In 2020, most organisations, authorities and companies have become aware of the term crisis management. The Corona pandemic and associated business constraints have forced many business leaders to review the way they manage unforeseen situations unless a well-functioning crisis management plan has been in place. In this article, SRS elaborates on the importance of continuously evaluating your crisis management.
The Corona pandemic shows the value of crisis management
Few organisations could predict the devastating consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. Even fewer had the opportunity to prepare their organisation and employees on them. The effects were, in many cases, non-thought through decisions that required to quickly take new measures and approaches in the workplace. Social distancing and division of labour needed to be reviewed and the authorities’ recommendations needed to be interpreted and incorporated into the day-to-day work in parallel with handling , declining sales or other commercial challenges. For many companies, the pandemic thus became a matter of crisis management.
Crisis management needs to be evaluated
Currently, slightly over 6 months has passed since the corona pandemic struck with a significant impact on the Swedish society. It is, therefore, an appropriate time to assess how the business and the crisis management organisation handled the situation. . A well-conducted evaluation of your crisis management set-up helps to develop and improve your organisational crisis management capabilities and ensure that all parts – management, organisation and employees – have been handled correctly and responsibly. The goal is to draw lessons and gather experience from the event to implement learnings further development of the crisis management capability.
How companies should carry out crisis management evaluations
It is critical that the evaluation is based on both a broad and deep analysis. The broad analysis refers to the collection of information in the following areas:
- The organisational delivery
- The individual performance
- The cultural impact 4. Possible regulatory restrictions
In-depth analysis refers to a qualitative examination of specific elements, such as decision-makers’ background, education and experience, as well as organisational expertise and ability. In addition to these analyses, other key factors need to be reviewed, such as incoming flow of information and restrictions set by third parties such as government agencies, owners and trade unions.
Five areas to include in the evaluation
Below we show five examples of areas that should be included to to create as precise and useful evaluation.
- Review how well the division of responsibilities and tasks worked in activated crisis mode. . This should also be related to the organisation, needs and internal steering documents.
- Analyse the impact of the limitations and opportunities that your company’s existing structure and management imply .
- Analyse how the decision-making process worked in terms of dimensioning and results.
- Assess the organisation’s current performance. During the covid-19 crisis, this may involve a review of the relevance and usefulness of the existing pandemic plan.
- Develop a clear picture of how communication and collaboration worked, both externally and internally.
To ensure that the results of the evaluation are adapted to best practices, industry standards and the desired final position, professional support can be used.
Evaluate your company’s crisis management with SRS
The security company SRS has long and documented experience in crisis management for private companies as well as the public sector.. Our expertise is based on a combination of practically handling several crisis management missions , in both high-risk and low-risk environments, and conducting strategic training of organisations crisis management functions. In the latter type of assignments, reviewing and assessment of governing documentation for crisis management is always included as well as to train the organisation in using newly acquired crisis management capabilities. Please contact us for an evaluation of your company’s crisis management capabilities, and quality assure your readiness to deal with the unforeseen.
