How we can face violent protest?

On the 1st of May 2015, I was in Milan in my office for a long day. We have to face with my team a special event in the streets of Milan.

Violent protest is coming – How we can prevent damage for your assets and your employees?
A black bloc protested for the opening of the universal exposition Expo 2015 in Milan. A black bloc is a tactic used by protesters who wear black clothing, ski masks, scarves, sunglasses, motorcycle helmets with padding, or other face-concealing… 

This day according to the police 500 black blocs were present in the street of Milan.

No one has the perfect plan for this kind of event. The objective was to put in place a process and emergency response plan who can reduce the possible damage on assets and potentially on the team.

Please find below some elements for you, we used.

Phase 1- Be prepared

– Information is the key – Know the actors and Allies.
– When did the protest happen? What time did it happen? Where did it happen? Is it a Static protest or there is a course? Do we know the road they will use? How many people are waiting for the protest?
– Connect with the local police and special police and stay in touch for more information.

Phase 2- Analyse the risk and create an action plan

– Analyze the risk – Where are your assets and employees?
– Active and passive protection. If you can add or reinforce it’s good to do it
– Make a plan explicit for everyone. What to do in case of a problem?
– Communicate internally to staff to reinsure that we are on it and advise in case of a problem.
– Remind all emergency contingency plans. 
– Be sure they have all important and updated phone numbers.
– Alert plan – If intrusion or destruction or people injured.
– Security internal and external in position on-site and ready to intervene
– Maintenance team is on stand-by.
– Meeting with Commercial operation team and logistics to reduce the number of orders, goods.

-Because impact possible on the sale turnover.
-Important to use the layout of your assets and locations.
-Maps of the city on the wall and on a computer with the position of all the players and resources.

Hope for the best plan for the worst

Phase 3- The Crisis started.

-Crisis Room opens early in the morning to be sure all is ok. 
Important to inform all the participants of the opening of the crisis room and remind the emergency number.
-Communication to Operation and Comex (WhatsApp or others special canal)
-Youtube is always a source to provide information. For this event, we were able to follow some actions from YouTube directly from some Local TV with some protests. In situations such as this could be provided to be very useful.
-Stay in touch with the local police and authorities.
-Open the TV Chanel and follow the news + your own internal information channel.
-Message to everybody that the alert is finished.

Phase 4.- Feedback

The feedback is clearly the key point to do after a crisis to debrief the team internal and external and to see if we need to make some changes, bring more resources, and others.
For us no damage to the stores and no people injured. A normal day at the office

Don’t waste any more time, we can help you.
Contact us now info@beeready4.com

Published by Pascal Quemeneur