I did some risk management for our company out-of-town and it took an unsavory turn
Like many teams post-pandemic, we have gone fully remote. We like the productivity and freedom it gives us, but we miss the face-to-face interactions. So we decided to sponsor a meet up every six months. We have done two so far and it has been great. Some brewing interpersonal tensions get quickly ironed-out and the team cohesiveness visibly improves every time we do face-to-face meetups.
Like any project, I like to do some risk management for this event, especially now that we have decided to do it regularly.
The first step is to find out the most common risks in these situations. Here are my top Google results from “company holiday risk register.”
- https://www.heffins.com/news-events/blog/planning-holiday-party-consider-these-7-risk-management-tips
- https://www.circadianrisk.com/resources/blog/10-must-do-steps-to-prepare-your-business-for-holiday-risks
- https://www.travelperk.com/guides/corporate-travel-safety/travel-risk-assessment/
Let’s create a risk breakdown structure from these articles:
Next step is to score our risks by probability and impact, so we know what to focus on. Let’s transfer our risks to a spreadsheet and create a risk register.
I just relied on my own gut feel for the probability and impact scores, so I’ve love to hear your thoughts based on your experience or statistical data. Among these, my biggest concerns are the unacceptable risks: sexual harassment, other forms of violence, and embarrassing photos or videos.
I imagine sexual harassment to be more prevalent than physical violence, and probably more studied, so let’s Google some stats.
Here’s what’s stands out to me.
- 38% of all women said they’ve experienced sexual harassment at work.
- 90% of that harassment came from men.
From this website https://inspiredelearning.com/blog/sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace-statistics/ it says the following are some reasons for quid pro quo sexual harassment:
- A promotion
- Benefits or a favorable work shift
- A raise or payouts
- Easier or fewer job assignments
- Prevent job loss
- Job acceptance
I’m highlighting these because I want to focus on the biggest source of risks. Based on these, the source of harassment are usually those with some authority in the company and usually men.
The next step is to come up with mitigation and contingencies. When it comes to unacceptable risks, we focus on mitigation.
I see two main areas where we can intervene with company policy:
- Sleeping quarters
- Liquor and other drugs (which lower inhibitions)
I used to think that the case of sleeping quarters is a matter of common sense. Yet this does not seem to be the case, especially for the younger ones, used to holidays with friends. Establishing norms in the workplace (vs other environments), I’m realizing, is going to be another challenge in fully-remote settings.
Let’s fill out the rest of our risk register, focusing on the unacceptable risks.
These are my common sense ideas. Tell me if you have suggestions or sources based on studies or expert opinion.
Learning from these statistics, here are some rules we will be enforcing to reduce risks of sexual harassment during team out-of-towns. We trust our teammates, but taking unnecessary low probability but high impact risks is like Russian roulette using a gun with a hundred chambers. At some point, the hammer will hit the bullet.
- Men and women shall not share the same sleeping quarters.
- Team members of different levels of authority, regardless of gender, shall not share the same sleeping quarters.
- Rooms shall be either individual or shared by 3 or more team members.
- No one shall get drunk or use any mind-altering drugs outside of beer, coffee, chocolate and cigarettes during the event. No liquor after the sun sets.
Here are some actions we need to take as a company:
- Include sexual harassment training in the onboarding and perhaps every time we plan an event.
- Establish a process for reporting, investigation and psychological help.
- Explore liability insurance.
- Individual-level risk management: travel plans, gender-specific risks, health, allergies.
This risk management exercise took an unsavory turn, but it is better to think about these things now than see people’s lives and the company getting ruined because we buried our heads in the ground.