Why are Crisis Management Plans Needed?
Posted on Tue, Jul 06, 2010
Crisis Management is the process of remedying an occurring threat to an organization's core operations and procedures. Crisis Management plans are typically designed to manage a response from a high level, more specifically a corporate, district or county level. This response could be the result of an emergency, natural disaster, fatality, business interruption issue, product recall, product contamination, or other situational crisis.
A crisis management plan should consist of procedures to provide resources and expertise to assist in managing a tactical emergency response effort, public affairs guidelines (including shareholder and stakeholder communication protocols), and procedures to provide timely information to executive management.
The Crisis Management Team (CMT) should be aware of their roles and responsibilities, and be properly trained to act on those responsibilities should a critical incident or crisis situation occur. It is not effective for a team to be established and assigned roles as a crisis is unfolding. Each member of the CMT must be in place and comfortable with their role long before an incident occurs.
Over time, personnel, company operations, security threats, and laws and regulations may change. Plans must be maintained to keep pace with these changes. Keeping up with these changing parameters and incorporating them into your emergency and crisis management plans can be time-consuming. However, plan maintenance is essential in order to effectively react to a crisis and minimize damage.
With a combination of a corporate Crisis Management Plan and local Emergency Action Plans and/or Emergency Response Plans, as required by OSHA, and Business Continuity Plans, corporations can be prepared to react and respond quickly, limiting disaster, and ultimately, returning to normal operational status.
Technical Response Planning Corp. develops customized web-based crisis management plans, emergency response plans, and business continuity plans. For more tips and best practices on designing a crisis management program, download our Free Best Practices Guide.
