Frontline
Resilient organisations begin with people. Organisations have a duty
C By Lance Krowitz, Director, Risk 2 Solution South Africa (Pty) Ltd; and Dr Gavriel Schneider, CEO Risk 2 Solution Group
30 | Australian Security Magazine
yber security. Admission controls. Biometric security. Security guards and barricades. Electronic counterespionage measures. Large organisations do all these things as a matter of course. Despite this, they accept that risk is something that can only be minimised – it’s impossible to completely prevent. But all these measures (and more) are largely futile when you consider that the weakest point of vulnerability is your most valuable asset: your people. Employers and shareholders like Return on Investment (ROI) and rightly so. Human Resources people are tasked with developing their workforce in a manner that helps the organisation acquire new and vital skills. There are financial incentives too, often sponsored by the taxpayer to incentivise corporates to up-skill their people. These programmes centre on business skills, leadership, IT skills, Compliance, Occupational Health and Safety and similar training. But here’s the thing: we forget that those same people spend a large chunk of their non-working lives outside of our organisation, be it in the real world or the virtual one. From a
purely selfish perspective, they’re outside of the organisation’s ability to protect itself should they venture into dangerous territory in either of those dimensions. It’s a VUCA world after all... What is VUCA? Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous. It’s an old description of the world that’s become repurposed to describe how crazy our environment has become (and continues to get) as we become more and more interconnected. And in the midst of all this our people are travelling long distances to and from work in any number of modes of transport. They walk down the block at lunchtime with their faces glued to the screen of the latest/ shiniest/newest/most powerful smartphone. They stop at traffic lights and take the opportunity to read that last text message that just got delivered. Is it any surprise we’re such soft targets? Any impact on that person is an impact on the organisation and there are any number of possible permutations. Employees suffer from flat tyres, muggings, carjacking, physical injuries, phishing scams, hacking of