The Enterprise Business Resilience (EBR) team works closely with leadership and business unit experts to keep employees informed, businesses and productions up and running, and brands untarnished, even in times of crisis.

Crisis management is a core discipline of EBR. Our crisis management approach:

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.

Our approach follows three core principles:

Safeguard the lives of our workforce.
Ensure effective and quick response to a crisis.
Avoid or minimize damage to the company – the property, revenue, the business, the brand.

Crisis Management Framework

Corporate

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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.

Production

Click here to download an overview guide for your production team.

Sports

Click here to download an overview guide for your Sports production team.

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 concern for life/safety at a company facility, sponsored event or on a production?	Police Response Required, Terrorist Attack, Active Threat
2	Could the situation attract unwanted media attention that could lead to a threat or reputational harm?	Onsite Accident, Talent Death, Talent Controversy, Protests Targeting Company (ex: labor, political, cultural), Live Event (ex: March Madness, Olympics)
3	Does the situation require an unplanned employee or leadership communication (non-life/safety)?	Building Closure, Health Department Requirement, Unusual Employee Commute or Work Schedule, Severe Weather, Outages: Technology, Power, Telecom, etc.
4	Has a strategic asset been impacted?	Childcare Center, D2C Platform, Broadcast Operations, Corporate Headquarters, Production Studio, Data Center
5	Does the situation involve more than one company location, production, or event?	Power Outage, Earthquake, Pandemic, Severe Weather, Terrorist Attack
6	Is the work environment impacted?	Partial Building Closure, Severe Facility Damage, Demonstration Close to Building, Outages: Technology, Power, Telecom, HVAC, etc.
7	Is a company officer (C-suite, senior exec) impacted which could negatively affect company brand and reputation?	Widespread Travel Emergency, Account Breach, Serious Injury, Negative Press
8	Did a death or severe injury occur during course of work or at a company managed location (including production location)?	Severe Work Accident (ex: investigation, potential legal claim), Suicide, Natural Death
9	Is there a disruption of business that could impact revenue or customer service?	Significant Outage (ex: outages in broadcast or D2C platforms resulting in material revenue loss, financial penalties, broad customer or newsworthy reputational impact), Union Strike, Production Closure

Glossary of Terms

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.

Crisis Management at Warner Bros. Discovery

Crisis Management Framework

Escalating an Issue

Escalation Criteria