Seven things your crisis team must be able to do in a prolonged crisis

The Covid 19 pandemic outbreak has meant that organisations and their crisis teams have had to change their working practises with the majority of organisations now moving to remote working. It is likely that this way of working could become the ‘new normal’ for the next 6 months at least.

With this in mind, we have put together our top 7 things you should consider to ensure your crisis team is effective in a prolonged incident.

 1.     Have Trained Deputies

You should ensure that deputies are trained and ready to step into crisis management team roles to ensure a consistent level of response  is maintained throughout the crisis. 

2.     Ensure your team has a structured process for managing information

Your team should have a dedicated crisis co-ordinator who will record the key actions and decisions taken by the team. This should be supported by an incident recorder who records all incoming information for audit purposes. This ensures everyone in the team is working from the same page and will also help bring deputies up to speed more quickly.

3.     Ensure meeting updates are circulated

Your crisis co-ordinator should aid the team in completing status updates at appropriate times throughout the crisis (at least after each crisis meeting). These should be circulated to all team members and deputies to ensure that everyone is kept well informed, even if they take time off. 

4.     Ensure Conference Call Etiquette is observed

It is likely that crisis teams will continue to be convened on conference calls and/or video calls for the foreseeable future. Team members should ensure that conference call etiquette is observed to avoid additional stress created by talking over each other, background noise etc. It sounds simple but this will ensure that the calls are efficient and productive.

5.     Follow a standard crisis meeting agenda

Your team should follow a standard meeting format, led by the chair. This will ensure that meetings are efficient, and that additional work is not created each time the crisis team meets.

6.     Communicate with your entire organisation

Ensure your teams are releasing regular updates across the organisation so that individual CMT members are not bombarded with requests - in particular, does everyone in the organisation know your strategic objectives and top priorities? If they do, it means they can make decisions in line with these and this will reduce the volume of questions that individual CMT members receive.

7.     Ensure your team members have a structured routine

Encourage your crisis team members to have a structured routine when working from home (taking lunch breaks etc) this will provide benefits for their mental health and the ability to respond effectively during a prolonged crisis.