Crisis Preparation Now Requires Response to Multiple Exposures from One Event
Social Risk Continues to Evolve
Stakeholders look at a company action from multiple perspectives. That’s why it’s increasingly important to anticipate these diverse reactions in order to plan effective responses to the range of issues. Here’s an example:
During April 2020, Amazon had COVID-19 cases in a number of its warehouses, resulting in employee protests and walkouts pressing for improved safety. This motivated “Amazon Employees for Climate Justice” to urge colleagues to call in sick. "We want to tell Amazon that we are sick of all this -- sick of the (coronavirus-related) firings, sick of racism, and sick of the climate crisis," said an AECJ press release. (Agence France Presse. 04/17/20)
This single scenario exposed Amazon to allegations of racism and other social risk issues. The employee group called out failing company policy regarding ESG issues, diversity and racial issues, and finally, the catalyzing issue of workplace safety.
An intersectional event presents multiple types of exposures at the same time. More and more social risk events, like the one at Amazon mentioned above, are intersectional. Companies need to treat these risks with extreme caution.
Why This Matters for Crisis Planning
Organizations preparing for risk events and crisis management circumstances now must prepare for event types – in combination. Failing to do so constrains planning, hampering crisis response.
Efficiently finding precedent risk events with likely issues requires sophisticated search tools – or an organized database of risk events classified by the type exposure. With this tool, a company can review risk event precedents, for example:
Racial issues impacting women
Employee free-speech activism compounded by terminations
Sustainability concerns combined with poor governance in other areas
Companies facing multiple risks from an event tend to experience more social risks – and these problems can cause significant reputational harm. A database approach that classifies multiple social risk exposures during single risk events enables you to search for relevant precedent that matches your circumstance.
MSA Can Help
We can help you research and identify relevant social risk events that can serve as planning precedents.