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People Continuity and Organizational Resilience

September 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Our staff believes that risk management methodologies and practices are in a constant state of change as the global footprint of doing business today expands.   As a result, a challenge exists where a higher level of  preparedness is now being presented as a shared responsibility to be addressed more collectively now than ever by organizations, communities, governments and individuals.

Recently, our staff presented these thoughts to the Personal Recovery Concepts team, and after much discussion, a decision was reached to present a white paper on the topic to our readership.  The title selected for that whitepaper is “The Impact of People Continuity on Organizational Resilience”.

You can read this whitepaper by clicking on the link below….

 ContinuityCompliance_Impactofpeopleonresilience

As always we welcome your thoughts and comments, and we ask that you share them with our readership…

And if you found value in reading this whitepaper, please share it with the business continuity, risk and crisis management, and disaster preparedness team members in your organization.

Filed Under: Personal Continuity Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

What is Personal Continuity?

September 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Personal continuity is the amount of time it takes an individual to effectively manage the safety and security of their family, assets and other secure-base figures during an unexpected event, fulfill assigned workplace roles and responsibilities and to reach a high degree of recovery to pre-event status or conditions afterward. 

The term personal continuity is interchangeable with personal or human resilience.   Evidence from actual disasters and military deployments has underscored family preparedness to be a primary factor in the ability for a first-responder or military member to be available for duty.  As such, much of the information related to people continuity centers on family preparedness for disasters, separation and unexpected events.

 Personal Preparedness Standards Act

On August 11, 2010, Michigan State Representatives John Espinoza and Gino Polidori, Chair of the Miltiary, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security Committee, co-presented House Bill No 6364, “Personal Preparedness Standards Act” to the Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security.

This model legislation calls upon first-response organization plans to include “personal preparedness measures that ensure the employees of a first responder organization and their families are prepared for the employees to be deployed during a continuity event”.

See link here: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/%28S%28stgoy4fox3kz3k305tnwkxvy%29%29/mileg.aspx?page=BillStatus&objectname=2010-HB-6364

Growing demand for resilience in standards

Five years after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Census Bureau reports the region is only half as populated as it was before the storm.  The slow recovery in Louisiana is not the only impetus behind a recognized need for business continuity plans to evolve from a focus on readiness and survival to resilience.  KPMG reports that 40% of businesses fail following a disaster.  A driving factor remains the time it takes an employee to be available to their employer.  A Mega Group study documented the employee cost for a wide array of industries for every hour an employee is delayed.  For most industries, the cost was more than $1 million per hour.  Moreover, the manner that a corporation manages a disaster has a destiny-determining impact on shareholder value and reputation, effectively moving the burden of risk management from continuity managers to the C-suite.  Family preparedness continues to be a leading causal factor to employee availability.

The most recent ASIS American Standards for Organizational Resilience moves beyond readiness, a philosophy that centered primarily on response during an event and focused narrowly on survival and protection of assets, to resilience.   As standards and agencies evolve to resilience models, the subject of employee availability – and more specifically – the time it takes an employee to be available for duty, continues to be emphasized.

Moreover, ASIS includes personnel in the resilience equation and distinguishes the language between “readiness” and “preparedness”.  In an Executive Analysis Report on a Michigan-based fire department deployed to ground zero, a similar distinction was made, “There is a difference between being ready “to go” and ready “to part”.  Being ready “to go” means having our bag packed, all shots up to date, and other duty essential preparations completed.  Being ready “to part” from your spouse and other family members means being aware of the personal and family issues related to separation, and being prepared to deal as constructively as possible with those issues.”[1]

As stated in the newest ASIS standards: “The challenge goes beyond most emergency response plans or disaster management activities previously deployed.  Organizations now must engage in a comprehensive and systematic process of prevention, preparedness, readiness, mitigation, response, continuity, and recovery.  It is no longer enough to draft a response plan that anticipates disasters or emergency scenarios.  

Today’s threats require the creation of an on-going, dynamic, and interactive process that serves to assure the continuation of an organization’s core activities before, during, and – most importantly – after a major crisis event. [2]” 

In ASIS, procedures for mutual aid as well as the planning consideration for physical and psychological harm to employees, among others, is linked directly to recovery-time objectives.  While ASIS calls for appropriate education, it does not specify what that education might be.  The Department of Defense may have said it best. In a 2004 DOD report, the agency stated “The link between family and mission readiness is clear.”

The Federal Government recognized the link between family and mission readiness when issuing Federal Continuity Directive #1 wherein it calls upon agency plans or procedures that provide guidance to all staff in developing family support plans which will increase personal and family preparedness throughout the organization and support employee availability during a continuity event. [FCD 1 Annex J and A, Page A-4, Bullet #25 ]

CLICK HERE to view the document.

Infrastructure, economic and community resiliency following a continuity event are directly impacted by the resilience of people.

Family: In a post-Katrina report, the need for personal continuity of first-responders such as police, firefighters and paramedics surfaced when 70% of Gulf-Coast responders lost their homes in the flood.  Could police, firefighters and paramedics answer the call of duty if they were also victims of the catastrophe?

Assistant Defense Secretary Paul McHale said of the first-responder gap in personal resilience noted after Hurricane Katrina ”This may well have been a very painful disclosure of a gap in our capability that we must now correct to deal with not only natural disasters, but with terrorist attacks that may be even larger in scope.”

Eight months later, Carle Jackson supported this observation in the comprehensive report titled “Managing Catastrophic Events: The Lessons of Katrina, Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement”, which stated: “A major lesson of Katrina ….. is that first responder personnel cannot function at best efficiency if they are worried about their own families. The role of law enforcement, fire, EMS, and other front line personnel is highly stressful. In situations where these local responders are uncertain about the welfare and even survival of their families, that stress level is raised to the breaking point. During Katrina this point was tragically made when a New Orleans police officer committed suicide after finding his family dead in their home. Other officers left their duty assignments to check on and evacuate their families. Such conduct, while not to be condoned, is certainly understandable and predictable. Evacuating and sheltering families ahead of time, or having a preset plan when the disaster is of such a nature as to provide no advance warning, is, therefore, critical to the first responder role.”

In an extensive 2008 study published by Ecology and Society, the psychological response to unexpected events further validated that such behavior is entirely predictable, summarized in the following excerpt: 

Individuals will seek contact with their secure-base figures[3], wherever they are, by whatever means are at hand. Ideally, first responders must know that their own attachment figures will be as safe as possible to function with full effectiveness[4]. 

Business: Continuity of operations relies on people.  However, a human resilience gap persists for critical team members that businesses rely on to manage catastrophes and to restore operations and service. Forrester® reported that 75% of businesses that may have emergency preparedness and business continuity plans had not accounted for the human resiliency factor[5], even though the United States Department of Homeland Security emphasizes the importance of businesses returning to productivity as quickly as possible so as to stabilize the economies in the devastated areas.

According to a national survey by TNS Info-Global, being caught by surprise resulted in 43% of small businesses never reopening following a disaster. Of those that did reopen, only 29 % were still operating two years later.

The U.S. Small Business Administration reported that small businesses represent more than 99 percent of all employers; provide approximately 75 percent of the net new jobs added to the economy; and represent 97 percent of all U.S. exporters. Unfortunately, small to medium-sized businesses are also the most vulnerable in the event of an emergency.

According to an October 2005 survey of small businesses conducted by The Ad Council, 92 percent of respondents said that it is very important or somewhat important for businesses to take steps to prepare for a catastrophic disaster, such as an earthquake, hurricane or terrorist attack. However, only 39 percent said that their company has a plan in place in the event of such a disaster. Qualitative research with this audience demonstrated that even though many acknowledge the value of preparedness, they see time, workforce and money constraints prohibiting them from developing a business continuity plan.

Personal Recovery Concepts’ white paper “The significance of holistic human resiliency to interdependent continuity planning” takes an in-depth look at the issues of people continuity in disaster recovery.

To view this whitepaper, click on the link below:

Holistic_Human_Resiliency_short92010

 

[1] Ohio Air National Guard, 2004

[2] ASIS SPC.1 2009, Annex A – American National Standard for Security

[3] Secure-base figures or attachment figures are defined as loved ones, dependant individuals, or any individuals whose safety and security is important to the person

[4] Masten, A. S., and J. Obradovic. 2007. Disaster preparation and recovery: lessons from research on resilience in human development. Ecology and Society 13(1): 9

[5] Forrester Research, Dec. 2006, Workforce Continuity – a Critical Strategy in your Business Continuity Plan

Filed Under: Personal Continuity Tagged With: , , , , , ,

PS-Prep Program Includes Personal & Family Preparedness Planning

September 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The International Center for Enterprise Preparedness of New York University (INTERCEP) released updates to its workgroup findings, titled: Proceedings & Recommendations of the Working Group on Supply Chain Management &Resilience, wherein it acknowledges the influence of personal continuity.  CLICK HERE to read the full findings report. 

The reference to personal continuity within that report states, “….although the PS-Prep Certification program addresses organizational preparedness, integral upstream and downstream dependencies cross and blur the lines between public sector supply chains and private sector supply chains. Evaluation of other types of relationships, beyond the conventional organizational, company-to-company economic relationships may be necessary when evaluating preparedness. ‘

There are inherent linkages between organizational preparedness, personal preparedness (such as of employees) and community preparedness. 

As one participant noted: “… The issue of being prepared in a business means you have to be prepared at the individual and at the community level. If the schools are closed, if the gas stations are closed, if the roads are closed, I don’t care how well prepared your business is, you’re out of business.” 

We suggest passing this information along to those members in your organization who are responsible for business continuity, risk management or disaster preparedness. 

A strong message and theme which permeates this INTERCEP  report is that successful emergency management and resiliency planning and implementation depends on sound preparation in each of the following domains of preparedness:

  1. personal preparedness on the individual level,
  2. solid business continuity planning/preparedness on the corporate level,
  3. community preparedness
  4. local, state and federal government preparedness
  5. market infrastructure preparedness 

Please share your comments and thoughts with our readership by commenting on the above ….. thank you.

Filed Under: Personal Continuity Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

FEMA Releases New Emergency Preparedness Planning Tabletop Exercises

September 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Our staff recently came upon a new FEMA offering that will present a series of Tabletop Exercise presentations developed by FEMA’s Private Sector Division and advised by FEMA’s National Exercise Division.  These exercises are structured on the Tabletop Exercise Design curriculum developed by FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute, as well as other FEMA/DHS training reference materials. 

No announcement has been made regarding how many of these exercises will be made available as tools to enhance and advance an organization’s readiness levels regarding continuity, preparedness and/or resiliency. However, we are impressed with the release of FEMA’s first two exercises that address the scenarios of; (a) the incidence of a major Hurricane and (2) the potentially disastrous event of a rail related Chemical Accident.

Each exercise takes your crisis management or emergency response team through a very realistic scenario and also facilitates a discussion to help your organization’s planning, responding and recovering efforts to these first two scenarios.

Even if your organization has already instituted such tabletop exercises, we believe that your disaster preparedness and recovery teams will find a great benchmarking experience by viewing these emergency planning exercise offerings from FEMA. 

And, we almost forgot to mention the best part – these exercises are free for your download and use….

To download and view these FEMA Tabletop Exercise Presentations  — CLICK HERE.

Please pass this information along to those risk management, information security and emergency response team members in your organization, who address not only network security threats or computer data security issues, but, also are charged to develop effective risk management tools to meet compliance and mitigate operational risks for their organizations.

Filed Under: Business Continuity Info, Homeland Security Dpt, PS-Prep Program Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Business Continuity and BS 25999’s MTPD Opinion Survey Results Now Available

September 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

As awareness, the need for,  and the implementation of a business continuity methodology grows among organizations,  our staff has begun tracking any and all information relevant to not only the general topics of business continuity related activities, but particularly, those components of a business continuity plan where we perceive current dialogue and enquiry is active among our readership.

One recent topic we have been tracking involves the” maximum tolerable period of disruption” (MTPD) concept, which was introduced to the business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) community by BS 25999.

Our staff found the results of a recent survey recently posted on the Continuity Central website — a website where we often refer our readers — and entitled, “ MTPD: WHAT BUSINESS CONTINUITY PROFESSIONALS THINK ABOUT IT AND HOW THEY CALCULATE IT”, and, which we would like to point out  to our readers.

One of the major findings in the survey revealed that the majority of respondents (87%) believe that they understand the MTPD concept, 10% aren’t sure whether or not they understand it, and 3% do not understand what MTPD is at all.

Other summary findings quoted in the posting are:

1)     Overall 56.5 percent of respondents think that MTPD is a useful concept. 21.5 percent say that it is not useful and 22 percent are unsure.

2)     When broken down by organizational size,  there are some interesting and significant differences. Small organizations (1-99 staff) are the most positive, with 79 percent of respondents from these organizations stating that MTPD is a useful concept. 55 percent of large organizations (500+ staff)  agree that this is the case. However, only 33 percent of medium sized organizations (100-499 staff) think that it is useful. 50 percent of the latter said it was not useful and 17 percent were unsure.

CLICK HERE to read the posting and the listing of other responses to this survey.

If applicable, please pass this information along to the business continuity planners or even the network security assessment or network security plan team leaders in your organization.

Filed Under: Business Continuity Info Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

SBA Offers Business Preparedness Warning

September 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

In a recent posting, entitled, “Don’t Let a Disaster Wreck Your Business“, U.S. Small Business Administrator, Karen Mills says, “… it would be wise for small businesses to prepare for tomorrow’s disaster today”.

Mills also goes on to say, “There is a tendency to think that a large-scale disaster is not going to happen ‘where I live’. The reality is that storms, floods, earthquakes, fires and man-made disasters can strike anytime and anywhere. Planning ahead for your own post-disaster recovery is a good step toward protecting your family, your business and your community.”

A strong message from the posting is that business continuity planning doesn’t have to be expensive and to help prove that message, it offers some of the following quick-start ideas for savvy business executives:

• Recognize business impacts by analyzing and documenting critical processes and calculating potential effects.

• Assess all risk by determining organizational threats and implementing controls to mitigate the risks.

• Communicate with employees to ensure that mission-critical staff knows what to do, how to do it, what to say and to whom to say it in a crisis.

• Select communication technologies that can work in both normal and stressed environments, ensuring that emergency operations are executed as smoothly as possible.

Read the entire posting.

Filed Under: Business Continuity Info Tagged With: , , , , ,

Personal Preparedness and Pets

September 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

As more of our readers address the level of disaster preparedness in their organizations and more importantly regarding their personal preparedness status, we continue to look for and find sources of information which will be related to and hopefully capable of mitigating related risk to those concerns.  

A product of that search recently led us to topic of preparing your pets for disaster. 

With September being National Preparedness Month, and if you haven’t already done so, we propose that it might be appropriate for each of us to think about our pets and what we may want to plan for or do for our pets in time of danger.

Did you know an estimated 20 percent of disaster evacuation failure is attributed to people unwilling to leave their pets?   

Or, did you know that animals left behind in disasters can become a risk for emergency responders, and be at risk themselves for health complications or getting lost, injured or killed.

“It is very important to have a disaster preparedness plan for your pet or pets,” said Federal Coordinating Officer Gracia Szczech. “When it comes to our companion animals in time of disaster, we go into protection mode with our decisions. Being ready increases the likelihood of survival for all involved. Save on difficulty, stress and worry – be prepared.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, American Kennel Club, American Veterinary Medical Association and Humane Society of the United States have all collaborated in developing pet preparedness guidelines. 

If applicable, we suggest that our readers read the entire FEMA posting entitled, “Preparing Your Pets For Disaster” and review the included pet preparedness guidelines.  CLICK HERE.

If this information applies to your personal preparedness situation, or to the personal continuity aspect of the business continuity plan, or the private sector preparedness (PS-Prep) activities  for your organization, please pass this along to the appropriate risk management and PS-Prep team leaders in that organization.

Filed Under: Personal Continuity Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

SAS 70 — Reality Check

September 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

 Many of our readers have requested that they would like to be provided with more information regarding the Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70 (SAS 70).  And, with what appears to be some growing levels of confusion regarding SAS 70 and controls over aspects of data security, processing integrity, privacy, confidentiality, and system availability that do not affect the accuracy of service users’ financial statements, we agree that this topic should be re-visited.

Fortunately, one of our staff writers, Sally Smoczynski,  noticed an interesting and relevant article that we think fulfills our purpose.  This article regarding SAS 70, was written by David McCann, and recently posted on the CFO.com website.  We think that this article provides the information about SAS 70 requested by some of our readership and at the same time, clarifies the reality of SAS 70 regarding other popular topics often addressed by this website, such as — information security, business continuity, network security compliance and organizational risk management.

In the article entitled, “The Truth About SAS 70”, a lot of basic information is provided to give our readers a better understanding of what a SAS 70 audit is about, what it represents and where the future use and direction of SAS 70 audits are going. 

When reading this article — we believe the best reality check about SAS 70 is summed up in the following text quoted from that article: 

“A SAS 70 audit is a check on a service firm’s controls over processes and systems that could have an impact on the accuracy of entries in its customers’ general ledgers. Audit firms and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) are concerned that as more service providers trumpet their receipt of a clean SAS 70 audit, misunderstandings about what the reports truly address will result in the finger of blame (and the lawsuits that may follow) being pointed at auditors for failures that lie outside the scope of SAS 70.

“The way SAS 70 reports are being marketed, service organizations are implying a level of assurance and trust that simply doesn’t exist,” says Dan Schroeder, a partner with accounting firm Habif, Arogeti & Wynne and chairman of the AICPA’s Information Technology Executive Committee. “It is grossly over the top.”

There are two types of SAS 70 audits. Type 1 merely describes the services provided and the financial controls in place with regard to them. Type 2, which is where the controversy mainly resides, additionally offers an opinion as to whether there was reasonable assurance that the controls were operating effectively during a defined time period. Any broader claims about what a SAS 70 audit means are likely to be invalid.”

Another valuable aspect of the article is that it addresses the fact that SAS 70 is set to be replaced next June with Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements No. 16 (SSAE 16).

It goes on to also state, however, that SSAE 16 will differ in some respects from SAS 70, but it will have the same narrow focus on controls over systems and processes that influence the accuracy of journal entries for service firms’ customers.

Click here, to read the entire article.

If applicable, please pass this information along to the CFO, organizational risk management, or enterprise risk management leadership in your organization.

Filed Under: Regulatory Compliance Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

FEMA's National Preparedness Month Stresses Importance of Family and Community Emergency Preparedness

September 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Citing a recent press release (see below) by FEMA, our staff and this website salutes all efforts to support this month of September as National Preparedness Month.  Please read a copy of the press release below and pass this information along to all of the business continuity, emergency responder, crisis and risk management team members in your organization. 

FEMA Administrator Fugate Kicks Off National Preparedness Month 

Release Date: September 1, 2010
Release Number: HQ-10-167

WASHINGTON – Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate today kicked off the seventh annual National Preparedness Month, joining local Washington, D.C. officials and students from Ferebree-Hope Elementary School at the Serve DC Commander Ready event to talk about the importance of family and community emergency preparedness, especially as Hurricane Earl approaches the East Coast of the U.S. and other storms continue to form in the Atlantic Ocean.

“Hurricane Earl is another important reminder to all of us that every member of the community needs to be prepared for hurricanes and other disasters. Engaging with children on the topic of emergency preparedness is an effective way to bring home the preparedness message,” said Fugate.  “Local events like this one are happening all over the country throughout September to underscore the importance of getting people of all ages involved in preparing for emergencies.”

National Preparedness Month is led by FEMA’s Ready Campaign in partnership with Citizen Corps and The Advertising Council, and is a nationwide effort encouraging individuals, families, businesses and communities to work together and take action to prepare for emergencies. National Preparedness Month is supported by a coalition of public, private and non-profit organizations that help spread the preparedness message.  This year’s record number of coalition members are sharing preparedness information with their members, customers, employee, and communities. Members also spearhead activities that encourage specific steps for individual, neighborhood, and community preparedness.

In addition to the kickoff event, the Ready Campaign and Citizen Corps will sponsor activities across the country throughout September. Ready is introducing several new PSA campaigns and Citizen Corps is presenting its National Achievement Awards during September.

For more information on the Ready Campaign and Citizen Corps, visit Ready.gov and CitizenCorps.gov.

Follow FEMA online at www.twitter.com/fema, www.facebook.com/fema, and www.youtube.com/fema.  Also, follow Administrator Craig Fugate’s activities at www.twitter.com/craigatfema.  The social media links provided are for reference only. FEMA does not endorse any non-government websites, companies or applications.

FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.

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Filed Under: Business Continuity Info, PS-Prep Program Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Managing Workplace Violence Risk

September 1, 2010 By 1 Comment

This website is happy to announce the addition of Michael W. Wanik as one of our contributing writers addressing the topic of security management.  The following article, which discusses workplace violence as a risk management concern, is the first in what we hope to be a long string of articles presented to our readership by Michael.

Managing Your Workplace Violence Risk

By: Michael Wanik, CPP, CBCP

In August this year, a horrific act of workplace violence occurred at a Manchester, Connecticut business. An employee who had been confronted after he was apparently documented on video for stealing product opened fire on his coworkers and supervisors. At the end of the event, eight employees and the shooter were dead.

As you might expect, an act like this causes business leaders and employees to review their risk management strategies, policies and procedures.

Additionally, our phone began to ring with inquiries about workplace violence and what could be done to avoid it. Our answer to these inquiries was that there is no singular solution to prevent such an act, and, as a result, an organization must address many different aspects of risk management if they wish to avoid or at least mitigate the possibility of having that kind of incident occur to and at their own organization.

First, let’s level set. Not every workplace violence event is a multiple victim homicide. Each and every day there are events in the workplace that can and are categorized as workplace violence. Events such as but not limited to: bullying, harassment and intimidation can be considered workplace violence or at the very least, unacceptable conduct that can ultimately lead to physical violence.   

ASIS International, the leading professional security organization defines workplace violence as a “broad range of behaviors falling along a spectrum that, due to their nature and/or severity, significantly affect the workplace, generate a concern for personal safety, or result in physical injury or death.” 

Additionally, the workplace setting varies. A home healthcare provider’s workplace might be his transport vehicle or a patient home. A taxi driver operates his workplace. Thus, there are different threats and vulnerabilities based upon a worker’s job location. A convenience store operator working at 2am by himself probably has a higher general risk of workplace violence than a clerk in an accounting firm. However, circumstances can quickly change the threat level. 

Every corporation should have a publicized workplace violence policy and plan of action, that is understood fully and practiced by trained personel,  and should also conduct pre-employment criminal and employment screening. Many times, firms hiring people look to a background check as only a compliance requirement issue. A good screening conducted with proper interview techniques can avoid many issues such as potential workforce violence because very often historical conduct can preview the potential for a forthcoming situation or disruptive incident. 

Another suggestion is that a publicized anonymous reporting mechanism can also be put in place which allows for employees who know of non-compliance by others to be reported for review and appropriate action. In some cases where an employee’s “hair goes up on the back of the neck”; they fail to report the feeling or observation for fear that they will subsequently be targeted. 

Trained managers who observe or are made aware of possible workplace violence offenders must know how to correctly and swiftly address the situation. Failure to do so can result in a negligent retention type of lawsuit at the least.

Managers terminating agitated, confronted or historically vocal employees should be aware of resources that can be made available to them to control potential situations. 

Companies tuned into their risk management issues and who have taken action to mitigate those risks will effectively confront their vulnerabilities and create a culture of security compliance every day within their organizations. 

Those that are not sensitive and reactive to potential risk management issues of workplace violence are more exposed, and when a potential situation arises — they will find that you can’t enact good security and safety practices as the threat arrives on their doorstep. 

Further, some workplace violence events have occurred many years later as where and when the assailant blames his current situation having been created by their former employer. 

You can’t easily create an environment which entirely halts every incident or kind of workplace violence; however, with proper employee screening, tools, training and protocols, along with effective policies and procedures such as mentioned above, you can greatly reduce your exposure to workplace violence and, hopefully, improve your ability to effectively recover from such a disruptive incident when and if it occurs. 

If any of our readers have additional comments or thoughts to add to this topic of workplace violence, please do so.

 _________________________________________________________________

Michael W. Wanik is SSC’s Vice President of Consulting and Investigations. He is board certified in security management and business continuity planning. Prior to joining SSC, he spent more than 13 years at UnitedHealth Group as the company’s corporate security director responsible for international operations. 

At UnitedHealth, Mike was responsible for security related risk at owned and contracted operations in 44 countries. Mike led the development, implementation and enforcement of security and safety policies and standards for the protection of human, physical and intellectual assets. In addition, Mike was responsible for facilitation of all SAS-70, continuity of operations and similar audits; he also was a member of UnitedHealth Groups Enterprise Emergency Management Team and led the Hartford Campus team.

Mike has a robust background in providing risk management consulting to protect people, process, technology, information and environments in sensitive operations around the world. He has been intimately involved with world stage situations such as 9/11 and the recent attacks in Mumbai, India. His experience in crisis management and recovery from these situations is from practice; not theory.

Mike was an early supporter and practitioner of convergence, wherein he partnered with information security and privacy personnel to better protect an entity from theft and disruption. In addition to his extensive risk mitigation background, Mike also has years of experience conducting criminal and traffic investigations from his service in the United States Army, where he served as a Criminal Investigation Supervisor and Military Police Substation Commander.

Mike attended and later taught at Central Texas College and was the senior law enforcement instructor at a satellite Military Police School created to support Operation Desert Shield/Storm. Mike currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Police Commissioners in New Britain, Connecticut; a department with an authorized strength of 158 sworn officers. He is an active member of ASIS International, Infragard, the Disabled American Veterans and the Association of Contingency Planners. Within each of these organizations, he either currently holds or has held leadership positions.

Mike can be contacted at 203-925-6182 or mwanik@sscintel.com.

Filed Under: Physical Security Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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