Planning for your Employees is as Important as Protecting Your Data
Weakest Link in Continuity Strategy, Planning, and Recovery 2006 Continuity Insights/KPMG Business Continuity Management Benchmarking Study
"A majority of respondents said that their weakest link in their business continuity planning and recovery efforts were their people risks. And yet, over 64% are still not training their employees adequately on business continuity , crisis management, and disaster recovery."
"It is critical that the people aspects get more focus...organizations should link BCM to the organization's strategic vision, demonstrate it by developing training programs to educate their employees on it's importance and their role in the over BCM, and exercise the people element more often."
Human error caused 9.31% of the interruptions experienced by organizations in 2006 - compared to 14.93% for power outages, 14.% for hardware failure, and 11% for both network and software failure. yet spending on protecting technology far exceeds that spent on awareness, training, and human resources planning.
According to BC Management's 2006 Program Report only 2% of organizations have a reporting structure that integrates the Human Resources Department, where 22% of Information Technology Departments are integrated.
This month's ICORrespondence focuses on the "people factor" and on how to develop "social resilience" in your organization.
ICOR was priviledged to be able to attend several conferences this spring: Continuity Insights, CPM West, Emergency Corp, and New York State's Cyber Security Conference. We saw many excellent presentations and are bringing several of them to you in this month's issue. In addition, several of our members have written articles on this topic and we are sharing them with you.
Please feel free to contact the authors directly if you have questions or comments on their presentations or articles.
If you have any other questions, please contact Lynnda Nelson at 866.765.8321 or email lynnda@theICOR.org. | |
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ICOR Professional Development Opportunities
Become a Certified Data Center Professional!
Data Center Professionals all over Europe and Asia have become certified - this cutting edge and valuable professional development and credentialing course is now available in the United States and Canada only through ICOR.
The Certified Data Center Professional course is designed to expose IT, Facilities, Business Continuity, and Data Center Operations professionals working in and around the Data Center to the key components of the Data Center. It is the first in a series of four courses developed for Data Center Professionals.
Human Impact Preparedness Audit
What's the weakest link in your continuity strategy?
Thirty-five percent of companies report that "People Risks" are the "weakest link" in their continuity strategy, planning, and recovery efforts.
The Human Impact Preparedness Audit course covers the critical components of a successful Human Impact Preparedness Program and will help you learn to assess your organization's state-of-readiness and to plan for pandemics.
Developing a BCM Response - The Incident Response Plan
Learn how to develop an Incident Response Plan and on how to integrate business continuity procedures with incident response procedures. In addition, the course will review the Incident Command System and provide you with the latest information on public/private partnerships.
Organizational Crisis Preparedness
Part of any resiliency/continuity plan is to do an assessment and to prepare for the probability of any type of event that may impact a work organization. This program will provide attendees with a comprehensive
review of crisis management and how to make your organization more resiient.
ICOR's DRII Qualifying Exam Review Course
Choice is EVERYTHING.
Failed the Exam and feeling frustrated? ICOR guarantees our course - or you can take it again for FREE. Get Certified. Feel Good. Call ICOR Today.
Also available as self-study and elearning.
Download the Brochure
Emergency Response Communications
Does your organization have effective emergency response communication procedures?
This course is for emergency responders, information officers, and communications personnel in private industry and government who want to improve the way they will communicate during a crisis.
This two-day course involves hands on learning and explores a communications process that can be applied to your organization.
Available Soon!
Register Now!
1.866.765.8321 |
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The Missing Link: Adding People to Your Contingency Planning
By Kathryn McKee, Human Resources Consortia, www.leadingpeoplethroughdisasters.com, kmckee3730@cox.net
While many business continuity plans focus mainly on dimensions, all crises touch people, and people make organizations run. For organizations to recover quickly, maintain their reputations, and mitigate risks - especially workers' compensation claims, employees need to be physically and emotionally ready to return to work.
Include this missing link in business continuity planning by learning what employee actions wil provide the highest positive return on your plans; what leadership qualities and competencies people most respond to; why HR professionals are becoming more involved in business continuity planning; how to partner with HR to improve the planning process and better manage disasters; and why employee assistance plans are a critical ingredient.
To read the complete presentation link here For other ICOR presentations, see our Library. |
Psychic Leadership: Teaching to the Models
Business and government agencie are using crisis models and simulations to teach crisis response. Can we actually predict the demands of a crisis? How far do models take us into the reality of managing a crisis situation from start to end? This session will explore the questions not often asked and commonly left out of practice.
For the complete presentation link here For other ICOR presentations, see our Library. |
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Employee Awareness Programs: What Do I Do? By Pamela Hughes, L3 Communications phughes13@kc.rr.com| http://www.titan.com/
Everyone knows "awareness and training" is an accepted professional practice that should be ongoing, but how do we do it? Why is it important? Does one size fit all? These questions and more will be addressed in this presentation. Learn how to create or spice up your awareness program.
To read the complete presentation link here. For other ICOR presentations, see our Library. |
How Ready Are Your People to Respond to a Crisis Event?
Participate in an Emotional Readiness Survey
Dr. Gerald Lewis, glewis@geraldlewis.com, www.geraldlewis.com.
Dr. Lewis has developed a survey that will access the readiness level for employees to remain or return to work in the face of a crisis. It is a 15 minute anonymous questionnaire.
An aggregate report will be provided to the organization. If requested, recommendations will be made based on the findings of the survey, as to policies, procedures, porgrams and protocols that may be implemented to improve the readiness and resiliency of the workforce.
Organizations wishing to participate should contact Dr. Lewis. There is a nominal fee of $250.00 per organization in order to receive the aggregate report. |
Are You Really Ready to Lead During a Crisis?
By Bruce T. Blythe, bblythe@cmiatl.com, www.cmiatl.com
"How can leaders throughout the organization optimize their personal and team effectiveness when an unexpected crisis hits?"
At the heart of any crisis response are strategic decisions that will serve as "defining moments." These strategic decisions have the critical power to bring you and your organization swiftly toward successful resolution, or they can spiral you deeper into entanglements that can increase the damage.
Leadership during unexpected crises can require skills and capabilities beyond daily leadership activities. The objective of this presentation is to increase the likelihood that, when needed, participants will become crisis champions.
For the complete presentation link here. For other ICOR presentations, see our Library. |
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BCP: The Next Generation
You can have your phones lines up and your computers backed up, but after a crisis, your employees may still be messed up.
The problem with business continuity planning as it is today is that it is still focused on recovering Information and has not sufficiencty focused on how to recover our people.
This presentation focuses on the issues and dynamics that need to be faced as continuity planning evolves to a profession.
For the complete presentation link here. For other ICOR presentations, see our Library. |
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Planning for People Recovery Author: Bill Beattie, Continuity Insights Magazine July/August 2006
Business continuity planning began with technology people recognizing the need to plan to recover technology. While we've progressed beyond that in our profession, we still haven't reached the point where we plan for full business recovery.
Why not? Because we frequently forget that people operate the technology-and planning for people recovery is infinitely more complex than planning for system recovery.
Dealing with people includes dealing with personalities we don't like and don't get along with. It includes accommodating egos and attitudes we would rather not accommodate.
Just because planning for people recovery is difficult doesn't mean we can ignore it. A business is a group of people with a common purpose and common goals, striving to do the best they can do. The technology we focus so heavily on is nothing more than a business enabler. So ignoring business people while focusing on hardware, software, and data puts business continuity and recovery at risk.
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A Safety Policy by Any Other Name
By Dr. Gerald Lewis, Continuity Insights Magazine, March/April 2007
We are in yet another phase of improving safety in the workplace through organizational risk management. While most plans focus rather narrowly on DR/DM, infrastructure, operations, and security, the field is rapidly acknowledging that any plan must include the human factor implications of a wide range of crises. This author takes it one step further. These policies should not be suggestions, but rather implicit demands. Activities such as evacuation plans and drills, family crisis plans, employee education, and supervisory training, must be implemented and enforced as would the aforementioned safety policies.
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Social Resilience: The Forgotten Factor in Disaster Risk Reduction
The current thinking in the Disaster Risk Reduction field emphasizes assessment and reduction of vulnerability and especially social vulnerability as an important factor in mitigating the effects of disasters. In the process of emphasizing vulnerability, the role and complexity of social resilience was somewhat lost and at times minimized. This article explores the concept of social vulnerability and the impact on the recovery of a community due to its social resilience.
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Human Impact Preparedness: It's About the People
by Guy Sapirstein, Ph.D Organizational Resilience International Guy@ORIconsulting.com and www.ORIconsulting.com
The fifth element of crisis management is the Human Impact Preparedness Program. The "Human Impact" of disasters includes any and all aspects of daily life that are impacted by a disaster: from basic survival needs through more complex effects on people trying to resuscitate an affected business community. Recent experiences with companies in the gulf coast of the US following Hurricane Katrina demonstrated how senior management was no less vulnerable than production line staff.
To appreciate the complexity of Human Impact preparedness, one has to appreciate the complexity of humans. Recovery from disaster and crisis is not linear. Initially things seem very positive but only later, after a few weeks, the realization sets in that life has forever been changed. A robust model of Human Impact Preparedness needs to combine knowledge about people, organizations, communities, and disasters.
For the complete article link here. For other ICOR articles, go to our library. | |
The International Consortium for Organizational Resilience (ICOR) was founded to respond to the growing market need for a single avenue of access to the many offerings of education and credentialing expertise that is easily accessible and usable worldwide.
We are a not-for-profit education and credentialing organization that provides professional development, certification, thought-leadership, and the latest in research and industry trends.
ICOR provides the solution to organizational resilience - throughout the world.
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Sincerely,
Lynnda Nelson, President
The International Consortium for Organizational Resilience
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