Effective Resilience for Your People – Building Knowledge and Skills

In times of political unrest, especially during controversial elections, the ability to anticipate and effectively manage civil disorder risks becomes crucial. Organizational leaders must build and exercise structured training and exercising programs to develop knowledge and skills, and then test management structures, document systems, resources, and response protocols.

Immersive Hostile Environment Awareness Training (HEAT) is one way that organizations can prepare their people for incidents of political violence [image source: Sigma7 RSM]

The potential for violent disruption can be tracked through effective, timely, and accurate intelligence; triggering alerts for security and risk managers. In addition, structured or just-in-time training and exercising programs can be enabled to further protect people, facilities, assets, information, and operations, and the organization’s wider reputation.

Leaders should consider the different learner groups who may need pre-emptive or reactive training and exercising, including:

• Resilience and crisis executives.
• Local incident management teams.
• Security professionals and focal points.
• Facility management teams.
• Family liaison officers and HR professionals.
• Media and crisis communications teams.
• Staff – including general staff in high-risk areas or who may be more vulnerable during a riot.

Leaders holding strategic or operational resilience, security, incident, and crisis management responsibilities need to make informed decisions based on proven and contextualized knowledge.

At the strategic level, executives must make informed decisions against common resilience, and crisis response needs spanning multiple risk factors, as well as how to effectively deal with specific fast-burn and high-impact threats, such as a rioting crowd, active shooters, bomb threats, mass casualty management, assaults on staff, cyber-attacks, property and asset damages, family liaison, stakeholder engagement, and media management. For example, during the 2020 US election, almost 70% of incidents reported on the Sigma7 Intelligence Fusion platform were related to protest activity. It is not uncommon for these protests to turn violent, leading to looting, vandalism or physical assaults.

Executive leadership training can prepare your senior leadership team with the skills and knowledge they need to guide the organization through periods of disruption [image source: Sigma7 RSM]

Site security and facility management teams play a pivotal role in security and emergency planning, as well as the immediate response to a localized emergency. They must be prepared to rapidly implement pre-planned emergency actions based on risk assessments, timely intelligence, and threat management strategies to pre-emptively identify risk factors, vulnerabilities, and scalable resilience solutions. Management teams must be able to track, analyze and communicate emergent risks, execute facility lockdown protocols, deliver accurate and effective Situation Reports (SITREPs), coordinate staged or rapid evacuations, coordinate with local law enforcement and emergency service stakeholders, and implement emergency medical responses to ensure the protection of assets and people.

Individuals within the organization must be prepared to respond effectively to potential threats associated with civil disorder risks, including physical and sexual assaults, armed aggressors or active shooters, bomb threats, and even aggressive police responses. Members of vulnerable populations, such as the LGBTQIA community or women, can face unique risks which may need to be addressed before, during, or after incidents associated with elections. Whether at work, during their daily commute, attending rallies and demonstrations, or going about their daily lives it is critical to understand the importance of effective personal security and safety awareness.

Interactive digital training resources can give your people the knowledge to successfully navigate dangerous situations such as riots and civil unrest [image source: Sigma7 University]

Civil disturbance responses, safe evacuations or shelter-in-place procedures, emergency communication protocols, and psychological preparedness are key strategies to ensure personal safety, minimize risk, and enhance resilience in crisis situations.

Training and exercising should – ideally – be standards aligned and available through multiple mediums, including instructor led and virtual training and exercising, eLearning, immersive videogames, and through leadership tabletop simulations. The ability to implement immediate time-driven learning outcomes will be reliant on organizations being able to deploy online training at short notice and to the point-of-need.

By investing in comprehensive training and exercising programs organizations can ensure that all staff – from executives to individuals – are equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to navigate and respond to crises more effectively.

To learn more about how Sigma7 can support your employees and stakeholders, register for our webinar with leading risk professionals. 

Author: Kelly Frey