Keysight Technologies' Crisis Management Plan Enables Quick Response

In September 2022, Hurricane Ian made landfall in southwest Florida as a strong Category 4 hurricane resulting in devastating damage and loss of life. Keysight Technologies invoked its solid Crisis Management plan to quickly support any impacted employees as the event unfolded.

Several days in advance of the approaching hurricane, Keysight’s Crisis Management Team (CMT) identified workers in Florida who could be impacted. Messages were sent before landfall reminding employees to follow local emergency management guidance and providing contact information for Keysight’s Security Response Center (SRC).

CMT leadership met twice daily for updates on employee wellness checks, storm status, and communication distributions and to discuss next steps throughout the multi-day event. The SRC sent messages to employees identified as being in the path of the storm and most likely impacted, providing information on resources available through Keysight and how to reach out for assistance if needed. Employees who did not respond to messages were contacted individually until we had accounted for 100% of our local employees.

This is just the latest event demonstrating Keysight’s strong crisis management program and the importance of having procedures in place before a disruptive event occurs while proving that these procedures ensure safety and business resilience in the face of crisis events.

Keysight Crisis Management and Team Approach

At Keysight, we employ a calculated approach and structure to support employees and their families, minimize risk to operations, continue delivering to customers and business commitments, and support the broader community as appropriate in the event of an emergency or disaster.
Keysight deploys experts in all necessary areas to navigate a crisis event successfully. While there is a CMT Leader who is typically the business lead for a site, Keysight also delegates responsibilities subject experts such as Human Resources (HR), Legal, Facilities Management, Corporate Communications, and others. The CMT Leader uses the information provided by each member to make appropriate decisions and provide briefings at the corporate level. This information and decision flow are common during various events.

For example, if the SRC identifies employees located in a wildfire evacuation zone, HR will meet with the Security Director to begin the process of contacting impacted employees and provide a script for the SRC to use when communicating with those employees.
The SRC provides critical updates to HR about employees who may be impacted, including:

• Number of employees contacted
• Number of employees requesting assistance
• Number of employees not responding

HR then updates the CMT Leader, who has not engaged in any part of this exercise but needs this information to make appropriate decisions.

Crisis Management Policies, Procedures, and Decision Tree

Keysight has defined policies, procedures, and decision-making practices across critical functions to help quickly and effectively manage crisis incidents in real-time. With clear crisis management systems in place, the company trains CMT and functional team members adequately before an incident occurs, ensuring Keysight can manage an emergency effectively from onset through recovery, even in particularly difficult or dynamic events.

Crisis management structure

Keysight utilizes a structure of crisis response and disaster recovery, underpinned by business continuity throughout, to support minimal disruption to customer and business commitments while ensuring the safety and security of employees, suppliers, and other key stakeholders.

Crisis response network

As crisis events initiate, Keysight activates its network of CMTs immediately to make initial emergency decisions and take first-step actions. Once imminent dangers are addressed, the CMTs review prepared crisis scenarios for the most likely impacts in each situation and develops a complete response plan. Depending on the event, areas of focus could include employee and community health and safety, operational actions, customer support and continuity, supply chain enablement, and crucial communications across all impacted stakeholders. The response plan is then implemented through operational teams and updated as dynamic situations require to ensure the company stays ahead of potential risks and impacts.

Keysight CMT objectives:

• Protect human life, safety, and security
• Minimize revenue losses and customer impacts
• Minimize disruptions to Keysight operations
• Protect Keysight’s brand image
• Comply with applicable laws and regulations

Disaster recovery

As the crisis response plan is implemented and the situation stabilizes, the CMTs turn their focus toward disaster recovery to drive the next phase of Keysight’s crisis management approach. Typically planned through the CMTs and executed by operational functions, such actions support the return to standard operating norms or, in some cases, new operating norms across the company, facilities, customer engagements, and related employee and community impacts. For example, efforts may include community rebuilding, re-establishing company operations, and facilitating employees’ return to work.

Business continuity

In support of key stakeholders and business commitments, business continuity underpins all crisis management efforts by ensuring critical business functions are maintained throughout the response and disaster recovery. Based on regular tabletop-scenario implementations, Keysight’s advanced business continuity planning efforts enable CMTs and operational functions to be prepared for various types of incidents. In addition, each event offers new learnings. As such, a crisis retrospective review feeds new learning back into scenario planning for future consideration in support of continuous improvement in Keysight’s crisis management approach.
This approach to emergency and crisis events helps companies proactively prepare for unexpected events. Keysight is no exception, and we are proud of our program structure, whereby we can act quickly, efficiently, and safely to prioritize employee health and safety and minimize interruption to business processes.