We have learned that organizations, governments big and small have had to manage (and many continue today) a workforce that is geographically dispersed and almost immediately thrown into environments that are perhaps constantly changing and not as controlled.
For an organization, information, assets, their personnel and potentially their reputation are all suddenly exposed to a litany of threats and risks not previously thought of. These below-the-radar risks were not addressed, not mitigated and, simply put, put some organizations in a state of unpreparedness with an exposed risk and security posture.
Organizations and governments have had to adapt quickly without their usual process of approval, examination, and forethought.
This event has increasingly promoted the notion that organizations, governments need not only to be prepared for evolving threats, risks and vulnerabilities, but need to be adaptable, flexible and on the ready for a possible volatile, uncertain, extremely complex, immensely grey area of a crisis event.
We’ve learned that to strengthen resilience we need to better our guidance and response. Risk Management, Security, Business Continuity, Crisis Management professionals, managers, front line, and many others, should be thinking about, reviewing those policies and plans most related to:
- pandemic response,
- risk and security plans/procedures
- business continuity plans
- working remotely or work from home policies
- and all other relevant and related plan, policies, and procedures.
Doing this type of review creates your to do list (after action report) to move forward to greater resilience.
What worked? Why did it work. What didn’t work? Why didn’t it work? How can we improve ourselves?
How prepared were we? How prepared were we compared to other organizations/governments?
Did we actually maintain an acceptable service level?
Identifying where we could have been better prepared, knowing our strengths and then developing, implementing what we can, when we can, moves the organization closer to greater resiliency to face the next uncertainty.
We can Help.
We can help in moving your organization closer to improved resilience. We can help in asking the right questions and pointing to and developing the right tools.
Understanding what you have, what you need and how you’re going to get there is key. Once you have that, using the tools and resources when you need to, effectively and efficiently puts your organization on a path to returning back to normal operation or reconstitute operations to a new condition.
Plan the Work. Work the Plan.