The World is Changing Rapidly and We Need to Change to Address New Challenges

  • April 5, 2016
  • Posted by: admin
  • Category: Uncategorized
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Does your organisation employ an all hazards approach to managing risk?

 

Is your organisation resilient enough to respond to and recover from something that cannot prevented? 

 

Like most others who suffer from the condition known globally as ‘having to work for a living’, I just can’t seem to start my working day without a coffee from one of the dozens of great coffee shops saturating inner city Brisbane.  Most days, whilst waiting for my coffee to be made, there seems to be two things that consistently resonate in my mind.

 

Firstly, I usually glance around and think about what my personal safety plan would be if a ‘Lindt Café’ style incident occurred whilst I was waiting for my coffee, and secondly, I wonder what the terrorism related article in the paper that day will be.

 

Now, whilst the likelihood of an armed gunman entering the coffee shop during my 10 minute visit is probably low (but clearly possible), the likelihood of me finding an article about the threat of terrorism within the first 5 pages as I absently flick through the paper is almost 100% assured.

 

One story that drew my attention a couple of weeks ago related to the accused Logan terrorist arrested shortly before the G20 who has just been charged with eight more offences relating to the preparation for or planning of a terrorist act. The concerning aspect to that story is that it has been revealed that this man was within days of launching a terrorist attack when arrested.

 

That story followed one a couple of days earlier relating to a new package of Queensland reforms providing police with increased powers designed to bring consistency across the states in the application and delivery of terrorism related legislation and policies.

 

Another article related to an Australian citizen (Sydney man) in Turkey being sought for extradition by US authorities over accusations of recruiting foreign fighters.

 

Last week whilst reading about a Sydney youth arrested for plotting a terror attack on Anzac Day (after apparently having gone through a de-radicalisation program) it occurred to me that it will be a long time before we will be able to pick up a paper void of articles on this topic

 

It also reconfirmed for me that we are not immune to this relatively new risk and that the Australian Governments current National Terrorism Threat level of ‘Probable’ is warranted.

 

I am sure that we all contemplate what can be done to alter the environment that we currently face and whilst I have no simple solution, there are certainly things that we can do to prepare our organisations for a ‘person delivered’ incident, just the same way that we prepare it for a weather related disaster.

 

Most governments operate on an all hazards approach to managing risks and building organisational resilience. The reality is that business and government need to have a shared responsibility for building and maintaining resilience.

 

An effective and simple way to commence your organisations journey towards creating a resilient workforce is to undertake a physical security and vulnerabilities threat assessment of your business as part of your broader risk and business continuity process. In addition to considering the physical security of your site or precinct, another valuable exercise is providing your forward-facing staff with frontline safety and awareness training so that they can be better placed to deal with potential threats and challenging situations in the workplace.

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