How can you involve the private sector in your contingency planning process?

I realize that the involvement of the private sector in the contingency planning process begins with the presentation of arguments, mainly aimed at business continuity. Many emergency plans, crisis management and/or operational contingency are "orphaned" and without operational and/or business connectivity because they are not aligned with a policy for the continuity of operations.

Early in my career I served in the US Navy and was a firefighter and Deputy State Fire Marshal in California. Throughout my career in Insurance Risk Management, collaboration, making friends and earning trust has given me a lot of satisfaction. Just being present, on the spot and helping others makes a huge difference. It creates risk awareness. Planning ahead and trying to anticipate for unexpected events, to me, is common sense. Whether you're in the private or public sector, I believe there are many cheerleaders supporting contingency planning. Focus on those cheerleaders, grab their hand and get them involved. You'll be surprised on the results. I truly believe most people care and want to help.

With a solid and well done stakeholder engagement you will be able to map the agreements to put in place during peace time, to have them properly engaged in an incident response.

Having a strategy to identify, engage, collaborate and prepare is key to supporting and sharing contingency planning across all sectors. The ability to listen and communicate effectively also ensures that all ideas are considered and not dismissed out of turn. The drive towards an effective outcome must be understood as a common goal for all of those involved irrespective of sector silos!

Involvement of the private sector in the contingency planning process is a critical factor to achieving positive outcomes. Government agencies will not always have the necessary resources, equipment and skills needed to cope with the myriad of issues in an emergency situation. It is to late to try and form the necessary channels of communication and cooperation during a crisis, and it is more than just having formal contracts in place. Having professional relationships at all levels will give the confidence to build trust and work as a team in the execution phase which will lead to much better outcomes. This cannot wait until the deployment phase. It must begin at the first opportunity - when we are developing the plans.

It's been said that we should not exchange business cards at the scene of a disaster. The key to effective contingency planning is to engage all relevant stakeholders from the beginning of the process. FEMA's Comprehensive Planning Guide (CPG-101) identifies that forming a collaborative planning team is the first step in the planning process. This begins with an open dialog between emergency managers and the full range of stakeholders. Educating stakeholder groups through training, publications, and other methods sets the stage for their involvement. Without this "conversation," stakeholders may not know they have a stake or role in contingency planning.

Siguiendo la línea del punto 1 y basándome el la obligatoriedad de dicho plan para determinadas instalaciones o eventos en los que participa seguridad privada, la comunicación entre sector privado y público ha de ser periódica y dicha periodicidad dependerá de los eventos esperados, situaciones extraordinarias previstas, acontecimientos sociales que influyan en las instalaciones, etc. Obviamente, deberá de trasladarse a los componentes de seguridad, la cadena de comunicaciones en función de la situación a atajar.

The second step in involving private sector stakeholders in emergency management is establishing effective communication channels. Clear and regular communication is essential to convey contingency planning objectives, expectations, roles, and responsibilities. Equally important is actively listening to stakeholders' needs, concerns, feedback, and suggestions. Communication tools like meetings, newsletters, webinars, social media, and phone calls can be used to engage stakeholders. Creating a contact list and a communication plan that outlines the frequency, format, and content of communication is also recommended.

Having worked in federal healthcare across several agencies, I've found that lunch works best. Invite counterparts to your own staff and host a lunch. Keep it to one hour, let your staff get to know their local partners, give a 5 minute "why" talk, and schedule the next lunch. Food works.

To communicate with the stakeholders, we can: - Manage the lists of stakeholders, including their: name, requirements, contact (phone, email, address), way to communicate, person in charge to do the communicate, suitable content to communicate with each stakeholders - Use some tools to manage that lists: excel, software, or even a paper with information - Use the Call-tree method, which is the list and priority, updated contact, to use in case of emergency - Prepare and update a plan to send to related stakeholders, before the emergency situation; so that they can understand their roles and responsibilties, the required actions during the situation - Please note that each stakeholders need different suitable communication content and method

Managing a crisis within a mixed partnership requires good relationships at every level of each organization involved. I would take this a step further and consider the importance of trust amongst stakeholders, especially when each entity will have different assets, capabilities, and priorities.

Often times the public sector is plagued by narrow vision or SOPs that are outdated or uninformed. Leaders within the public sector need to be encouraged to “think outside the box” and to foster forward thinking ideas that are broad-reaching

In my experience, there are some ways to improve relationship with private sector stakeholders: - Send them updated and month/year reports: Risk report, Exercise and testing report; incident report; improvement report, loss event report and story, and related news - Provide free training course, especially for the local community - Ask for advices from them, in: risk assesment & contigency planning process & improvement opportunity - Work with local govenment agencies, because they have effective methods to communicate with the private sector - Invite them to join some tour or exercises, so that they can understand thier roles and responsibility, raise thier awareness and improve the relationship - Gift some one who have join effectively

Once the planning stakeholders have been identified, we must build and maintain relationships that lead to ownership of their part in the plan. I have found the best way to garner stakeholder participation and ownership is through engaging them throughout the planning lifecycle from inception, training, exercises, response, after-action reviews, and implementation of corrective actions the stakeholders themselves have had a voice in identifying.

"Active cooperation is essential for the achievement of goals and objectives. Work with discipline and join forces, not only in special and extraordinary situations, but also in everyday life!" (From the book: Leadership. Safe & Secure.)

On the eve of the Normandy Invasion during World War II, Dwight Eisenhower said, "Plans are useless; planning is everything." I take from that that we cannot account for every contingency in our planning, but when we plan together, we understand our strengths and capabilities. We jointly establish our plan's concept of operations, including the command and coordination elements, enabling us to better respond to unforeseen circumstances by discreet incident planning through an Incident Action Plan (IAP).

I can see that, to involve the private sector in contingency planning, it's crucial to coordinate actions during emergencies. This means having a clear command structure and sharing information effectively. Coordinate resource allocation and service delivery with our private sector partners. Use platforms like emergency operations centers or online portals to ensure smooth coordination. This ensures everyone is on the same page and can respond efficiently during crises.

Wholeheartedly agree. Just getting partners to talk in advance opens the door for communication during an event. Not having to look for a contact saves so much time. Knowing what they can and will bring to the table is even better.

The action cannot be other than coordinated. This involves communication and this is done through regular telephone calls, face-to-face or video meetings. Once again the key lies in the synergy of resources, information and a strong partnership.

Actions was coordinated through system of EOC 122,allways based on legal bases in the force and concept of NRP developed more than decade ago.

Evaluating outcomes, whether through an exercise or a real-world incident, allows us to measure the effectiveness, efficiency, and impacts our planning had on the incident. No plan withstands confrontation with a disaster. Exercises provide an excellent opportunity to "pressure test" our plans in a safe and controlled environment. Even then, the plan may not achieve our desired outcomes because every hurricane, flood, tornado, or active threat incident differs. Evaluating the response in the safe environment of an exercise tor following an incident is critical for continual improvement and building resilience. Remember, plans are living documents designed to be improved over time.

Y no olvidar los procesos de auditorias, simulacros y simulaciones, que nos permiten medir, sin llegar a tener que medir nuestra gestión de incidentes en situaciones limites y/o de emergencia, nuestra capacidad de respuesta y nos regalan grandes oportunidades de mejora y/o reforzamiento positivo

It goes without saying that internal surveys (audits, testing, inspection), interviews, focus groups or various reports make it possible to assess the relevance of a process. The conclusions and recommendations shared with private partners are also the means of obtaining their feedback and moving forward together in the partnership.

Critique meetings following each drill and exercise are vital to identify shortfalls and lessons learned. In addition, it can be used to identify gaps in the response strategies.

Dicho plan de contingencias debería testarse y reciclarse cada cierto tiempo, si ha tenido lugar alguna circunstancias donde se haya tenido que poner en práctica dicho plan y se hayan podido observar fallos o bien por aprendizaje en instalaciones similares, evolución de medios, etc.

By doing Table top exercises,mock drills, exchanging ideas,thought processes,best practices and case studies.These activities helps in giving bigger picture or another point of view to each other and improve on your existing practices.

"Encourage your leaders to work with symbols and to use faster and easier means of communication in daily management life as well. It might be useful in various areas to gain an overview. Each industry has its own specific language; expand your own jargon with the most important terms from safety, security, emergency, and crisis management. Take the chance and use well known terms and abbreviations from the fiel of emergency organisazations, civil protection, or the military. This will make it easier for you to work together in overcoming incidents and will keep you from tedious, constant, and time-consuming repetition of important terms." (From the book: Leadership. Safe & Secure.)

Continuously enhance your contingency planning by integrating lessons learned and best practices. Regularly update documents and resources to adapt to evolving circumstances. Strengthening relationships with private sector partners and exploring new collaboration opportunities ensures a dynamic and effective contingency planning process.

After action reports and discussions are important for everyone who shares a continuous improvement mindset. Understanding what went right and how it could have been better is the first step in making progress to a standardized emergency response that contains very little error or hiccups.

Como cualquier proceso, se convierte en perfectible, el análisis minucioso de cada detalle, permitirá a la parte administrativa y operativa, documentar los que realmente funciona y lo que se puede convertir en aspecto de mejora, logrando en conjunto en todo momento buscar el cambio y la innovación para en futuras situaciones ser mejor.

With sources often citing that upward of 80% of our critical infrastructure is owned/operated by the private sector, you have really missed the boat if you do not engage them. Unfortunately there are those that would preach public/private sector partnerships and never actually bring them together. Having worked both sides it’s easy to point the finger in each direction and sometimes like pulling teeth to bring the parties together.

The vast majority of goods and services required by a community are provided by private enterprise - not government services. If these are disrupted, the primary role of emergency manager is to get them restored, but in an agreed prioritised order - agreed by the community and the government agencies as part of the EM consultation and partnership. In 2002 in the UK Fuel Crisis, I witnessed the emergency services putting their fuel needs over food supply to the community (including hospitals). Police, Fire and Ambulance saw themselves more important than food for hospitals and the community, electricity supply and water supply companies - absurd!. The potential impact was massive and only not felt due to sufficient fuel getting through.

Private sector organisations may have a mandate to respond or be part of the response plan. They may also have to demonstrate their own resilience plans to national or international accrediting bodies so engagement to an overall plan may be easier than you think.

I would offer that it’s critical to understand the context of what the contingency planning is aiming to achieve. A contingency suggests that the primary plan is about to, or has already failed and so understanding in advance the risks or circumstances that lead to the need for a contingency plan would enhance one’s ability to understand how the private sector can help. Different circumstances will require different aspects of the private sector which will come with varying commercial requirements. It may be necessary to have the commercial heads of terms agreed well in advance of a contingency plan being activated.

Definitely outsource to a more efficient private operation - profit isn't bad, especially if it ultimately saves the Government money through efficiency improvements