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Testing your crisis response is just as important as planning it, and the team at Klaxon did just that when they were invited by Barnett Waddingham to take part in their crisis simulation exercise.

The exercise put our team into a specific scenario closely resembling a real-life experience, to test several key points in our response. These included how effective our response strategies were, how we managed our reputation and communication strategies, decision making and actions recording during the incident, and the roles and responsibilities of the crisis team.

Following some time to familiarise ourselves with the software and rules of the situation, we were then faced with the task of dealing with the incident.

An immersive experience

The simulation was immersive and gave our team a sense of just how stressful dealing with a critical incident could be and gave us a real opportunity to practise how we would respond in the ‘real world’ should a similar incident happen, right down to the evolving nature of the simulation as new updates and announcements were given to us via ‘news’ bulletins as we progressed through the exercise.

Manage multiple channels and departments

Part of our incident response included managing all of the different channels and platforms that messages could be sent and received through and the different teams involved, such as HR, whilst also trying to resolve the incident at hand which was no easy feat at all. Managing worst-case scenarios and speaking to the press, worried employees, and stakeholders our team were able to see just how quickly a situation can get out of hand without the proper management.

The whole simulation exercise was played out over 2 days, whilst the exercise itself lasted around 2 hours, and due to the fast-paced nature of it we felt quite drained and overwhelmed by the end of it!

Excellent post-simulation feedback

After the exercise, we received a full debrief from the team at Barnett Waddingham which went into detail on how our team responded to the event and how we could improve our incident responses for if we should ever have to deal with an emergency incident in real life, but we already feel more prepared for a real-life incident just having done the exercise.

Overall, we really enjoyed taking part in the crisis simulation exercise and feel very privileged to have been asked to take part.

If you think you could benefit from this experience, contact Karla Gahan or Aisling O’Loughlin who will be happy to help. Alternatively, you can visit the Barnett Waddingham site for more details and FAQs.