Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • Maternity & Paternity
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • Maternity & Paternity
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Preparing for the worst

by Personnel Today 1 Apr 2002
by Personnel Today 1 Apr 2002

Is it possible to train for the unexpected? Elaine Essery looks at how
professionals can put the case for coaching in crisis management

A survey of businesses carried out by the Industrial Society just before the
events of 11 September 2001 found that few organisations invest in training in
the event of a crisis. Only 32 per cent had held training sessions within the
past year and more than 40 per cent of respondents said their organisations had
not run any training.

After 11 September, some attention is focusing on crisis management and
disaster recovery planning, but is it enough? IT services company, CMG,
conducted a survey of IT decision-makers and found that just 9 per cent had
reviewed their disaster recovery plans since the attacks on the World Trade
Center. Some 37 per cent had never had any training in risk management or
disaster recovery planning.

Training for a crisis is an area trainers can face difficulty in getting
budgets approved, yet many consider it a business essential. ‘Can you train for
a crisis?’ is the question we put to a selection of spokespeople.

Helen Vandevede
Conference presenter and writer on the future of work.  Vandevelde and Giles Trendle, former war
correspondent, deliver conference events on innovation and agile teams

Learning to deal with a crisis occurs at three levels – the individual, the
team and the organisation. All three need to be provided with insights into how
they react when they are in freefall. That is best achieved by the experiential
learning you gain through crisis simulation. This gives individuals, teams and
the organisation a rich seam of evidence to turn into knowledge about a range
of crisis management performance dimensions including leadership, agility,
versatility, judgement, communication, cohesion, tenacity and empathy.

The only organisation where trainers might find it difficult to secure the
resource they need is the Vatican. After all, if you believe that Providence
will always pull you through, why bother training for a crisis? When budget
holders understand that training is the only realistic alternative to blind
faith, they will open the financial sluice gates.

Tony Wright
Consultant, Impact Development Training Group

Yes you can train for disaster. There is potential to train individuals and
teams to manage a crisis on two levels. First, establishing a clear and common
understanding of the processes, systems and functions that will be put into
place when a crisis is occurring. Second, looking at the individual and
interpersonal behaviours that enable people and teams to work together more
effectively – or, perhaps more importantly, the behaviours to avoid.

Jo Sheehan
Disaster recovery co-ordinator, government sector, CMG

We formed a crisis management team whose role is to look after people and
rebuild the business. To give them an awareness of what actually goes on, we
put them through disaster counselling training then communications training.
Part of that was an exercise in how many people could be contacted within 45
minutes, using a pyramid list of staff telephone numbers. We then did media
training.

Twice a year, we bring in all team members for up to three hours to work
together handling every aspect of a simulated crisis. What comes out of it is
that we found that our employees really do work as a team. It’s an excellent
learning exercise: we’ve found that even though our team is really good it
needs more people to cope effectively, so we’re building more into it.

We’ve discovered that people and communications are the key.

Patrick McGuinness
Consultant, the industrial society

Businesses not only can, but must, train for a crisis. A business moves on
and develops but when you start considering crisis management you take a cold
and critical look at what is vital to keep the business going. Things can drift
and importance can be placed on things that perhaps aren’t that important, but
getting back to the basics of your business is a valuable exercise. Disaster
planning is about training people to keep the vital parts of the business
going. There’s a possibility that by doing so you refocus them and they may get
better at essential skills. HR professionals may have difficulty getting
budgets approved for that kind of training, but managers should realise that it
can be beneficial as it allows you to critically assess key business processes.

Paul Fenton
Emergency and security manager, Southern Water

Yes, you can train for a crisis. What you can’t do is dot every ‘i’ and
cross every ‘t’ because you can’t envisage every eventuality. What you’ve got
to ask yourself within your company is: what are the threats to the business,
what are the risks, which ones don’t we accept – and those are the ones you
have to have a contingency for. The point of having procedures and plans and
training people in those procedures and plans is that they won’t freeze in an
emergency. The key is the formation of incident teams. You can’t train for
specifics, but you can train to produce teams that are confident they can work
together, know where the information they need is, and are therefore confident
they can react to whatever is in front of them.

Feedback

What do you think? If you have a view on training to deal with disasters
then write to the editor. Or if you have a topic you’d like to be discussed on
our Talking Points page, let us know in no more than 50 words. Send
correspondence to Stephanie Sparrow, Editor, Training Magazine, by e-mail: [email protected], fax:
020-8652 8805 or post: Training Magazine, 3rd floor, Quadrant House, The
Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS. Please include full contact details so that
we can get back to you.

Avatar
Personnel Today

previous post
Government guidance for airport security staff
next post
I have experience but can’t get a job

You may also like

Grants scheme set up to support women’s health...

16 May 2022

How music can help to ease anxiety at...

9 May 2022

OH will be key to navigating ‘second pandemic’...

14 Apr 2022

OH urged to be aware of abortion consultations...

8 Apr 2022

How coached eCBT is returning the workplace to...

8 Apr 2022

Why now is the time to plug the...

7 Apr 2022

Two-thirds of shift workers feel health affected by...

18 Mar 2022

TUC warns of April Covid risk assessment ‘confusion’

14 Mar 2022

Consultation on new NHS cancer standards, as waits...

11 Mar 2022

Pandemic pivot to home working fuelled mental ill...

11 Mar 2022
  • Apprenticeships are the solution to your recruitment problems PROMOTED | Apprenticeships have the pulling power...Read more
  • What it really means to be mentally fit PROMOTED | What is mental fitness...Read more
  • How music can help to ease anxiety at work PROMOTED | A lot has happened since March 2020, hasn’t it?...Read more
  • Why now is the time to plug the unhealthy gap PROMOTED | We’ve all heard the term ‘health is wealth’...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2022

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2022 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • Maternity & Paternity
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+