When we think about risk management, we tend to consider business risks – the risk of a catastrophic failure with technology causing the business to fail to provide critical services, or the risk of a competitor encroaching on our best-selling product line with a copycat version.
What we don’t often consider is risk management from the perspective of the individual. How can individuals be better protected or catered for within a business realm? In this article, we explore this less discussed topic in enough detail to bring it into the light.
Risk Management: Illness or Urgent Care Treatment
When an employee suddenly falls ill, going to the emergency ward of a nearby hospital and waiting for many hours to be seen is a poor option. For important members of staff, this doesn’t demonstrate a level of care that they would expect.
Instead, a company can make use of the services from The Urgency Room which provides urgent care to private patients. Their board-certified physicians see people very quickly compared to other healthcare facilities. They can diagnose, run scans and tests, and determine the right course of treatment often before other patients at traditional facilities have been seen.
Risk Management: Mitigating the Risk Inherent in a Few Very Important People
The key person in a business is one or several people who, should they no longer be with the company, represent a financially damaging outcome. Their loss would be highly detrimental to the future of the company. Not only do they take their industry knowledge and experience with them, but they also may go to work with a competitor too.
Certainly, there are things that a company can do to protect itself. Having confidential non-disclosure agreements aims to prevent the sharing of information with competitors. An employment contract may also seek to agree with the employee that they’ll not work in a similar field for a period of time should they leave or be let go from the company.
The company can also take out key person insurance. This places a monetary sum against the loss of an employee when meeting certain terms. It allows the business to recover from the loss of the key individual and survive long enough to find a suitable replacement of a similar caliber.
Risk Management: Protecting Employees Abroad
When employees are required to travel to dangerous parts of the world, some businesses will take out K&R policies on them.
This is a form of insurance that provides negotiators and the ability to agree a payment for the safe return of an employee who has been taken against their will.
The advantage of these kinds of policies is that the people who provide them have experience in this difficult area, allowing them to remove emotion from the equation and solely work towards the safe return of valued members of the team.
There are many ways to address the subject of risk management. For companies, they need to pick and choose between the solutions that make the most sense for the business and the staff in their employ. Also, the solution will likely differ depending on the importance of the employee to the company.
Shift Frequency © 2019 – Risk Management: When It Gets Personal