Training and exercising of crisis communication plans is at an all-time high, according to the Business Continuity Institute’s Emergency Communications Report 2024. The BCI report sponsored by F24 suggested that nearly 80 per cent are reporting training takes place once a year or more, with 75pc saying plans are exercised once a year or more.
In a foreword, Rachael Elliott, Head of Thought Leadership at the BCI, wrote that technology is advancing at a rapid rate. Use of desktop computers and laptops in crises is waning, and smartphones – with their increased functionality and processing power – are, ‘in many situations, entirely replacing the need to use a computer’. With this shift in use, organisations are continuing to move away from desktop installed software and towards software-as-a-service (SaaS). They may use their incumbent software such as Microsoft Teams; or free messaging tools.
Mobile phones and computers are by far the most common devices used to manage emergency communications; well behind are walkie-talkie radios (though they’re of use where no WiFi or cellular network is available), desk phones and public address (PA) loudspeakers. Pagers, while still found in healthcare and emergency services, due to their durability and reliability, are as a type of tool ‘on the verge of becoming obsolete’.
As for why a crisis plan is activated, the survey of BCI members found that adverse or severe weather events have become the top reason; then comes IT or telecoms outage, and a cyber incident or data breach.
If a crisis plan is activated, any failure may well be not due to the tech, but ‘human factors’ – the people; a lack of response from recipients was the cause of nearly two-thirds (62.3pc) of failures, lack of accurate staff contact information for 41pc, and a lack of understanding about what to do in an emergency at over a third (35.8pc). Elliott wrote: “Each of these are issues which can be lessened – or even fully resolved – by increased training and exercising.”
As emergency communications solutions rely ever more on network availability, BC people are becoming more aware of this as a key vulnerability of platforms. This is, the report adds, particularly relevant given the grandfathering of PSTN (analogue copper) networks, set for around 2035 globally, and December 2025 in the UK (Singapore has already switched off). Since the pandemic, if workplaces have solidified remote working practices as the norm, that’s prompted a reevaluation and remodelling of emergency and crisis communications strategies to align with the demands of decentralised work, according to the report.
One-way communications devices still have their place, the report suggests, particularly on sites where manual workers do not have access to a mobile phone during working hours, or university campuses where it can be hard to get information in front of students. The report did raise the possibility that where sites rely on voice-over-IP for comms, in the case of an internet outage, you may be left without a means of communicating, ‘unless contingency plans are in place’.
How to read more
You can download the document from the BCI website; you have to register with email – you don’t have to be a BCI member.
