Crisis Management at Warner Bros. Discovery
The Warner Bros. Discovery Enterprise Business Resilience (WBD EBR) program is designed to anticipate, mitigate and minimize the impact of crisis to protect our people, brand, and revenue. We are a highly specialized team uniquely placed to strategically avert disaster and bring order to chaos when the unexpected strikes.
Crisis management is a core discipline of EBR.
Without a strategically designed and organized crisis response, business continuity is impossible. A standardized framework with defined roles and escalation triggers, informed by business context enables success beyond business-as-usual; tailored for Corporate, Sports, and Physical Productions.
Proactively aligning stakeholders, resources, and EBR-driven priorities creates a framework that anticipates risks instead of reacting to them.
Readiness results in streamlined engagement of stakeholders and consistent communications. Purpose-built, tested plans guide actions and govern priorities. Our crisis management strategy:
- Supports our workforce with services, resources and training designed to keep them prepared and safe.
- Keeps business units, systems, and processes up and running by implementing and executing business continuity and disaster recovery plans.
- Protects our brand, via timely situation recognition, assessment, and escalation using the Crisis Management Framework.
The Crisis Management Framework follows three core principles:
- Make decisions that prioritize the welfare of our workforce and visitors.
- Ensure a coordinated, effective, and quick response to a crisis.
- Avoid or minimize damage to the company.
Crisis Management Framework
The Crisis Management Framework is structured to enable an effective and timely response, support automated notifications to appropriate stakeholders, and provide a clear path to request immediate support from the EBR Team. It is customized for the needs of our corporate businesses, sports, news and production. The EBR Team will assume a leadership role to coordinate the company response across impacted Response Team(s) and the Situation Support Partners and manage initial crisis communications.
- Crisis Management Overview
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The Crisis Management Framework is structured to enable an effective and timely response, support notifications to appropriate stakeholders and provide a clear path to request immediate support from the Situation Support Partners, when required. Response Teams are customized for productions and sports.
Escalating an Issue
For immediate assistance with a life safety issue, contact emergency services and WBD Global Security at +1 818 972 7233.
There are two ways to escalate a situation:
- If you have been set up and trained on the WBD crisis escalation tool, please log the situation directly via https://escalation.wbdready.com.
- If you have not been trained on the tool, visit the “Contact Us” page on WBDReady.com to reach your regional EBR point of contact. Alternatively, you can contact WBD Global Security at +1 818-972-7233.
Escalation Criteria
We ALL have a role to play in crisis management. If you see or hear of a situation that is unusual, out of the ordinary or unprecedented use the questions below to assess the situation and confirm if you need to escalate.
| If the answer to any one of these questions is YES, please escalate | Examples | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Is there an immediate threat to life or safety at a company location, company-sponsored event, or production? | Active threat or armed attacker; terrorist attack; incident requiring an emergency-services response; imminent threat of serious harm. |
| 2 | Could the situation attract significant media or public attention and create reputational harm to the company? | Serious onsite accident or death; protest targeting the company or disrupting a high-profile live event; negative coverage involving a senior executive; other newsworthy controversy requiring Corporate Communications support. |
| 3 | Does the situation require an unplanned, coordinated communication to employees or leaders for awareness or action (excluding an immediate life-safety warning)? | Site closure or access issue; health-authority direction; severe-weather guidance; material technology, power or network outage. Unplanned Work from Home instructions. |
| 4 | Has a strategic business asset or critical company location been materially impacted or placed at risk? | Streaming service or other customer platform; broadcast operations; production studio; data center; critical office or operational site; childcare center. |
| 5 | Does the situation affect more than one company location, production, event, or region and require coordination beyond normal local operations? | Regional power or network outage; earthquake or severe weather affecting multiple sites; pandemic or public-health event; labor action; coordinated security threat. |
| 6 | Is the work environment or employees’ normal working arrangement materially impacted? | Full or partial site closure; severe facility damage; protest or security issue affecting access; power, network, technology or HVAC outage; unplanned work-from-home direction, changed working hours, or travel restriction; severe weather affecting attendance or access. |
| 7 | Is there a significant business disruption or outage that cannot be managed through normal operations and could materially affect customers, revenue, critical services, or contractual obligations? | Major broadcast, streaming, technology or network outage; production shutdown; prolonged loss of a critical service. |
Instructions for Smaller Offices
Offices with 50 employees or fewer do not need to establish a local response team. Instead, local leaders should use the guidance above to recognize situations that require escalation and then engage EBR to support and coordinate the crisis response.
To escalate, please take the following steps:
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Contact your regional business unit leader to inform them of the situation.
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Request that the situation be recorded and managed through EBR’s Crisis Management Framework.
- Glossary of Terms
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Term Definition Actioning Team The team managing the response to the situation; this could be a Cross Functional Response Team, Situation Support Partner, or Risk Council member. AlertMedia WBD's Emergency Alerts system; also referred to as WBD Alerts. Business Continuity Plans Collection of procedures, contact lists and other planning components (i.e., teams, rosters, resources, alternate sites, attachments) that the organization uses to respond to situations and recover/restore critical business groups/functions. Crisis When an event escalates to the point where standard resources cannot be utilized to contain or respond and business continuity procedures are required, the event is classified as a crisis. Crisis management plans contain additional measurements that help team members determine when an event might escalate from a situation to a crisis. An event that impacts life safety or disrupts business is immediately classified as a crisis. Crisis Management Escalation Tool The online tool that hosts the Crisis Management Framework and Escalation Criteria. Crisis Management Framework The Crisis Management Framework is structured to enable an effective and timely response, support notifications to appropriate stakeholders and provide a clear path to request immediate support from the Situation Support Partners, when required. Crisis Management Notifications Updates that are received regarding a situation. They may come via WBD Alerts, Workplace, the Crisis Management Framework or WBDReady.com. Crisis Management Plan This type of plan defines the organizational structure, decision making scope, communication protocol and roles and responsibilities, which enable an effective and timely response to a crisis. A quick response safeguards lives, preserves integrity of property and minimizes damage to profitability, reputation, and ability to operate. Cross Functional Response Team (CFRT) The team who would respond to the situation impacting a site; also may be referred to as "response team". Employee Assistance Program (EAP) A program available to all WBD Employees that provides resources, including confidential assessment, referral, and short-term counseling to help the employee and eligible dependents successfully cope with life’s challenges and personal concerns. Enterprise Business Resilience (EBR) The EBR team works to keep WBD's employees safe, brands untarnished, and businesses up and running, even in times of crisis, in partnership with WBD leadership and business unit teams. Escalation Criteria A list of questions and scenarios that help determine if a situation requires escalation. Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS) Cards A card that provides priority access to local and long distance land line networks (US/Domestic networks) increasing the probability of call completion at times of disaster when network congestion occurs. Global Security Intelligence and Investigations (GSII) The security team responsible for monitoring threats, criminal incidents, and travel tracking. They are also the liaison with local, state, and federal law enforcement. Global Threat Analysis Center (GTAC) Global Security Intelligence and Investigations (GSII) Contact and Monitoring Centre responsible for gathering, analyzing, and disseminating security threat intelligence and investigations information.
GTAC is governed and managed by GSII.
Internal Stakeholders Members of the Cross Functional Response Team, Situation Support Partners or Risk Council. Risk Council The most senior leadership in the company; they will be informed of situations meeting escalation criteria. Situation An event that is unusual, out of the ordinary or unprecedented. Situation Support Partners (SSPs) Split into Core and Regional Team. The Regional Team are defined by the Region selected at creation of the situation. They are informed on ALL email notifications. Heads of the following business areas are included; EBR, Tech, Security, P&C, Legal, Infosec, GRE, Internal Comms and DTC Tech. Warner Bros. Discovery Alerts (WBD Alerts) WBD Alerts is the company's emergency alerts notification system that can reach employees and third parties via email, text, and phone across corporate and/or personal contact information.
If you have any questions regarding Crisis Management or Business Resilience, contact the Enterprise Business Resilience Team (EBR) at wbdready@wbd.com.