Safety and Security Management Fundamental Concepts Joel McNamara

What is Safety & Security Management? A program that uses procedures and actions to prevent or reduce the chances of experiencing harm or loss.

Personal Safety & Security Management What do you do on a daily basis that prevents or reduces the chances of you and your family suffering harm or loss? Through experience and education, you have developed your own safety and security management program for dealing with day-to-day activities. Wearing seat belts - Driving defensively - Avoiding spoiled food - Locking your residence door when you leave - Staying away from bad neighborhoods

Organizational Safety & Security Management Primary goal: To support XXXXXX programs! Always ask what kind of an impact safety and security measures have on your programs, the people you serve, and your staff.

Safety & Security Management Program Goals Clearly define safety and security roles and responsibilities. Identify factors that increase risk and ways to reduce risk. Develop written safety and security policies and procedures. Train staff and encourage them to adopt safe and secure practices. Plan ahead in case something bad happens.

1. Roles & Responsibilities Who is responsible for what aspects of safety and security? Are all staff aware of safety and security roles and responsibilities (and lines of authorities)? Despite job titles, everyone is responsible for safety and security. Ask students to list who performs safety and security duties – not only within the office, but at the regional and headquarters levels

Safety & Security Focal Person National staff, point person for safety and security issues. Monitors current events. Reviews policies and procedures. Performs assessments. Provides feedback to senior management on safety and security issues.

Safety & Security Committees Effective safety and security planning is a team effort. You should consider forming a small working group or committee that meets regularly to discuss country or office safety and security issues. The committee should have representatives from management and staff. Just remember that while teamwork is important, there should be a single, final decision-making authority on the team. 

Benefits of a Team Approach Each person has a unique set of experiences, knowledge and training that can contribute to the overall goal of reducing risk. Involving several people in a process promotes different ideas and approaches to solving problems. Collaborative efforts tend to have greater staff acceptance. Dealing with safety and security issues carries a lot of responsibility; involving several people reduces the amount of stress on a single person.

Working with Other Humanitarian Organizations Formal or informal cooperation on safety and security issues. Build relationships with staff in other organizations to share general information about threats and specific safety and security measures you are using to reduce risk.  Check if organizations in your area are sharing information and collaborating on safety and security issues. If they are, get involved. If they are not, take the lead in getting others involved in a cooperative effort. All too often, we tend to only look within our organizations for solutions to safety and security issues. We forget that other humanitarian organizations may be facing some of the same challenges that we are, and actually may have developed effective ways to deal with shared threats, vulnerabilities and risks. This can be as simple as getting together for lunch or coffee every few weeks or exchanging email addresses and sharing safety and security-related information to attending security briefings or security coordination meetings

Crisis Management Teams Senior management team that convenes during critical incidents. Twice a year (minimum) training sessions. Important considerations Maintaining day-to-day operations Capacity Supporting policies and procedures

2. Identifying and Dealing with Risk Threat and vulnerability analysis and assessments. Mitigation and response measures (documented in your policies and procedures). We’ll talk about specifics in other course modules

3. Policies & Procedures Policies: high-level, overall plans and goals. Procedures: steps and actions that accomplish the goal of a policy (sometimes called SOPs for Standard Operating Procedures). Written and typically included in an operations manual or safety and security plan.

Why Policies & Procedures? All staff will be working from the same established set of rules and guidelines. Written policies and procedures (especially response plans) can be referred to during emergencies to help make decisions. Written safety and security policies and procedures provide an outline for creating staff training.

Compliance Successful safety and security management depends on compliance. That means staff understands safety and security issues and follows policies and procedures.

Encouraging Compliance Management and influential staff members need to set an example by following safety and security policies and procedures themselves (for example, always wearing seat belts). The reasons behind policies and procedures should be explained and not treated as simply rules to be followed. Because safety and security is important, supervisors might consider adding objectives that relate to safety and security to performance reviews and evaluations.

Encouraging Compliance What are some other ways of encouraging staff compliance of safety and security policies and procedures?

Policy & Procedure Review Standard operating procedures should be reviewed at least every six months to ensure they are still appropriate for the threats they address. Policies and procedures should be reviewed or revised if: New threats appear Existing threats become different The program experiences significant change of staff A safety or security incident identifies a need for change

Remember You can have the best policies and procedures in the world, but if no one follows them they are worthless.  

4. Training Gets staff members to think about safety and security issues. Enhances overall office safety and security. Prevents or minimizes potential incidents. Training should not be a one-time event. Recurring training sessions are essential to reinforce knowledge and give staff members the opportunity to practice skills. Numerous studies have shown that even thinking about an emergency situation ahead of time better prepares a person to handle it.

5. Planning The process of determining how to carry out a course of action. Anticipating future problems. Understanding their potential impact. Establishing policies and procedures. Allocating resources.

Resistance to Safety & Security Management Practices Safety and security only applies to conflict areas. There has been no trouble or problems in the past. Risk is unavoidable, and part of the business. Safety and security management costs too much time and money (or interferes with programs). Cultural aversion. Ask students if these are valid reasons. Think about the above reasons and whether you agree with them, then ask yourself these questions. Do safety and security issues involving crime, fire, and accidents exist in non-conflict areas? Does the past necessarily predict what will happen in the future? Can risk be reduced by identifying threats and vulnerabilities and then developing appropriate measures? Do implementing simple and effective safety and security procedures such as always wearing seatbelts cost a lot of time and money? Will safety and security measures get in the way of people doing their jobs, if the ultimate goal of safety and security management is to support programming efforts?

Handling Resistance How would you deal with staff resistance to a safety or security policy?

Making Good Decisions 1. What problem does the measure solve? – Sometimes it is easy to come up with proposed solutions that appear to address a problem but actually do not. 2. How well does the measure solve the problem? – Make sure a safety and security measure really solves a problem and is not just a token gesture. 3. How will you know the measure has been effective? - What can you see or measure that will indicate the measure has solved the problem?

Making Good Decisions 4. What other problems might the measure cause? – Sometimes safety and security measures can cause new problems (both big and little). You should always try to identify any new potential problems that may result from an implemented measure. 5. What are the economic and social costs of the measure? – How much will the measure cost, both in terms of money and impact to staff and operations.

Questions? More information at: http://ngosecurity.googlepages.com/