In our fast-moving digital age, many organizations are still struggling with an “analog” approach to crisis management, using hard-copy documents and tabletop exercises to prepare for the next potential emergency.
This makes training employees particularly difficult, because both businesses and the threats they face are growing and evolving all the time. It is nearly impossible to constantly update hard-copy crisis management plans—let alone repeatedly disseminate them to hundreds or even thousands of employees.
It’s no wonder that many companies are incorporating technology into their crisis management prep as often as possible.
Here, we look at four ways technology can benefit your organization’s crisis management training efforts:
1.) Better preparation through simulation
The beauty of technology is that enables an organization to simulate a real-life crisis. Today there are a range of software platforms and applications that help your crisis management team plan for a crisis. To stage a mock event, they can simply simulate a crisis using the software or app, allowing employees to practice responding as they would during a real event.
For example, let’s say your organization needs to train its employees to manage a significant IT outage. Your crisis training team could stage the scenario by having the IT department restrict access to your servers for a short amount of time, during which they use crisis management software or apps to notify employees. By referencing the crisis management system, each worker could go through the steps assigned to him or her, just like in a real crisis.
2.) More engaged employees
Actually going through the motions of a crisis is extremely beneficial for employees, so encourage your training team to get as hands-on as possible. This approach helps employees to remember their role much more effectively than the traditional approach, which usually involved sitting around a table and reading through hard-copy crisis management documents. In nearly all cases, “active” learning is much more impactful, which means all employees will be more engaged and more likely to truly learn something.
3.) More focused training efforts
In an organization that must prepare for a significant number of potential threats, it can be extremely challenging to fully train employees on all of them. However, crisis management software and apps make it easy for your training team to cherry pick the specific plans and responses to include in an educational session at any given time.
Consider a crisis management mobile app. These systems allow organizations to provide crisis documents—such as checklists, communication plans, maps, contact lists and more—to all employees on their mobile devices. Your team can choose to include data for any number of threats, from social media gaffes to severe weather emergencies. Since all the plan information is digitalized, they can easily run through a specific scenario to train employees—all it takes is a few clicks of a button.
Using a mobile app allows your organization to make training a more seamless, and more frequent, process. This will ensure that employees know exactly what to do during any number of crises—without your team staging costly and time-consuming tabletop training sessions.
4.) Improved crisis communication preparedness
Today nearly all crisis communication is going to be digital, especially in the first few hours following an emergency event. By leveraging technology, your crisis team can help employees to feel well prepared for handling the various communication needs that emerge following such an event, including social media, press releases, website updates and media interviews.
If crisis communication plans, statements and other documents are digitized, training will be much easier. That way, your crisis team can instantly share each document with the appropriate people, as well as enable quicker, more streamlined reviews and updates. Best of all, when a crisis does occur, you will know that your employees are not only well trained on how to respond; you’ll feel confident that they have the most relevant, up-to-date communication plans—right in the palm of their hand.
Does your organization currently use technology as part of its crisis management training? If so, in what way?
