Building a successful company is an exciting time, but also a time full of extreme amounts of stress and anxiety. One way to protect your company from the natural ebb and flow of the marketplace is to understand the relationship between risk management and protecting your investments. Maintaining a balance between these two factors can be the difference between your success and loss in times of a difficult market. Many of the challenges facing companies today include non-investment risks, such as employee safety and companies who are prepared for these as well will find that they have an upper hand during difficult times.
Types of Risk
Disasters are not always uncontrollable or completely unpreventable. Manmade disasters can have warning signs that, if addressed, can not only prevent loss of profits but loss of production. Types of risk that businesses face in today’s corporate environment include risks from both external and internal sources. Examples of internal risks include low employee morale, illness or death of an employee, and theft or fraud. These types of risks can lead to heavy losses for a company if not addressed as soon as possible after they are discovered. Many companies ignore their employees’ morale to their own detriment, only to find later that the leadership’s oversight led employees to engage in theft or fraud that cost the company thousands.
Other types of internal risks include faulty information technology (IT) protections. Not taking the time and spending the money to build strong internal IT protocols and safeguards can end up costing time and money down the road if a breach occurs. In the modern business world, hackers or aggrieved employees can do serious damage to a company’s internal databases and network systems in a matter of minutes through the use of viruses, worms and electronic sabotage.
Protecting Your Business
Protecting against internal risks can be as simple as having strong protocols in place for dealing with rogue employees. However, before you can punish an employee, you must be sure that your rules guiding employee activity are clear, strong and known to the employees. Strong training programs for new employees and refresher trainings for long-term employees can help ensure that everyone is aware of the rules. Once this is done, a company should be sure to have an enforcement mechanism in place that treats all employees equally. A faulty enforcement protocol that monitors one group of employees more than another may land your company in trouble with anti-discrimination laws, while failing to address the rule breaking behavior that it was intended to combat.
Need Help?
The law office of Garcia & Gurney can help you develop and implement strong internal controls and policies to help your company manage the risks that can be costly down the road. During difficult markets, the difference between a strong company and a weak one can be a well-trained, dedicated workforce. Protect your ultimate investment by building and maintaining a good employee base while mitigating potential risks.
