The roles of security, risk and business continuity management professionals have significantly evolved over the past 10 years, driven by major technological innovations, workforce globalization, increasing legal liability and regulatory actions. While technological changes can be challenging to source, procure and deploy, one such innovation – mobile computing – offers organizations a real opportunity to engage employees in ways like never before. Mobile technology allows security professionals to offer a safer workplace, eclipsing diverse cultures, geographies and governmental guidelines.
While an important step, it’s not enough for organizations to write a business continuity plan to navigate a crisis without factoring in the safety of the employees. Duty of care expectations have grown for organizations – largely due to increased legal liabilities, investor expectations, rising insurance costs and non-compliance penalties from government entities. Enterprise security executives must address the care for their constituents through a strong education and training practice. The frequency and types of potential disasters, large and small, that security and risk managers are facing, combined with the array of tech changes, have underscored the importance of changing the way responses to a situation are handled. This means going beyond a reliance on a hand-picked crisis team to empowering and engaging constituents across the organization with actionable resources.