The establishment of a 24 Hour Global Helpline is a proven method of responding to incidents in a timely manner. In the event of an incident anywhere in world, company employees can call the 24 hour Global Helpline. At the end of that phone line will be someone who will always pick up regardless of what Public Holiday it is or what time of night it might be.

The Crisis Manager who answers the 24 Hour Global Helpline phone might well have to deal with an employee that has been involved in a car accident, has been attacked, robbed, an attempt made to kidnap them or they are trapped in rubble following a major earthquake or landslide. Our Crisis Managers have considerable experience of managing crises and incidents themselves and BSG can provide a robust set of plans and policies to put into action in the event of a crisis phone call.

The Crisis Manager must be in a position to give immediate potentially lifesaving advice and guidance to the caller. They must be able to gather advice against information capture checklists in order to prepare a brief so that the correct chain of management can be informed of what is going on where, and the decision makers have been given all the information they need to make a timely decision. BSG can provide this capability.

A 24 hour Helpline is also of huge importance to line managers. Whilst it cannot be considered a replacement for good management skills in terms of remaining responsible and accountable for staff, it gives managers confidence knowing that in the event of an incident there is always someone qualified at the end of the phone to help them regardless of where they are in the world and what time it is.

A Global Helpline gives employee’s confidence that their employer is looking out for them. In return the company has another cost effective asset that can resolve domestic and international incidents as quickly as possible, preserving life, assets and corporate reputation.

BSG can:

• Provide the support needed to set up a 24 Hour Global Helpline and then staff it in a very short space of time/ immediately if required.
• Create a requirements document identifying the capabilities that the 24 Hour Global Helpline is to have and work with existing company security management to define a capability statement for the Global Helpline.
• Set the conditions prior to launching the Global Helpline by first putting in place plans and policies to support staff in a crisis situation both domestically and internationally. This would include creating contact trees and data capture forms for the Crisis Manager manning the helpline.
• Create and support the distribution of multi-lingual wallet cards with the 24 Hour Global Helpline number (and other information) on it to all company employees.

BSG has provided bespoke training to thousands of staff in both the private and government sector. By far the most common question its instructors are presented with from managers attending the training is "What should I do if...."

What comes after the "if" has been a myriad or scenarios from workplace violence to kidnapping of a team member when on a short trip to Pakistan. The question is either posed in the first person or more often, posed to ask what to do as a manager in such situations. Line Managers have their own responsibilities and duty of care to their team members, particularly when travelling overseas and time and again BSG has seen concerns raised by managers that have gone unaddressed in their own organizations, not through anyone not doing their job, but through an absence of any such person existing in a position altogether.

There is only so much an instructor can pass on in the limited time that training is so often allocated. The first response from BSG typically enquires as to whether the organization has a Global Security Manager or Crisis Helpline to call and if they do then does every member of staff have the number on their cell phones and on a card in their wallet or purse? We have even found organizations with Crisis Helplines in place but the staff deploying to a hostile environment were not even aware of it.

If an organization does have plans and policies in place it is unfortunately often the case that they are in a series of lever arch folders somewhere collecting dust rather than being maintained and distributed to departmental heads and delivered through workshops and pre-deployment training packages. This is rarely the ‘fault’ of an individual, more that the responsibility maintaining such plans and policies, delivering the training and empowering confidence in managers to take on their own security management has never been allocated to an individual; no-where in any employees scope of work does it state that those roles listed above are to be fulfilled. This is where a BSG Global Security Officer can be placed into the Corporation or Company Headquarters and drive security strategy forwards for as long as it takes or for a pre-determined length of time.

A BSG Global Security Officer can, if required, author a series of security management plans and policies that would apply across the Corporation and would reflect the current intelligence driven threats in the particular operating environment that department was in. It would provide management at all levels with the confidence to manage a situation or incident within their own departments or divisions from a case of workplace violence as a result of a dismissal through to the kidnapping of a staff member in a hostile environment or developing country. Security management plans and policies are complimented with education of staff; workshops and training sessions to empower managers and staff to be able to identify risks themselves, quantify those risks and their potential impacts but most importantly how to mitigate and manage those risks themselves.

Whilst these plans and policies would bring standardization across the Corporation or Company, they would be bespoke to each division or part of the organization in terms of addressing the likely threats posed in that particular country office and explore such matters as the kind of response that could be expected from local security forces in that country, as well as providing individually tailored plans to ensure the safety and security of staff and their families.

Whilst keeping a crisis response team on a retainer may appear to some organizations an expensive overhead, it is, under the right circumstances, extremely good value for money.

The cost of sending unprepared personnel into challenging environments can be catastrophic for a company if something goes wrong, not only terms of loss of life and assets, but also loss of reputation and damage to a hard earned and successful brand.

BSG has successfully provided response teams to react to a variety of issues that our clients have come to us to solve for them. The crucial factor was that BSG had worked closely with the client to ensure they were not only content with the response team members themselves, but the client could see that the team was organized, on an agreed notice to deploy, visas and immigration paperwork was in place, a 24/7 travel booking system was ready to facilitate transport arrangements and the BSG senior management were on the end of a phone 24/7 for the duration of the coverage.

We understand that maintaining a response team on retainer is expensive and can stress operational costs. Before forming the team, we will sit with our client and examine the situation in detail, carrying out table top scenarios to 'score' the necessity of a response team on retainer. We will never suggest a response team on retainer if we honestly do not feel one is necessary. If one is recommended then we will assist you in defining the requirements of the team and subsequently form it from our pool of experienced consultants. We will guide the client through the process and inform them of every step we are taking so that not only does the client understand the capability and ‘trigger’ system in place for their response team, but they truly see what they are getting for their investment.

• Business Risk Management
• Risk Management Plans and Policies
• Six Week Security Management Plan
• Operational Support
• Crisis Response and Management
• Executive Accompaniment
• Project Through-Life Solutions
• Training and Education