As an event planner, your focus is on ensuring that meeting hosts and attendees have a great experience. However, every gathering contains an element of risk. From things like minor accidents or injuries to natural disasters, structural failures, and even acts of violence, you need to be prepared to take action when problems arise.
While you don’t know if, how, or when a meeting or event is going to be disrupted, having a risk management plan in place makes it easier to respond properly. A thoughtfully crafted plan provides many benefits, including:
While creating a risk management plan takes time and effort, it’s an investment that pays off many times over if the plan has to be executed.
The way you implement your event request process will also reduce risk. SeeThe Ultimate Guide to Meeting Room Requests to learn how having a good request process will allow you to gather the information you need to assess risk and keep complete records of event requirements.
Best Practices for Developing Risk Management Plans
Each event is unique. It has its own combination of location, attendees, agenda, weather conditions, and other factors. However, creating a general risk management plan then allows you to quickly modify it for special circumstances as needed.
Follow the six steps below to develop and maintain your risk management plan:
Be sure your plan has the necessary information for executing any actions, like the phone number for the ambulance service in the example above. And, of course, your definition of “high-priority” will vary. You may decide that it makes sense to document actions for 10 or 20 or more items on your list, while those further down will simply be “food for thought.”
Preparation is the Key to Risk Management
As Benjamin Franklin wisely observed, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” A minor injury can become a major headache if you don’t have a first aid kit handy.
On the flip side, a major issue can be taken in stride if you and your team are properly prepared. Crafting a comprehensive risk management plan is an investment in the health and safety of your staff and guests, and in the financial security of your organization.
The way tables and chairs are arranged for your event will have a huge impact on participant engagement, learning and enjoyment. In this article we...
There are many reasons why a scheduled event may have to be canceled or modified. The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us all about that! But issues...
Let's face it, without the calendar modern life as we know it would not exist. Appointments, birthdays and anniversaries would be missed and we would...
Sign up to get the latest posts.
We will update you no more than once per week with the latest news.