Human factors in business continuity, part three

By Siobhán McGee and Emerald-jane Turner.

This article focuses on the immediate or responsive phase of the human resilience strategy, in other words, the capacity that organisations have to activate and utilise their human factor resources in the wake of a traumatic incident.

This article is the third in a series. To understand the context of this article we advise readers who have not yet read the first two to do so first:

‘It happened everywhere around him, a car half buried in debris, windows smashed and noises coming out, radio voices scratching, at the wreckage. He saw people shedding water as they ran, clothes and bodies drenched from sprinkler systems. There were shoes discarded in the street, handbags and laptops, a man seated on the sidewalk coughing up blood. Paper cups went bouncing oddly by.’
Extract from Falling Man by Don Delillo

‘In the initial stage it’s just confusion and despair. In the immediate period afterwards, if the environment encourages and supports the person, you can avoid the worst of it.’
(Herbert Speigal 1990 interview)

Human factors in the response phase
It is important to remember that any event, which is ‘out of the ordinary’ and causes a threat to life, has the potential to cause ‘traumatic stress’. For example:

* Explosions
* Threats
* Holdups
* Assaults
* Fatalities at work
* Pandemics
* Poisoning
* Natural disasters
* Abuse from public (especially if this occurs regularly on the job)
* Periods of excessive change and/or uncertainty such as mass redundancy programmes.

It is equally important to consider that events which would usually be out of the ordinary or unacceptable for most people such as being assaulted, spat at, can become the norm in some work settings, particularly for staff in public facing roles.

Any movie or fiction depicting a large scale traumatic incident almost always begins with the main protagonist going about their daily life, engaging in normal routines, for example, a naturalistic montage in close up of them getting dressed, making coffee, feeding the cat or kissing their loved ones goodbye etc. Whilst this may be a clichéd approach to creating dramatic tension in a film, in reality the everydayness of our routines is an important aspect of our self-identity. The accounts of people who experienced the July 7th London bombings, often begin with the person recounting their usual morning routine in its mundane detail for example, “it was a quiet morning which is quite as usual for a Tuesday…”

It is vital never to underestimate the shock and disruption that can occur when something out the ordinary happens in our usual workday lives. This ‘rupture’ from the ordinariness of life is often what causes people to question the meaning in their life. This can be a very powerful catalyst, leading them to think ‘life is too short’ and spurring them onto long desired and substantial life changes such as leaving jobs, homes and countries.

This is also why we place such an emphasis on ‘normalisation’ processes in the responsive phase.

We use Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ when thinking about appropriate interventions following an incident for example:

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The risks of ignoring the human factor in trauma recovery
The more that staff have an awareness of the procedures and drill around critical incidents and trauma the more easily they can respond and take action. When major decisions are thought through in advance, people are not pressured to make important decisions which often feel like insurmountable choices during a crisis situation, as trauma affects clarity of thought and cognition, this is important. Drills and clear procedures also give people advance permission to take the necessary actions they may need to protect themselves.

For example, during some workshops with a primary care group of doctors’ surgeries on managing violent and difficult situations, delegates were encouraged to create shared procedures. The fundamental learning from this was clear permission to call the police if a patient was violent or abusive in the surgery and communicated the explicit message that ‘it is not a ‘waste of time’ to protect yourself whilst at work.

In a study of voluntary fire-fighters after a hotel blaze one remarked:

“The fire was like an exercise… when your exercises are realistic, reality becomes indistinguishable from an exercise.”
(Hytten and Hasle 1989)

Although one cannot predict events, if clear basic procedures are in place and practised the window for errors become reduced.

As we discussed in earlier articles, traumatic events can provoke angry responses and a need to blame someone, it is important for organisations to understand that this is a natural process and not make themselves targets due to lack of information and understanding.

Managers can become overwhelmed by demands to keep services running alongside supporting the emotional needs of the staff. If some training and education has been given then there are clearer guidelines and less reliance on their personal styles.

During the most intense period of an incident, we have seen managers stay close by in hotels for several days at a time. This desire to be constantly involved is a natural response and in many ways is a very healthy way of trying to take control in what is often an uncontrollable situation. However, too much time away from home/friends and family at this stage can lead to isolation where an individual may consequently find it very difficult to talk to their family about what they have experienced. Equally the temptation to work all day and night may be very strong for some staff members. Again, wherever possible, we would encourage a rota-based system, which allows crisis managers to get equal amounts of down time so they are actively balancing their nervous system response and reducing the risk of vicarious traumatisation. (See http://www.humanresilience.com/archives/60 for our article on ‘vicarious traumatisation’)

“Over dedication can be a serious risk factor for the individual, in terms both of psychological outcomes and performance errors.”
(Fullerton & Ursano,1994)

We encourage people to be active, however we always suggest that organisations, wherever possible, support staff members to maintain their usual routines: especially spending time at home. This does not mean operating an ‘act as if nothing has happened’ approach, however.

Leadership is vital
Effective leaders facilitate optimum recovery environments. They are responsible for directing and facilitating practical recovery as well as maintaining a vision of unity and team spirit for their staff.

Research into the leadership qualities and strengths following a fatal aircrash where 248 members of the USA elite combat were killed in 1985 were summarised as:

* ‘Grief leadership’(Ingraham 1987) expression of shared grief to emphasise the normality and necessity of grieving.
* Use of social and family support systems to share the pain of loss
* Open communication
* Reserving time for physical exercise, sleep and restorative activities
* Temporary assignment of consultant familiar with organisation for information and reassurance
* Sharing of experiences and feelings with individual social networks.

In the responsive phase you can utilise the systems put in place from the proactive phase and link them to other organisational resources.

Immediate response stage checklist:

* Utilise staff responders with practical matters initially.
* Make sure someone is recording names/phone numbers and details of all those involved.
* You may need to arrange some sort of transportation or petty cash system to ensure people affected can get home.
* Activate telephone lines operated by staff trained in trauma responses.
* Have staff supporters facilitate on-site staff groups for connection and to integrate the social capital of staff who want to help, by setting up special tasks to keep people active.
* Have leaflets/ phone lines available for family support and information.
* Risk assess vulnerable individuals.
* Provide ‘normalisation’ of responses through trained responders and managers.
* Create a supportive ‘recovery environment’.
* Offer support to peripheral departments.

Case study one: fatality at work

Background
This is a multi-national retail organisation whose staff are public facing and who may be exposed to violent assault or attack in the shops. The organisation’s HR team are very proactive and have a record of excellence in their HR processes and care for staff. We have built a supportive and collaborative relationship with the HR team so that when an incident occurs they can contact us and we support them to think through the ripple effect of trauma.

Incident
We were called in because the HR team had been contacted by an area manager to report the death of a staff member in a suspected suicide. Initially our role was to help the HR team to explore the issues and gather information to assess the situation.

The presenting issues:
* Immediate team members and manager were distraught and unable to work.
* There was a desire to close the business unit and this created much anger and distress within the team against the HR team who were trying to support the team to keep the business operational.
* There were discussions about setting up a shrine area.
* The business needed to keep the business unit operational.
* Regular customers and other stakeholders such as staff members from other business operational areas were also affected by the death of the staff member.

Response
* Provision of telephone support to the team manager several times during the first few days to provide ‘normalisation’ and education.
* Support, psycho-education and emotional supervision to the HR team who were dispatched on-site in person to talk to staff and customers.
* Discussed with HR team ways to manage and diffuse the tension between the organisational need to keep the business running as normal and the staff need to acknowledge interruption and loss of normal life.
* Our longer-term response has been to facilitate ‘lessons learned’ discussion and provide follow up training and support to the organization, particularly the HR team involved.

Case study two: a large scale incident

Background
A large transport network in a major European city. The organisation already has a well-established network of staff responders, plus an in-house trauma department with established relationships with managers and outside resources to draw on for backup. We already had an input into supporting services at this organisation preceding the incident and so were familiar with procedures and operations of the organisation.

Incident
A large-scale terrorist incident involving large numbers of people, crime scenes and destruction.

Initial response
* All staff were initially involved in the procedures to rescue the public and assist the emergency services.
* Trained volunteer Staff Responders were activated as a vital part of the communication about staff well being.
* A 24 hour helpline was activated and information fed back to the in-house dept.
* All staff involved were contacted by their manager or volunteer responder to inform of resources and provide reassurance.
* A list of staff involved was compiled by staff responders.
* Communication by email on available help and resources.
* Senior counselling managers were active in communicating with directors and trauma staff.
* Monitoring and support for external and specialist counsellors was provided.
* Managers were contacted. On-site and team post-incident meetings were held by staff and consultants, for normalisation and connection.
* Everyone directly affected was telephoned by a counsellor and seen individually where possible for an assessment and normalisation.
* People were kept informed of what was expected of them and how things were going.

“The very worst fire plan is no plan. The next worse is two plans”
Retired Fire Chief Alan Brunacini, Phoenix, Arizona Fire Department.

Authors: As a psychotherapist and occupational therapist, Siobhán McGee and Emerald-jane Turner, share over 30 years experience working with people and have brought their knowledge of the physiological understanding of trauma into many business sectors and organisational settings including working with financial institutions, fire services personnel and providing support and guidance following 7th July bombings. Siobhán and Emerald-jane work for Human Resilience Ltd. The focus of Human Resilience is to help organisations understand the processes of traumatic stress and create a number of in-house strategies for providing support and emotional first aid to their staff in order to ensure a supportive recovery environment and therefore reduce the need for longer term support such as counselling. http://www.humanresilience.com/

Contact the authors:
siobhan@humanresilience.com +44 (0) 7754 368543
emerald@humanresilience.com + 44 (0) 7930 665554

•Date: 14th March 2008• Region UK/World •Type: Article •Topic: BC general
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