HealthCheck

How healthy is your organisation?
How healthy is your organisation? Does it regularly monitor its own progress to build on strengths and address weaknesses? What are its vital functions and is it resilient enough to not only bounce back, but bounce forward after a major disruption?	The Organisational Resilience HealthCheck is a free 15 minute self-assessment tool to help you evaluate resilience attributes and identify opportunities to improve resilience capability in your organisation. You can complete the HealthCheck: Individually – a risk manager, human resources officer, team leader or senior executive or As a group – a management group, team members or workshop environment.

The HealthCheck will ask you to rate your organisation according to a set of low and high level descriptors for 13 resilience indicators. These indicators are grouped under three overarching resilience attributes that build business-as-usual effectiveness as well as robust and agile response and recovery capability.

Leadership and culture

Networks and partnerships

Change readiness

HealthCheck Information
The HealthCheck is intended as a general guide only. Use of this tool does not constitute external assurance of the organisation’s resilience capability nor does it constitute compliance with any benchmark. The reliability of any assessment or evaluation based on this tool’s content is a matter for the independent judgement of users. Users should seek professional advice as to their specific risks and needs. The Organisational Resilience HealthCheck was developed by the Resilience Expert Advisory Group, of the Trusted Information Sharing Network for Critical Infrastructure Resilience. Responses are confidential and are not collected by the Australian Government.

HealthCheck Information

The HealthCheck is intended as a general guide only. Use of this tool does not constitute external assurance of the organisation’s resilience capability nor does it constitute compliance with any benchmark. The reliability of any assessment or evaluation based on this tool’s content is a matter for the independent judgement of users. Users should seek professional advice as to their specific risks and needs.

The Organisational Resilience HealthCheck was developed by the Resilience Expert Advisory Group, of the Trusted Information Sharing Network for Critical Infrastructure Resilience.

Responses are confidential and are not collected by the Australian Government.

Next step: Instructions

Answer

Open the Indicators and enter a number from 1 (low) to 4 (high) that you feel best represents your organisation. The HealthCheck will automatically calculate your combined rating for each indicator and generate results in the form of graphs.

Discuss

Explain your rationale for each rating by separately documenting examples where your organisation does and does not demonstrate each of the indicators.

Consider the Results of each respondent. Explore how and why they vary.

Brainstorm

Using the Treatments, reflect on the rationales that respondents provided in Step 1, and brainstorm a set of potential treatment actions (and likely inhibitors) to strengthen the resilience of your organisation.

Instructions
You can complete the HealthCheck individually or as a group. Responding to the indicators will take about 15 minutes and requires a basic awareness of your organisation’s strengths and weaknesses. How long it takes to consider the results and develop a set of treatment strategies will depend on the user.	Key terms in HealthCheck Adversity: Consider an ‘adverse event’ to mean any non-routine disruption which causes significant impact to your organisation and affects its ability to respond and recover. Challenge: This signifies an event that requires your organisation to step outside business-as-usual to respond and adapt to prevailing conditions. It could be a favourable event—such as a significant business opportunity—or an unfavourable event. Organisation: You can choose to rate your organisation in HealthCheck as a whole entity regardless of its size, or consider references to ‘organisation’ as a specific division within an organisation.

Next step: Indicators

You can download an Excel version of the HealthCheck as an alternative format below:

HealthCheck [XLS 345KB]

Leadership and culture attribute | Networks attribute | Change ready attribute

Page 1 of 3

Indicator

Low resilience indicator

ANSWER

High resilience indicator

Your
score

Possible
max score

Low		High
1	2	3	4

Leadership and culture attribute

1.1
Leadership

Strong leadership to provide good management and decision making during times of challenge and adversity, as well as continuous evaluation of strategies and work programs against organisational goals.

Leaders display behaviours fearful of adversity

1
2
3
4

Leaders display decisive leadership, innovation and seek opportunity, including in times of adversity

Leaders do not ‘walk the talk’ nor demonstrate behaviours aligned with the organisation’s values

1
2
3
4

Leaders ‘walk the talk’ and demonstrate behaviours aligned to the values of the organisation

Leaders are reactive and act under duress

1
2
3
4

Leaders are balanced and strategically focussed to ensure the organisation is acting with control and foresight

Leaders are compliance driven, process focused

1
2
3
4

Leaders are outcome driven / results focused

Leaders are oblivious to the needs of people working below them

1
2
3
4

Leaders care for the wellbeing of their people and their ability to thrive in times of adversity

Leaders are afraid or unwilling to make decisions without permission from senior management

1
2
3
4

Leaders are empowered to make decisions and are supported in doing so by senior management

Lack of visible executive and management buy-in to the need for resilience

1
2
3
4

Highly visible executive/senior management resilience champions and leader advocacy of the resilience agenda

1.2
Employee
engagement

The engagement and involvement of employees who understand the link between their own work, the organisation's resilience, and its long term success; employees are empowered and use their skills to solve problems.

EE1

Organisation is unaware or not focused on employee morale

1
2
3
4

Organisation recognises the importance of high employee morale and considers this in planning and response

EE2

Organisation is only interested in the bottom line or its own survival, regardless of the impact to employees

1
2
3
4

Organisation demonstrates authentic ‘care’ for employees

EE3

Employees are anxious or unwilling to contribute

1
2
3
4

Employees have high sense of ‘teaming’ and collaboration, pulling together in adversity – ‘one in, all in’

EE4

Employees wait to be told what to do

1
2
3
4

Employees are very clear about decision making ability and feel empowered and supported to take action

EE5

Employees feel little sense of long-term connection to the organisation

1
2
3
4

Employees feel strongly connected to the organisation and are likely to go out of their way to support it in times of adversity

1.3
Situational
awareness

Employees are encouraged to be vigilant about the organisation, its performance and potential problems; employees are rewarded for sharing good and bad news about the organisation including early warning signals and these are quickly reported to organisational leaders.

SA1

Leaders hide incidents and delete failure from corporate memory

1
2
3
4

Leaders capitalise on incidents and retain lessons from past incidents and failures

SA2

Employees feel they need to hide bad news or the truth and only report on good news

1
2
3
4

Employees feel comfortable to raise an issue with senior management and are positively recognised for driving continuous improvement

SA3

Change is implemented carelessly, disruptions result from change

1
2
3
4

Change is formally managed with care and control, improvements result from change

SA4

Organisation has little or poor communication with key internal and external stakeholders

1
2
3
4

Organisation engages in regular trusted communication with stakeholders

SA5

Organisation has few sources of information and is very insular in terms of where it sources facts and insights

1
2
3
4

Organisation seeks out, utilises and coordinates external and internal sources of information

SA6

Emerging threats and opportunities are not considered as part of strategic planning

1
2
3
4

Strategic planning explores emerging threats and opportunities

1.4
Decision
making

Employees have the appropriate authority to make decisions related to their work and authority is clearly delegated to enable a rapid response. Highly skilled employees are involved, or are able to make, decisions where their specific knowledge adds significant value, or where their involvement will aid implementation

DM1

Organisation displays indecision and is non-communicative during adverse events

1
2
3
4

Organisation possesses clear and communicative protocols for mobilisation during adverse events

DM2

Organisation engages in top down decision making

1
2
3
4

Solutions to problems are encouraged at all levels in the organisation displaying rapid adaptive behaviour

DM3

Unclear who in the organisation has the mandate to make decisions

1
2
3
4

Organisation possesses clear and transparent processes for escalation

DM4

Employees are penalised for making independent decisions during an adverse event

1
2
3
4

Employees are encouraged to use their authority to make decisions in an adverse event

DM5

Decision making is emotionally reactive

1
2
3
4

Decision making follows a clear and transparent process

DM6

No record keeping or ability to document key decisions made

1
2
3
4

Key decisions are recorded and well documented

DM7

Decision making is in conflict with customer, employee, shareholder, stakeholder expectations

1
2
3
4

Decision making is congruent with organisation’s purpose and values to meet expectations

1.5
Innovation
and
creativity

Employees are encouraged and rewarded for using their knowledge in novel ways to solve new and existing problems, and for utilising innovative and creative approaches to developing solutions.

IC1

Organisation does not look for opportunity in times of adversity

1
2
3
4

Organisation seeks out opportunity in times of adversity

IC2

Organisation discourages innovative thinking

1
2
3
4

Organisation recognises and/or rewards innovative thinking

IC3

Organisation discourages employees from challenging and improving workplace processes

1
2
3
4

Organisation actively encourages employees to challenge, identify and develop workplace process enhancements

IC4

Organisation is reactive to change

1
2
3
4

Organisation is a proactive change-leader

IC5

Employees approach problem solving and assessments with a conservative, risk-averse mind-set

1
2
3
4

Employees display courage in assessing risk, and innovation and creativity in problem solving

Page 2 of 3

Indicator

Low resilience indicator

ANSWER

High resilience indicator

Your
score

Possible
max score

Low		High
1	2	3	4

Networks attribute

2.1
Effective
partnerships

An understanding of the relationships and resources the organisation might need to access from other organisations during challenges and times of adversity, and the necessary preparatory planning and ongoing management to ensure this access.

EP1

Organisation tries to solve and control problems on its own

1
2
3
4

Organisation actively collaborates and works with others in partnership

EP2

Organisation has few links to industry peers

1
2
3
4

Organisation has strong links with its industry peers

EP3

Organisation has few links with the community in which it operates

1
2
3
4

Organisation is active in the community in which it operates

EP4

Organisation has predominately transactional relationships with suppliers and key customers

1
2
3
4

Organisation works hard to develop trusted relationships with suppliers and key customers

EP5

Organisation has adversarial relationships with regulators/authorities

1
2
3
4

Organisation has constructive relationships with regulators/authorities

2.2
Leveraging
knowledge

Knowledge is captured and shared effectively throughout the organisation, with a strong focus on ensuring critical information is always available, with succession planning for key roles, an openness to learning, and drawing on internal and external expertise and lessons learnt.

LK1

Organisation has significant key person dependencies

1
2
3
4

Organisation invests in strong succession planning and redundancy

LK2

Organisation has no roadmap to the reserves of knowledge available to the organisation

1
2
3
4

Organisation knows where to find the knowledge and expertise to respond to a challenge or adverse event

LK3

Organisation has a tendency to base decisions off rumours and hearsay

1
2
3
4

Organisation continuously validates information to ensure its quality and reliability

LK4

Organisation’s adversity capability is stand-alone and rarely utilised

1
2
3
4

Organisation leverages business as usual capability in times of adversity

LK5

Corporate knowledge and lessons learnt rarely survive beyond personnel changes

1
2
3
4

Corporate knowledge is proactively retained and lessons are recognised, captured and shared

LK6

Organisation has limited networks to tap for knowledge

1
2
3
4

Organisation has extensive and established networks to acquire and refine knowledge, including drawing on its supply chain partners

2.3
Breaking
silos

Minimisation of divisive social, cultural and behavioural barriers, which are most often manifested as communication barriers creating disjointed, disconnected and detrimental ways of working.

BS1

Risk identification and resilience building is performed independently within each area of the organisation

1
2
3
4

Approaches to risk and resilience are performed from an entire / integrated organisation perspective

BS2

Organisation has silos, with little informal communication across the organisation

1
2
3
4

Highly integrated, transparent communication across all functions of the organisation

BS3

No responsibility taken for end to end process

1
2
3
4

Individual business functions seen as integral components of the end to end process

BS4

Business units contain rigid teams not used to working collaboratively together

1
2
3
4

Business units unite to achieve objectives – ‘one in, all in’

2.4
Internal
resources

The management and mobilisation of the organisation's resources to ensure its ability to respond to challenges, operate during business as usual, as well as being able to provide the extra capacity required to respond to and recover during times of adversity.

IR1

The organisation is under-resourced even under business as usual conditions

1
2
3
4

The organisation has the ability to rapidly scale up or reallocate other business resources (such as finance, premises, plant, equipment, supplies) if required

IR2

The organisation’s rigid structures and systems provides little capacity to evolve and adapte

1
2
3
4

The organisation’s structures, systems and processes are designed to maximise operational flexibility

IR3

Organisation does not have the financial capacity to support operational change

1
2
3
4

Organisation has strong liquidity and cash flow position and can absorb the impact of modifying operations to respond to challenge or adverse event

Page 3 of 3

Indicator

Low resilience indicator

ANSWER

High resilience indicator

Your
score

Possible
max score

Low		High
1	2	3	4

Change ready attribute

3.1
Unity of
purpose

An organisation wide awareness of what the organisation's priorities would be following a challenging or adverse event, clearly defined at the organisation level, as well as an understanding of the organisation’s minimum operating requirements.

UP1

Employees are not clear about the organisation’s objectives and goals, and have little unity of purpose

1
2
3
4

The organisation’s objectives and goals are clear and effectively communicated, and employees have strong unity of purpose

UP2

The organisation’s values are not aligned, shared or supported

1
2
3
4

Organisational values are aligned, shared and supported

UP3

Little appreciation across the organisation of the organisational priorities, minimum acceptable service levels, and the potential vulnerabilities and breaking points

1
2
3
4

Broad awareness of organisational priorities, minimum acceptable service levels, and the potential vulnerabilities and breaking points

3.2
Proactive
posture

A strategic and behavioural readiness to identify and respond to early warning signals of change in the organisation’s internal and external environment before they escalate into a major challenge or adverse event.

PP1

Leaders have little regard for reputation impacts

1
2
3
4

Leaders have a good record at building and maintaining trust

PP2

Disruptions are feared and employees remain wary of challenge

1
2
3
4

Disruptions and challenges are recognised as an opportunity for improvement, to build strengths and capitalise on the incident

PP3

Organisation is reactive, maintains status quo and resists change

1
2
3
4

Organisation is proactive, leverages lessons learnt and opportunities, and embraces change

3.3
Planning
strategies

The development and evaluation of plans, strategies and capabilities to manage vulnerabilities in relation to the business environment and its stakeholders.

PS1

Plans are weak and lack maturity in adapting to changing contexts

1
2
3
4

Plans show a depth of understanding in social, environmental and physically changing contexts

PS2

Limited or no planning and preparation for challenge and adversity

1
2
3
4

Planning and preparation for challenge and adversity is highly integrated into the business planning cycle and systems of the organisation and regarded as a priority

PS3

Supply chain criticalities and vulnerabilities unknown or poorly understood

1
2
3
4

Planning demonstrates an understanding of supply chain criticalities and vulnerabilities

PS4

Planning does not factor in potential impacts on people

1
2
3
4

Planning strategies are approached with a ‘people’ focus / clear understanding of and mitigation of employees vulnerabilities and impacts

PS5

Planning does not factor in potential community impacts

1
2
3
4

Planning strategies are approached with a community focus and allocates resources appropriately

PS6

Criticalities and vulnerabilities of changes to the organisation’s assets and resources unknown or poorly understood

1
2
3
4

Criticality and vulnerability of changes to organisation’s assets and resources understood and planned for

3.4
Stress
testing
plans

The participation of the leadership and employees in simulations or scenarios designed to practice response strategies and arrangements to validate plans and capabilities, and demonstrate the advantages of agility and flexibility.

ST1

Plans are not exercised or tested to a sufficient level to validate adequacy and actual capability

1
2
3
4

Plans are rigorously tested to confirm capability with adequate resources available to implement plans and make continuous improvements in line with organisational changes

ST2

Exercises are designed to tick the box for compliance purposes

1
2
3
4

Exercises are designed to identify weaknesses and opportunities for improvement, as part of quality assurance and continuous improvement

ST3

Testing of plans address typical disruption scenarios

1
2
3
4

Plans are regularly stress-tested against a variety of scenarios relevant to changing contexts and environments

ST4

Plans are exercised or tested in isolation, without involving other business areas or organisations

1
2
3
4

Plans are exercised and tested with other business areas and organisations on a regular basis

Results

Spider graph

Spider graph calculation
Behaviour	Your score as % of total	Possible max score	Your score	Possible max score	%	Max score as % of total
Leadership		100		28
Employee engagement		100		20
Situational awareness		100		24
Decision making		100		28
Innovation and creativity		100		20
Effective partnerships		100		20
Leveraging knowledge		100		24
Breaking silos		100		16
Internal resources		100		12
Unity of purpose		100		12
Proactive posture		100		12
Planning strategies		100		24
Stress testing plans		100		16
TOTAL	100	1300		256		100

Bar chart

Bar graph calculation
Leadership and culture attribute		100
Networks attribute		100
Change ready attribute		100

As you discover how your organisation rates alongside each resilience indicator, a picture will begin to emerge identifying areas where your organisation can improve its performance.

Below are a number of possible treatment actions and likely inhibitors grouped under the resilience indicators. These ideas can help identify strategies and facilitate insights into your organisation’s resilience capability.

These treatment options should be considered in conjunction with existing corporate governance systems and processes, including strategic planning, risk management and business/service continuity measures, and should not be used as a replacement for obtaining specialist technical or legal advice.

Leadership and culture indicators

Networks indicators

Change ready indicators

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HealthCheck

Leadership and culture

Networks and partnerships

Change readiness

Answer

Discuss

Brainstorm

Spider graph

Spider graph calculation

Bar chart

Bar graph calculation

Leadership and culture

1.1 Leadership indicator

1.2 Employee engagement indicator

1.3 Situational awareness indicator

1.4 Decision making indicator

1.5 Innovation and creativity indicator

Networks indicators

2.1 Effective partnerships

2.2 Leveraging knowledge

2.3 Breaking silos

2.4 Internal resources

Change ready indicators

3.1 Unity of purpose

3.2 Proactive posture

3.3 Planning strategies

3.4 Stress testing plans