Planning meetings and events have always been stressful undertakings, but in the COVID era, this responsibility has been amplified to a new level – that of taking an enormous risk to bring people together, and when.
This era is a time of extremes, and with extremes, security and safety concerns increase and become even more complicated. We’re often faced with questions that we can’t answer. It’s as if we’re putting together a puzzle but missing an enormous amount of pieces. We work to continue to search for the piece we need, while simultaneously attempting to give our full focus to the puzzle as a whole.
In regards to our businesses, the biggest missing puzzle piece – and the most serious risk we can take – is being complacent and not being informed of risk management.
Risk management is a broad field – legal, professional, personal, preparation and preparedness. It involves strong analysis and in-depth assessment of what could occur and what results and precautions could be in place to mitigate a situation. In addition, creating an effective risk management plan requires input from a number of sources:
- How do you legally prepare a contract that is inclusive of all anticipated occurrences?
- What questions are needed to ask for future threats?
- How do you prepare and assess current needs for future results?
- How is safety (which focuses on present risk) aligned with security (which focuses on future possibilities)?
- Where does business resiliency fit into the new normal?
- How can insurance play a part?
To answer all these questions and more, and with help of legal experts Jonathan Howe, Terri Wooden (VP of Marketing and Global Meeting Services) and others, we’ll address the things participants wish to learn and present the most up-to-date information available in my new virtual conference, “Risk Management: Assessment, Procedures, and Protocol” happening this Tuesday, June 2.
Like all of us, I know there is never too much to learn or too little to overlook.
Take a risk, and I look forward to seeing you there.
Dianne