Crisis vs Emergency Management: Planning to Survive

If a bush fire is active near one of your sites at what point does your organisation trigger an evacuation? Who is authorised to make that decision? How does your organisation co-ordinate the communication and logistics of such an event? More importantly, how does that all get done before the situation escalates to a disaster?

Many organisations are comfortable in dealing with emergency situations and ensuring their safe and appropriate management.  We have evacuation plans and drills, first aiders, fire wardens, emergency plans etc but we often find that they lack a clear understanding of what constitutes a Crisis and incorrectly assume its just an expansion of either normal business practices or emergency responses and fail to have adequate systems, processes, resources and organisational knowledge to allow for effective management of these rare but critical events.

What is a Business Crisis?

A business crisis is an event, or a series of events, that causes major disturbance for a business or puts its stability at risk. A crisis typically occurs suddenly and poses intense difficulty or danger for the business, usually in a situation where time is short and decisions have to be taken quickly. These dilemmas can either originate internally or they can be brought on by external influences. The problem affecting the business, if not appropriately managed, can escalate to the point where it's out of the company's control and may permanently damage the business or cause it to fail.

Comparatively an emergency can be defined as an event, actual or imminent, which endangers or threatens to endanger life, property or the environment, and which requires a significant and coordinated response.

When it comes to addressing these situations emergency management is primarily operational in nature, focusing on support to first responders and transition to immediate recovery. Crisis management is more strategically oriented, with the principal actors being high-level officials and the focus on long-term impact.

Crisis Management

Crisis management involves implementing policies and procedures to defend, mitigate and prevent a crisis. Ultimately, crisis management is designed to protect an organization and its stakeholders from threats and/or reduce the impact felt by threats. It is a process designed to prevent or lessen the damage a crisis can inflict on an organization and its stakeholders.

Crisis management plans are a documentation of the strategies to guide an organization on how to deal with these sudden and significant negative events, while maintaining business continuity.

A Crisis Management Plan should include, but not limited to:

• What threats/situations an organisation considers to be a Crisis e.g. does a single fatality count as a crisis?  What level of media attention? Is a bush fire or flood a crisis or part of local emergency processes? Etc.

• Identify who will take action and what their roles will be.

• Explain How decisions are made during the crisis unique to normal operations.

• How to call an end to the threat and return to normal business operations.

Safety Action has helped a number of organisations build and test their Crisis management response to ensure they are ready to deal with these critical threats when they arise We are here to help you determine how ready you are to manage these situations and ensure the smooth continuation of your organisation.

Contact Safety Action on 03 8544 4300 or via email for us to assist you with your Crisis Management Plan today.