Recent events have tested businesses operating in the Middle East in ways that few continuity plans fully anticipated, explains Rafal Hyps, CEO, Sicuro Group.
For security and risk professionals, the immediate priority is straightforward: Know where your people are, confirm their safety and extend that duty of care to their families. Everything else follows from that.
The regional teams we have worked alongside over this period have responded well. What has been slower – and this is a pattern we see repeatedly – is decision-making at head office level.
Organisations that have decentralised authority and drilled their response all the way to senior leadership are moving faster and with more confidence than those waiting for direction from London, New York or elsewhere.
If your organisation’s response depends on escalating every decision upward, that is the vulnerability to address now.
On operational posture, the default for most businesses in the UAE today is working from home. That is the right call and the majority of firms are doing exactly that.
Shelter-in-place does not mean suspended operations. It means staying off the roads, monitoring official UAE government and civil defence channels and resisting the pull of social media speculation.
Businesses that have defined what shelter-in-place means at the corporate level – and communicated it clearly to staff – are managing this far more smoothly than those leaving people to interpret it themselves.
For staff wellbeing, the psychological dimension is as important as the physical one.
The majority of the workforce in this region is expatriate. Families back home are seeing headlines that paint a significantly worse picture than the reality on the ground.
Consistent, calm communication from leadership – more frequently than feels necessary – makes a material difference to how people function under pressure. One voice, a clear message and a defined rhythm of updates.
That is what people need from their organisations right now.
The firms that will come through this period best are those that put their people first without hesitation.
Businesses recover. The duty of care to staff and their families is not something to balance against operational continuity. It is the priority – and senior leadership should be seen to treat it as such.
For organisations that have not yet activated their business continuity structures, the time is now – not to prepare for what has already happened, but for what may come next.
Sicuro Group has operated across 140+ countries since 2005. The company’s team, including its leadership, remains on the ground in Dubai and is available to support businesses navigating this situation.
