Health & Safety

Michelle Issing

Hurricane. Terrorist attack. Avian flu outbreak. Staff strike. Missing attendees. Is your heart beating fast yet? Meeting planners today have more worst case scenarios that need to be planned for than in the past. September 11th completely changed our idea of risk management and the Avian flu was not something that meeting planners considered a year ago. This past May, two attendees at a conference in California went missing during a Saturday tour trip. Luckily, that story had a happy ending, but what if it didn’t? You don’t need to have a plan for each and every situation that might arise, but some thought and planning can help reduce your risk and help things run smoothly if a situation arises.

Make a Plan

The first step is to draft a risk management plan, including planning for risks such as natural disasters, accidents, technology situations (ie. power outage) and human-caused risks (ie. speaker is a no-show). Risks specific to the destination, venue, attendees and program should also be included. The plan should outline responses to different situations, the responsibilities of staff members, facility staff and hired security and how media will be managed. Your risk management plan should be reviewed and revised yearly and as new possible risks arise.

How to Minimize Your Risk

The three best tools to minimize your risk are a site inspection, the contract and insurance.

Site Inspection

During your site inspection, it is important to find out what type of emergency plan the venue has – including evacuation plans, what type of training their staff has and the type of emergency equipment that is on site. In the case of a health emergency, find out which staff members have CPR/First Aid training and how they can be quickly identified. To avoid an allergy related emergency, be sure that the food will be labeled on buffets and breaks.

Contracts

All contracts – including those with speakers and performers – should include Force majeure clauses – that is, what will happen should a situation arise that is beyond the control of either party. This should include things such as strikes, wars, threats or acts of terrorism, weather, travel advisories or disease outbreaks. Also include a catch all provision that will cover anything else that was not listed.

Insurance

It is important to understand your commercial general liability coverage for each event. If you are going to have anything held off site, be sure that you are covered if you are temporarily off business premises. Also find out if there are any exclusions in the policy such as physical activities or alcohol use. It may not be worth it for every event to pay for event cancellation insurance, so think each event through carefully to determine what is best for you.

Do you need help with your risk management plan? Contact Designing Events at info@designingevents.com or 866-867-1933.

James Coakes

Many people associate alcohol with relaxation and fun, so it is an important ingredient for a successful event. However, it can be a problem and too much alcohol can cause a great deal of trouble.

Obviously alcohol and outdoor activities do not mix, particularly motorised and shooting events. All insurers insist on a policy of no alcohol at all before or during any events. It is impossible to police a situation where people are allowed ‘one or two’ so usually soft drinks and hot drinks are provided during events. When activities have finished then teams typically head off for a barbecue or meal and then drinks.

Consumption of alcohol can be a problem on events and it is those drinking sessions which continue on into the early hours which are better avoided. If you have exclusive use of a bar area ask the hotel to close it at a sensible time, say 11 p.m. If you don’t have exclusive use then you can ask the hotel to set up a separate area which you can control and say that drinks purchased in other public bars must not be charged to the company account. This way you can also restrict drinks to wine and beer and steer away from spirits. This will encourage delegates to get to bed early and have a good night’s sleep. If having a drink is important in your company culture then have a longer night on a Friday after a conference so that people can make their way home on Saturday morning complete with hangover. To start a conference in a fresh state of mind choose a country house hotel with access to good walking territory and have a team building walk after breakfast. Often teams start a conference after a large breakfast having not left the centrally heated environment of the hotel building; not the best way to get yourself going. You might arrange a light hearted aerobic session before an event; nothing too strenuous, primarily fun but out in the open and designed to get the blood flowing to the brain. Light stretching exercises are an excellent way to start a conference and the fun is ice breaking.

This point made in the majority of organisations will be perceived as a professional approach to a potential problem that most people do recognise. The delegates will thank you for any controls you put in place the next morning.

For more information on team building events visit www.teambuilding.co.uk

James Coakes

The UK has some of the most stringent Health & Safety standards in the World. Most blue chip companies go even further than the prescribed standards to ensure the wellbeing of their employees. Yet the majority of companies employ team building providers without checking on their own policies and procedures. In effect they are handing over the wellbeing of their employees to companies who do not have the same standards as they do and in some cases companies who have no standards at all.

This is not to say that these companies are purposefully dangerous but some team building providers are small or one man bands and lack the resources to have set up and run an acceptable Health & Safety policy on an ongoing basis. In my experience less than 10% of companies so much as enquire about Health & Safety and the vast majority do not even check whether event providers carry adequate insurance. This is a shocking fact and I believe that it is caused by that dangerous adversary of risk management; assumption.

It is very difficult to assess the size and standard of operation of a company from their website. Companies may look like an International operator with hundreds of employees when in fact they are a one man band trading from a spare bedroom. It is essential that those booking events ask for reassurance in the form of copies of insurance cover documents, a written Health & Safety policy and Risk Assessments of each of the activities being undertaken. This is a simple process; documents need to be seen and dates need to be checked to ensure that they are current.

Every activity provided by an event company should have a unique Risk Assessment. In some cases there is clearly no risk at all, but still the procedure should be undertaken. In such cases the Risk Assessment will read ‘this activity has been assessed and classified as low risk’ with the name of whoever undertook the Risk Assessment. Companies should have a designated Health & Safety Officer who has undergone training and is sufficiently experienced to know how to recognize potential risks.

The key document to consider in this process is the Risk Assessment. This supports the investigation of the activity by the provider. A Risk Assessment ensures that potential dangers have been considered and steps taken to minimize the risk. Activities are then classified as low, medium and high risk. You may decide to avoid high risk activities on your event. Risk Assessments are living documents, in that an activity provider should update it along with lessons learned as they practice.

If you are choosing medium or high risk activities it would be prudent to ask how many times the activity company has provided these activities before. You may wish to avoid undertaking a high risk activity run by a company who was providing it for the first time.

The corporate event industry is divided into companies operating on static sites and companies with a mobile operation who travel to venues. In most cases the event will be held in a field, often close to the hotel at which a client is staying. It is essential that any company providing such events visits the site before hand to assess the land. It is not enough to use a map as there can be trees in dangerous locations, particularly for motorized vehicles such as quad bikes or dune buggies, or holes in the land which make it dangerous for activities. In some cases land can be contaminated with dangerous scrap metal or broken glass.

If an event is water based the water should have recently been tested. In water parks or regularly used locations this is likely to be a regular undertaking, but in some cases a pond or waterhole will be used for bridge building or raft racing. This should be tested for bacteria or other dangerous deposits. It’s a risk to simply use an area of water without considering this.

There are many other areas that a sound Health & Safety procedure will cover. It takes time and effort to set one up and it needs to be maintained and updated on an ongoing basis. All event management companies should have one in place and they will only improve if more clients demand to see them.