

and restructurings are often accompanied by an uptick in claims. This is not fraud: it

is a symptom and a warning signal. Your crisis team can prevent this.

How are your answers? Are you well prepared?

Private and family crisis might have happened in every daily life. Although, it is so natural that crisis might have happened in every company even in this almost perfect organized as we could think. Appearance of problem is normal occurrence in several business activity. Unfortunately, not in all situation the superiors can manage it. The media shows it clearly, increasingly conducting investigations baring problems for businesses in trouble hiding his head in the sand.

Now I have to ask the most important questions, to which I will try to find an answer here, on this blog. What are the mechanisms of the crisis? How to recognize the crisis? And at what point crisis begin? The most value feature is to deal with this situation, to solve the problem in the right moment, to find a cause and eliminate it, not to happen in the future any more. If not it may lead to serious problem with workers, finances, deterioration of the organizational image.

Crisis situation at work may relate to various aspects. Everything depends on the profile of activities or organizational structure. It may appear in vertical human, organizational, as well as purely technical type of equipment failure. When it is the last one, it is the easiest problem to solve- it is just necessary to buy new equipment or to fix the old one. Almost the same situation is in case of shortage of employees. If there is lack of workers company can recruit new ones or just hire appropriate company for that. Although the biggest and the most serious problem is when the crisis is caused by irregularities in the management which I will explain later.

There are kinds of crises that can affect organizations which have been classified by Lerbinger under the following categories:

· Natural disasters such as earthquakes, tornadoes, floods and drought

· Technological disasters such as software failures, industrial accidents and oil spills

· Confrontations that can involve boycott of the business' products, blockade of its premises and other forms of activism

· Malevolence involving such as actions as product tampering, kidnapping, malicious rumors and espionage intended to cause loss to the company

· Crises of skewed management value as when a business focuses exclusively on the interests of stockholders ignoring the interests of other stakeholders such as customers, employees, and the community

· Crises of deception as when management conceals or misrepresents information about itself and its products in its dealing with consumers and others

· Crises of management misconduct involving not only skewed values and deception but also deliberate amoral and illegal actions

Throughout the crisis management the most important thing is prevention. Due to constant preparation for the worst, example scenarios, procedures and communication channels can suppress the many conflicts in the beginning. Although, to solve a problem at first we have to define it. It s necessary to determine the current status and compare it with desirable situation and specify the differences between of them. After naming the problem, it is time to analyze the causes and propose remedial action and then check the effectiveness of the work, monitor the results and the process itself and in the last phase to standardize successful processes.