travel planning & safety

  • Abduction - A Global Threat

     

    Kidnapping and Abduction is a Reality

    Companies that operate in severe and high threat countries have a growing concern for the safety of their employees. Beyond indiscriminate crime and random acts of violence, employees are at risk of being abducted or kidnapped for ransom. This type of extortion is a multibillion-dollar business with 30 countries on the Global Abduction Hotspot list.

    Although a large number of abductions are politically motivated, the global economic crisis has amplified kidnapping for ransom. Several hotspot countries have reported a recent decrease in abductions and kidnappings, however, it is estimated that 60-70% of abductions are now unreported due to an increase in government and law enforcement corruption. Additionally, countries with rapidly deteriorating economies have a significant increase in Virtual Kidnappings.
     

    Kidnap for Ransom

    Is Kidnapping and Ransom (K&R) insurance sufficient protection for your employees? K&R Insurance does not pay ransom for the return of the abductees; companies must seek reimbursement under the terms of the policy after the ransom has been paid. Therefore, K&R Insurance protects a company’s financial liability but not the individual employee from being abducted. Ironically, some kidnappers target companies that have K&R insurance increasing their chance of payment.
     
    Many companies that operate in high threat countries are providing their employees with Abduction Management training. By providing their employees with the skills and knowledge to indentify threats and take appropriate action significantly decreases the risk of random violence, abduction and other forms of extortion. Additionally, the employees are invested in their own personal security on and off work and extend this security to their families.
     

    Abduction Management and Travel Safety Training

    SBS Training Solutions’ Abduction Management program is customized to your company’s area/s of operations. This specialized instruction and practical exercises focus on abduction prevention as well as abduction survival and escape. 
     
    For more information, please visit our Custom Training Programs and our Standardized Programs. Or contact us and we will be happy to review your training needs.
     

  • Corporate Preparedness and Proactive Leadership

     

    Proactive Leadership Prepares Employees for Emergencies

    Natural Disasters, Active Shooters, Abductions, Emergency Trauma; is it possible to be prepared for everything and to what level should companies ensure their employees are prepared? Planning, policies and procedures are a great step in the right directions, but training takes your employees to higher level of survivability. Employees are a company’s most valuable assets and being active in their emergency preparation demonstrates sincere concern for your employees as people.
     
    The key element is to understand that preparedness is not a one-size-fits-all solution. While plans and checklists can prepare employees procedurally and logistically, training dramatically increases the survival rate and takes preparedness to a new level. Much like a Fire Plan and Procedure, the Fire Drill provides the actual training needed ensure employee survival. Training provides your employees with skills, knowledge and practical exercises that can be applied to their individual work and personal situations.
     

    Preparedness Training

    Abduction Management, Active Shooter Response and Personal Security Awareness are not your typical corporate training courses; however, more and more companies are providing their employees with this type of preparedness training. Not all employees have the same level of risk and threats, so training programs that are customized to your company’s risk factors and threats are imperative to ensure the desired end state. Abduction Management is more prevalent for companies operating in high risk foreign countries; Active Shooter and Personal Security Awareness are in high demand for most metropolitan based companies.
     

    Corporate Leadership and Threat Analysis

    Corporate Leadership and upper management often find it hard to conduct a proper analysis of the risks and threats to the company and its employees. SBS Training Solutions provides a third party outside view with actionable recommendations and solutions. Our consultants and instructors have diverse backgrounds ranging from special operations to federal law enforcement. SBS Training Solutions ensure your company receives relevant and economical solutions that prepare and protect your employees.
     
    For more information, please visit our Custom Training Programs and our Standardized Programs. Or contact us and we will be happy to review your training needs.
     

  • Corporate Training - Protecting Your Employees

     

    Enhance Operational Efficiency and Reduce Liability

    Corporate training can enhance operational efficiency while reducing liability and lowering attrition rates; this benefits the company and its employees. Most companies protect their employees from sexual harassment and discrimination; but what steps are taken to protect employees from active shooters, abductions/kidnapping, and life threatening injuries?

    Employees are a company’s most value assets and with violent crimes reaching all time highs, many companies are providing training that enhances security of their employees both at work and at home. Providing training that gives employees the skills and knowledge to mitigate risk and increase survival is a positive, sincere way to demonstrate employee value. This type of training increases retention as employees are more like to stay with a company that cares about them as people and cares about their well being.


    Grateful Employees Thank Senior Management

    At a recent graduation of an Abduction Management course taught by SBS Training Solutions, I witnessed a rare heartfelt thank you from the employees. The class was comprised of employees who work in a high risk area and designated a classmate to speak on their behalf. Although she thanked the Instructors, her focus was to thank their company’s Senior Vice President of Security who had arranged the training. The entire class was extremely grateful that their company and senior management care enough about the employees as people to provide this type of training. Training that could save their lives on and off work; training the employees incorporate into their daily lives and the lives of their families.
     

    Employee Security Culture

    Employees are often disengaged regarding the actual execution of company security. Although they might follow all security policies and procedures, a security mindset and awareness is often lacking. The training that SBS Training Solutions provides engages employees in both company security and their own individual security. SBS’s training provides employees with demonstrated skills and knowledge that increases their security awareness, their ability to identify threats and prevent incidents, and their ability to survive adverse situations.
     
    For more information, please visit our Custom Training Programs and our Standardized Programs. Or contact us and we will be happy to review your training needs.
     

  • Is Your Business Prepared for an Active Shooter Incident?

    Imagine this scenario:

    Someone walks into your business and just starts randomly shooting …

    IS YOUR BUSINESS PREPARED FOR AN ACTIVE SHOOTER ATTACK?

     

    More to the point:

    • Do you have policies and procedures to address this event/situation?
    • Do your employees know how to react?
    • Would your employees know how to help protect others around them, including offering lifesaving first-aid techniques?

     

    The vast majority of active shooter incidents were predicted by employees! People who conduct mass shootings do not do so on a whim, there are many things that lead up to the event which many people witness but do not say anything. Furthermore, when employees do say something, companies seldom take any action in fear of liability issues.

     

    Depending on your location, you should have policies, procedures and plans in place to address a wide variety of situations to include natural disasters as well as man-made calamities such as an active shooter event. Having plans are only effective if they can be executed, therefore all plans should be exercised, refined and re-run on a scheduled basis. That said, many active shooter incidents are initiated by former employees who may be familiar with the established procedures, therefore it is important that plans are updated, changed and kept “fresh”.

     

    The best defense against an active shooter is preparation, security measures and most important of all is early warning which comes from the employees who first recognize the situation.

     

    Law enforcement will inevitably arrive at some point, your employees need to understand how to react to their presence and if possible, assist through providing usable information (description of the shooter, last known location, etc.).

     

    Basic first aid training can and does save lives; having this training for all employees is exceptionally important as is having well placed first aid supplies.

     

    Simply put, it’s your employees, the ones already present in the workplace, who are the first to witness the event and unfortunately become victims, however through training and preparation they can also become survivors.

     

    THE GREATEST CONTRIBUTOR TO CHAOS AND LOSS OF LIFE IS A LACK OF PREPARATION

    Most schools and event planners now conduct ongoing training and drills to prepare children and/or staff in the event an armed intruder enters the premises. Companies should also train their employees for the same unexpected scenario.

     

    Failure to recognize the inherit cost of an employee being injured or killed during an active shooter incident while working for the company can quickly become a legal, financial and publicity nightmare. Proactive preemptive actions can mitigate some of these issues but more importantly can in many cases thwart an active shooter incident.

     

    Your company may already be required to have an Emergency Action Plan. However, many legal experts agree your plan needs to include a section on how to handle active shooter situations. Depending on your location and industry, there may be various local and state laws along with government agencies that require companies to take all possible actions to develop and maintain a safe work place; this may (should) include training related to an active shooter scenario.

     

    When a company takes proactive measures to inform and educate their employees of potential risks, including training them to help mitigate an active shooter incident, the safer and better the employees feel. In fact, it has been proven that a comprehensive program can dissuade an individual from initiating an event because they feel their efforts will be stopped before accomplishing whatever twisted goal they have.

     

    Active Shooter Preparation SBSTrains com

     

    The Case for Ongoing Active Shooter Training

    Active shooter incidents are an unfortunate reality that every workplace must face and must be prepared. Active shooter situations are unpredictable and evolve quickly, and proper training is the only way to prepare your employees for a shooting scenario.

     

    For training to be effective, it is vitally important to provide your employees with the information and on-going training they need to help prevent and prepare for a potential active shooter event.

     

    Research shows that on average, employees forget 65% of training material within a week; 6 months later, that number increases to 90%.Employees are far more likely to retain valuable information that is consistently reinforced through repetitive use and ongoing training.

     

    The need for continued training and retraining also addresses an organization’s personnel turn over cycle and the fact that new employees may not have experienced active shooter incident training conducted a few months (or longer) before they were hired.

     

    If you want to learn more about Active Shooter Incident Training Programs and how to help protect your company and your employees, use this link to contact us at SBS Training Solutions.

     
    For more information, please visit our Custom Training Programs and our Standardized Programs. Or contact us and we will be happy to review your training needs.
     

  • Standard of Care Rising

     

    Standard of Care Rising For Employees in Threat-Elevated Areas

     
    Corporations that have employees who work in threat-elevated areas must provide those employees with proper training and briefings before sending them into harm's way. For employees working within threat-elevated areas, such as along the U.S.-Mexico border or overseas, the bar for the standard of care is rising, and the concepts of adequate kidnap and ransom insurance is rapidly changing.
     
    Corporations that are slow to respond may find themselves in high-profile lawsuits with legal demands that penetrate the insurance layers of the primary employer's liability limits and their umbrella policies, assuming they are fortunate enough to have this type of coverage. Proactive companies will find themselves in a much better position to defend against suits, both in the legal courts and the courts of public opinion.
     
    In the United States, if an employer fails to provide employees with ongoing briefings and training to help avoid or deal with these types of threats, there is a significant opportunity for the plaintiff to claim negligence on the part of the employer. Under normal circumstances, employees involved in an auto accident or carjacking during the usual commute to and from their place of work (from their primary residence) would not be able to make a worker's compensation claim successfully. This is because driving to and from the place of primary employment is not considered to be within the course and scope of employment." Yet those who find themselves attacked on the way to work in a threat-elevated area probably would have a cause of action against the employer, especially if the employee were assigned to the area and given little or no information regarding the elevated threat within the area. Individual cases would determine the viability of the various workers compensation coverages (or other liability coverages) depending upon the actual coverage and policy language.
     
     

    Flavia Wagner v. Samaritan's Purse

    While no company can guarantee 100% protection for its employees in every situation, all companies have the legal and moral obligation to take reasonable steps to provide as safe a working environment as possible for their employees, regardless of the location or conditions.
     
    Ignoring these obligations can be hazardous to your employee's health and to your bottom line. This is especially true when it comes to education and training programs that deal with issues such as threat awareness, surveillance detection, anti-kidnapping techniques, and hostage survival skills.
     
    For example, a former U.S. aid worker who was kidnapped in the Sudan filed a lawsuit in a Manhattan court May 2011 against the Rev. Franklin Graham's Christian nonprofit organization, Samaritan's Purse. Flavia Wagner, 36, was kidnapped soon after her arrival on May 18, 2010, in the war-torn region of Southern Sudan and was held for 105 days before being released.
     
    As detailed within her lawsuit, she was subjected to appalling physical and emotional abuse, death threats, and long-term solitary confinement. Ms. Wagner accused Samaritan's Purse of failing to adequately inform her of the threat, failing to properly train her, and of willfully ignoring the warning signs that kidnappings were a threat to foreigners within the Abu Ajura region. Furthermore, Ms. Wagner alleged that not only was Samaritan's Purse reckless in sending her to that location without proper information and training, they delayed paying her ransom solely to save money. The lawsuit states: "While Samaritan's Purse possessed the resources to extricate plaintiff from her captivity quickly, it instead embarked on a plan designed to protect its own financial and political interest."
     
    The lawsuit claims the delay in the ransom payment caused her greater suffering than if the ransom had been paid earlier and with less regard for economics than for her safety. Ms. Wagner's lawsuit not only names Samaritan's Purse, but also includes the negotiation group, Clayton Consultants Inc. This lawsuit is an example of changes affecting corporations and the potential problems arising when employees are working in threat-elevated locations.
     
    Ms. Wagner settled out of court with Samaritan's Purse on March 30, 2012, and within a few months, the other defendants followed.
     
     

    Workers comp issues in 'threat-elevated' environments

    As stated earlier, employees normally are not eligible to file a claim for workers compensation when they are attacked or kidnapped outside the course and scope of their employment. However, they may indeed have a causative claim if their job requires them to work in a threat-elevated environment. If their employment compels them to work in a higher-risk area and they must take extraordinary chances because of their employment, then liability rules begin to change.
     
    Typical workers compensation coverage does not usually cover these situations, and general liability policies normally contain exclusions for employment-related lawsuits. This means you will not have coverage for the loss, and the defense costs and legal expense will not be covered by your insurance policies. The legal fees alone can become staggering in such cases and the ensuing media coverage and loss of employee morale could be devastating to an organization's corporate image.
     
    Dean A. Sipe, an Arizona lawyer specializing in corporate law, offers this advice: "Organizations whose business requires them to send employees or volunteers to hazardous parts of the world should be aware of an evolving standard of care that may impose a duty on them to take reasonable precautions for the safety of such persons placed in harm's way. One way to attempt to meet this standard may be to ensure that employees or volunteers receive training in anti-kidnapping, counter-surveillance awareness, and crucial hostage escape and survival techniques."
     
    It is clear that organizations can reduce their legal exposure through the implementation of proper education and training programs. The preferred method relies on situational awareness and threat avoidance skills instead of reactive or combative techniques. This training also includes the necessary steps that will allow employees to identify possible threats or threatening individuals, confirm their suspicions, and then make the proper decisions if confronted with potentially dangerous situations.
     
    In the end, it is up to each organization to determine what it considers to be the "duty of care" under the concept of "reasonable care", and the degree of responsibility and liability it and its owners, board members, and/or upper executives are willing to assume. Having the opportunity to be proactive is always preferable to being forced into a reactive situation — or an expensive lawsuit.
     
    For more information, please visit our Custom Training Programs and our Standardized Programs. Or contact us and we will be happy to review your training needs.
     

  • The Truth About Anti-Kidnapping Training

    The Truth about Anti-Kidnapping Training Abduction Management CoursesIt is important to understand the two basic and significantly different philosophies of training when it comes to "threat-aversion" and "hostage" scenarios. The first type specializes in the more adrenaline inducing Combative Training model, while the second type relies on heightened observation skills, threat detection, and situational awareness. Combative based training focuses on aggressive martial arts techniques, close-quarters offensive and defensive weapons training, and may include high-speed, evasive driving instruction. 

    While the second, and less risky, style of anti-kidnapping instructive program may also include evasive driving and unique vehicular maneuvers, this program is based on the model of early detection and avoidance of dangerous situations. Detect, Avoid, and Survive (DAS) is a safer, more subtle, and proactive approach. This system is employed by SBS Training Solutions as a non-confrontational "preferred option", and is based on situational awareness, verification of the danger, and a series of specific steps used to avoid or escape the attack cycle.
     
    While there is a place for combative style training, there can also a few drawbacks. First, it is unrealistic to assume that even a skilled person with actual combat experience will be capable of overcoming attackers who have the advantage of surprise and Superior numbers. Furthermore, given that many countries (and some places within the U.S.) prohibit the carrying of weapons, the idea of self-defense weapons training in these instances is questionable, and its ability to protect against an attack is unlikely.
     
    Unfortunately for the employer, when aggressive or offensive methods are the only training offered to corporate level employees, it is not uncommon for a number of upper-level employees to leave the organization within the next two to six weeks. Many employees become uncomfortable with the idea of physical confrontation, and they will perceive the possibility of a dangerous face-to-face altercation as an unacceptable risk for continued employment. This can be an unexpected and expensive side effect to training programs that focus on brute force and physical reactions to situations that could (and should) have been detected and avoided.
     
     

    Our "detect and avoid" approach has many advantages over hand-to-hand, close quarters, or aggressive response classes; the main one being pre-event awareness.

    Experience continually demonstrates it is preferable to identify and avoid a threat before it can escalate into a dangerous face-to-face, reactionary confrontation. 

     

    Anti-Kidnap Instruction, Abduction Management Training

     

    SBS's philosophy is simple yet highly effective:

    Security Through Education... Not Confrontation

     
    For more information, please visit our Custom Training Programs and our Standardized Programs. Or contact us and we will be happy to review your training needs.
     

  • Workforce Security Challenges

    CORPORATE AND COMPANY SECURITY

    Corporate/company security extends far beyond protecting physical assets, information, and high level executives. Security for the individual employee, both at work and at home is a growing concern for company leaders; especially for companies that operate in high risk areas. The challenge of work force security encompasses almost every aspect of people’s professional and private lives whether you are developing an employee travel policy, incorporating cyber security measures, or ensuring your children get to school safely. The degree and level of these security challenges are influenced by a myriad of factors that engage you in security planning and risk mitigation.

     

    SECURITY PLANNING AND RISK MITIGATION

    Security planning and risk mitigation are key elements in the loss prevention of valuable assets to include your employees.Employee security challenges often have both simple and complex solutions; therefore, employee security is never a “one size fits all” solution. Companies and employees are subject to different types of threats based on industry and location, thus creating varied perspectives on perceived threats and acceptable levels of response.

     

    CORPORATE AND EMPLOYEE TRAINING

    Corporate training is an extremely effective tool for risk/liability mitigation and an integral part of security planning. The starting point is determining and prioritizing the training requirements. Since each company is different, training needs to be customized to ensure the desired end state is achieved. Security training allows each employee to be invested in the company’s security utilizing the learned skills both at work and at home. 

     

    Companies and corporations need to review and assess their security plans and activities routinely. Almost every security threat changes over time, and in some cases, almost instantly and continuously. The real challenge is being able to anticipate the threat and take the appropriate steps to avoid an incident. Changing security measures and/or routines can cause criminal elements to change their plans or abandon their efforts as result of their apprehension. 

     

    EMPLOYEE SECURITY TRAINING ENABLES YOUR EMPLOYEES WITH THE SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE TO MITIGATE THREATS, MAKING THEM A HARDER TARGET. 

    For more information, please visit our Custom Training Programs and our Standardized Programs. Or contact us and we will be happy to review your training needs.