Attainium Insights, short, practical observations and examples drawn from real-world tabletop exercises and business continuity planning.
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Today, more than ever before, risk assessment and management are critical functions in every organization. We've said before that you cannot plan for every contingency, but you should be aware of the most critical risks facing your organization. Since you created your business continuity plan, have you reviewed and updated the risks you face? No? Review these articles to help you reconsider whether you've covered everything you should.
When dealing with communicating in a crisis, the first concerns should be to respond quickly, accurately and consistently. Obviously, the best approach is to have a plan to work from before the crisis hits. This will shorten your response time and enable everyone to hit the ground running. It's also important to ensure that everyone knows what's going on and what to say or not say in any situation. Take a look at these articles to see if your plans for crisis response are everything they need to be.
October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM), an annual campaign to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity. This is especially relevant after the recent hack of Equifax and other large companies. What are you doing to help make your employees more aware of cybersecurity practices? Do you offer regular training? Take a look at these articles, all of which are focused on ways to increase employees’ awareness of and participation in cybersecurity.
October is National Fire Prevention Month, and Fire Prevention Week this year is the week of Oct. 8. This year's theme is "Every Second Counts: Plan 2 Ways Out!" More than likely, fire risk and prevention are part of your business continuity plan, but, if you haven't covered everything you should, these articles can help you improve your plan.
In any emergency, information is critical. How to deliver that information is something companies continually struggle with -- social media, the cloud, etc. One choice is an emergency notification system, which also could be used as a mass communication medium in non-emergency situations. If you have one, maybe it needs updating. If you don't, here's some information on why you might want one and how to integrate it into your organization and your business continuity planning.
If your company has never had a data breach, consider yourself lucky. These days, such breaches are nearly inevitable and can cause considerable damage to your bottom line (at a cost of about $214 per compromised record and customer turnover) and your reputation. In order to survive such a breach, it's critical that you know what to do afterward. You can recover, but your best bet is to have a recovery plan and to follow it. These articles can help you determine what you should -- and shouldn't do -- after a breach.
More and more, terrorist threats come from within rather than outside our businesses or our country. Homegrown domestic terrorists have planned and perpetrated acts of violence that we need to be able to defend against. Have you planned how to detect, survive and recover from a terrorist act? No? Well, now is the time. These articles can get you started on planning or updating your current plans.
We all have seen how issues with some employees have resulted in shootings and other disruptions in the workplace. There have been eight workplace killings so far in 2017. Every employer should be invested in preventing such incidents and also in preventing issues that can land them in court for harassment and other problems. Hiring and firing have their own issues and can lead to problems down the road. Also, tracking employees online might cause issues. These articles provide some hints on how to deal with these issues and, hopefully, to avoid trouble.
