Activation Procedures for Business Continuity Plan
A business continuity plan is a written document that outlines how your business will continue to operate in the event of a natural or manmade disaster. Whether a hurricane or tornado strikes your town or a terrorist threat disrupts service, having a business continuity plan ensures operations can even though your physical location is damaged or threatened. Once a written plan is in place, make sure all your employees know what the activation procedures for the business continuity plan are so that they feel empowered to enact the plan, if necessary.
What Is a Business Continuity Plan?
A business continuity plan is a written document that outlines the steps a business needs to take in order to remain open should disaster strike. Unlike a disaster recovery plan, which outlines the steps to recover data and other important materials in the event of a disaster, a business continuity plan is all about continuation; how does the company ensure that business continues smoothly in the event of a disaster or unforeseen problem?
A team consisting of stakeholders from many different departments in an organization often develops a business continuity plan. The IT and technical staff as well as the accounting and finance team are often key players, but marketing, sales, operations and facilities management as well as HR also need a say in the planning. You'll not only need to know where and how the data systems are backed up, but how to continue selling and fulfilling orders during a disaster as well as how to communicate and connect with employees on short notice.
Activation Procedures for a Business Continuity Plan
Assuming your organization has completed a good business continuity plan, how do you know when, how and who will activate it? The following steps may be used as a guideline for your company's activation procedures. Be sure to adapt them to your organization, however. Each company is different, and each situation is different.
- Identify a leadership team. Select three or more people to act as the leadership team. They should make judgment calls about when and how to activate the business continuity plan. Three or more people ensure that even if someone is out sick or on vacation, you have someone ready to step up and take the lead to activate the plan.
- Monitor the situation. The company's leaders as well as the business continuity plan leadership team should be ready at a moment's notice to monitor the impending disaster, if it is known in advance. For example, a hurricane provides ample warning; the weather service usually warns of hurricanes up to a week in advance, and many other natural disasters also have some warning time, such as snowstorms and ice storms. If the disaster has already occurred, you will still need to monitor the situation to understand the potential delays, long-term consequences, and other variables.
- Notify employees. If the company's physical location must close, use the contact list in the disaster plan to activate a phone tree or a series of people to call, who in turn call others, to notify them of the disaster. Tell them that the business continuity plan is now being put into place.
- Follow the steps in the plan. Most plans call for critical services to be established at a separate facility, data restoration, and disaster monitoring.
- Implement the plan. Most plans have separate teams with roles and responsibilities. Each team should implement the appropriate steps in the plan to get their respective work areas up and running.
Resuming Operations
Depending on the nature of the disaster or emergency, there will come a time when the team must decide to resume normal operations. Be sure that the monitoring steps in the activation plan include frequent reports back to the core team on the status of the facilities and normal business operation. For example, in the event of a hurricane, building damage needs to be repaired and perhaps electricity restored to the office building where the business is housed. During the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, the business may need to relocate employees and critical facilities to a safe and intact facility. As soon as authorities say it is safe to return to the office building, however, the business continuity plan must conclude. The core leadership team must make the call to move everyone back to the original location.
Each disaster and continuity plan is different, and depending on the size of your company and its operations, you'll need to tailor these instructions to your own unique situation. However, don't neglect a continuity plan and the activation steps for such a plan. It's like the old Aesop's fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant. The grasshopper played, sang, and didn't prepare for winter. He mocked the diligent ant who took steps to secure food and prepare his burrow for the harsh weather to come. Once winter came, however, Grasshopper wished he too had taken steps to prepare for the winter. Learn from this simple tale and be like the ant; prepare now, and your business may remain safe and secure in the event of future disasters and disruptions.
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