Beyond safety: why you need a crisis management plan for your construction business.
Sometimes, bad things happen to good companies. Even with strong safety programs and excellent people, construction is a risky business by nature.
Janine Shea, former owner of construction industry consulting firm The Janine Reid Group, learned this the hard way. In the early 1980s, she worked as the marketing manager for a general contracting firm in Denver when a fatality occurred at the company. After this happened, the owner asked Shea to develop a crisis management protocol to effectively manage any further tragedies. However, her marketing duties took precedence, which did not leave her much time to create this protocol.
Unfortunately, six months later on August 18, 1985, the company had another crisis. “We had a bomb threat at a large project in Albuquerque, and I had no clue what to do,” Shea says. She recommended that the jobsite be evacuated, and she immediately jumped on a plane to New Mexico. In hindsight, she recalls being relieved to have the plane ride to gather her thoughts. “During this time, we had no cell phones, and that was the only thing that saved me—I had some time to think.”
Though the threatening calls continued for four days, the threat had just been a hoax, thankfully. The lesson she relayed to other companies after this event: “Don’t be foolish like I was. It does not feel good.”
Little did she know at the time, these series of events would set in motion her future career focused on changing risk management in the construction industry. At the time, most risk management strategies concentrated primarily on mitigating risks through safety procedures. Shea’s interest in risk management led her to study how other industries manage crises. “I started to piece things together from crisis plans taken from the airline industry.”
Eventually, Shea consulted with 80 or more companies a year, developing crisis management plans and aiding in crisis situations. She also helped companies regain their position after a tragedy and create an employee support system.
“During my 30 years in the industry, I’ve seen crises take down hundreds of major companies,” Shea says. To help contractors become aware of crisis management best practices, she has authored three books and conducted countless training sessions, and now she shares her insights with CBO.
What Is Crisis Management?
Crisis management may sound like an oxymoron. In fact, Shea admits this in her book Crisis Management: Planning and Media Relations for the Design and Construction Industry. However, she concludes that “your chances of managing a crisis increase exponentially with the amount of preparation and planning you do beforehand.”
The first step in crisis management is identifying possible crises that can occur. Taking time to do this means you will not be the one asking yourself, “Why didn’t I see this coming?”
To identify possible situations, you must first understand the definition of a crisis. According to Shea, “It’s immediate—many times it’s a surprise” (for instance, when a crane collapses and results in fatalities). “The most common crisis that contractors face are injuries, which in many cases can be prevented; however, there will always be someone out there who will take a shortcut,” she adds.
While accidents constitute the majority of construction tragedies, a crisis could also be a natural disaster, environmental contamination, labor relations and litigation, among many other possibilities. “I’m talking about a crisis where the lid’s blown off, and you don’t have much time to respond—in the little time you do have to respond, you had better get it right.”
Why Do You Need a Plan?
A plan can help you identify logical steps to take during a high-stress event when decision making is rushed and clear heads do not always prevail. “There are so many components—not just handling the jobsite,” Shea says.
Beyond those obvious reasons, you must work hard to preserve
