Risk is a fundamental part of sport. Whether it be physical risk in extreme sports like paragliding or COVID-19-related risks for a local swimming club, it is important for all sport organizations and managers to be well-versed in risk management.
Risk can be defined as the chance of injury, damage, or loss. For sport organizations, this definition should include the chance of injury to your members or participants, damage to your property or the property of others, or loss to anyone involved in your organization, like volunteers, members, or someone else.
The injury, damage or loss could bring a financial cost to the sport organization. Often, this cost arises because the risk has resulted in some form of legal action. To avoid this cost, active measures must be taken in the form of risk management.
Risk management can be defined as reducing the chances of injury, damage, or loss by taking steps to identify, measure and control risks. Sport organizations must take time to think about potential risky situations, decide which situations or circumstances might pose serious risks, and then determine what practical steps they can take to minimize those risks.
Regarding risk management, there are three important areas of responsibility for the sport organization. Each of these three areas must be kept in mind when managing risk:
- Provide a safe environment for participants: the sport organization must have policies and standards that promote safe programs in safe facilities, overseen by qualified personnel and trained volunteers.
- Make decisions fairly: the sport organization must have and follow proper policies and procedures when making important decisions and handling disputes among members. This responsibility is especially important for decisions that affect members.
- Duty to care: the sport organization has a responsibility to properly care for and protect its assets and resources, including money, equipment, facilities, and intangible property such as data, corporate image, and marketing rights.
Risk management can seem like a daunting task. To make it easier, sport organizations can follow a practical three-step approach: identify, measure, and control the risk. Sport managers can ask themselves the following questions for each step to set themselves up for success:
- Identify: What are the possible things that can go wrong?
- Measure: How likely is it these things will go wrong and what are the consequences if they do go wrong?
- Control: What can we do to keep things from going wrong?
Going through a risk management process will help sport organizations devise a plan for mitigating risks. Examples of active measures to do so are purchasing insurance coverage, implementing volunteer screening, training for injury prevention and creating policies that promote safe sport. While these measures are still important, over the last year, the emergence of COVID-19 has created a new set of risks for sport organizations.
For most of 2020, the risk of contracting and spreading the coronavirus while participating in sport was unknown, making operating a sport organization and approaching risk management even more complicated. As we’ve learned more about the virus and gained practical experience, we can start applying the risk management process.
This current environment requires sport leaders at all levels to understand how to identify, mitigate and communicate risks related to the pandemic and their commitment to offer a safe return to sport. As part of the Rebound program, funded with support from Ontario Trillium Foundation Resilient Communities Fund, the Ottawa Sport Council will host a Chalk Talk session on June 5 regarding Risk Management.
The workshop will surface COVID-19 related risks and mine the knowledge from participants on post-pandemic risks that might be keeping them up at night. The outcome of the workshop will provide participants with new knowledge, the confidence to apply key risk management concepts, and feeling more connected to other sport leaders as we look to strengthen our network.
Registration for the free, full-day Risk Management Chalk Talk is now open. For more information and to register, click here.