Communicating The Contingency Plan To The Relevant Stakeholders

Risk communication is defined as any two-way communication between stakeholders about the existence, nature, form, severity, or acceptability of risks. It is vitally important to understand the basic concepts of risk communication and to ensure that communication among stakeholders is integral to the risk management process.

Inherent in risk management decisions are uncertainties and value assumptions about the nature and significance of the risk. Stakeholders may bring information and perspectives to the table that are critical to the decision process. Ongoing exchange of information and ideas between risk managers and stakeholders is fundamental to the overall risk management process. It is critical to building trust in the decision process and therefore ensuring a successful outcome. Experience increasingly shows that decisions made with the involvement of interested and affected parties are more effective and more durable.

The risks associated with ineffective risk communication include irreplaceable loss of management credibility, unnecessary and costly conflicts, diversion of management attention from important problems to less important problems, non-supportive and critical employees, and unnecessary human suffering due to high levels of anxiety and fear.

Risk communication among stakeholders is deemed integral to all stages of the risk management process. Communicating well has benefits for good risk management.

During the Initiation step, the risk communication tasks include identifying stakeholders and assessing stakeholder perspectives on the risk issue for the purpose of defining the scope of the issue to be addressed. Stakeholders include groups that are affected or potentially affected by the risk, risk managers, and groups that will be affected by any efforts to manage the source of the risk. Stakeholders may include the decision-maker(s), community groups, local governments, public health agencies, businesses, labour unions, the media, individuals and groups, environmental advice organisations, and provincial and national government agencies.