Preparing a European Workforce Before the Invasion of Ukraine: Emergency Preparedness Case Study
See how Insite helped a European asset management firm prepare for the Ukraine invasion with crisis planning, evacuation support, and workforce accountability.
Industry:
Asset Management
Primary Service:
Emergency Preparedness
The Challenge
A London-headquartered asset management firm operated offices across eight European markets, with close to 400 front-office investment roles, quantitative research, client relations, and operational support. Its largest work site sat near Kyiv, while a smaller team worked within the eastern region of the country.
Through the closing months of 2021, reporting on the Russian troop buildup grew louder and more contradictory. Leadership was reading the same coverage as everyone else, with no way to judge which movements mattered to their sites. The extent of the firm's emergency documentation was fire evacuation procedures and a severe weather policy, both written for the London office.
No governance existed that covered the European sites, addressed conflict, border closure, or moved employees and their families out of a country under pressure.
The firm's internal teams were managing a situation that demanded capability few organizations maintain in-house.
The engagement needed to deliver:
A verified picture of where employees, contractors, and dependents were living and working across the region
Early warning tied to the client's own sites, filtered out of the wider geopolitical noise
Defined thresholds escalating a change in conditions to a specific protective action
Agreed decision ownership, so escalation and information flow had clear pathways through the organization
The Insite Approach
Insite assigned a dedicated crisis management team and worked with the client over the following months to build, test, and rehearse the program.
Crisis Command Structure
Established a client crisis response team involving all key stakeholders, and a dedicated Insite security lead, supported by our Global Security Operations team providing 24/7 coverage
Documented decision rights and delegated authority so protective action could be taken by the correct personnel should a crisis occur
Intelligence and Early Warning
Mapped every office, residence cluster, and routine travel route used by the workforce, then geofenced (established virtual boundaries) more than 60 client sites
Extended coverage to the Russian and Belarusian border areas, crossing points, airports, rail terminals, and known military staging areas
Delivered customized alerting when incidents occurred inside or moved toward those boundaries, giving the client warning ahead of open-source reporting
Produced a weekly written intelligence assessment for the crisis team that provided clear, understandable guidance on the situation on the ground. As tensions increased, this assessment was escalated to a daily briefing.
Emergency Action Plans
Wrote location-specific Emergency Action Plans covering shelter in place, controlled relocation, and full evacuation
Identified primary, secondary, and tertiary egress routes toward Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania, each with vetted ground transport and staged accommodation near crossing points
Provisioned offices and residence clusters for extended shelter in place, including power, water, connectivity, fuel, and medical supplies
Delivered a crisis communications plan and mass notification process with mandatory check-in, so the client would always know who was safe and where
Tabletop Exercises and Training
Tested escalation thresholds under time pressure through tabletop exercises, reissuing corrected plans within days of each after-action report
Trained office leads across the region as wardens with defined responsibilities at each stage
Issued personal preparedness guidance to employees and families covering documentation, go-bags, fuel, cash, and communication discipline
When the Invasion Began
Insite issued confirmed strike locations to the crisis team inside the first hour of the conflict, ahead of published confirmation in public reporting
Mass notification went out across the workforce, and Insite tracked check-in responses site by site until every individual was accounted for
Egress routes were reassessed hourly against live conditions, with staff redirected away from crossings that had become congested or unsafe
The Results
Every employee, contractor and registered dependent was accounted for within the first day and remained supported and located throughout the crisis
Staff were evacuated into neighboring countries on rehearsed routes, with transport and accommodation secured in advance
The client was empowered to make protective decisions on its own escalation thresholds and intelligence, hours ahead of the point at which movement became restricted
Critical customer-facing functions resumed from alternate locations inside a week maintaining business continuity
Leadership held an exercised, documented record of its duty of care obligations for the board, its insurers, and its clients
The framework was extended across the group's other European markets as a standing capability
Why This Matters
The key to managing a crisis is to be prepared. By engaging with Insite's team before the crisis occurred, the client was able to establish a clear plan of action, train their leadership on how to react and thus become prepared to manage the crisis once it unfolded. Additionally, Insite's team was able to provide decisive, actionable intelligence that the client's leadership could use to make crucial decisions before it was too late.