Graeme Jannaway, managing director, Jannaway & Associates, explained his strategy for business continuity at the Pandemic Communications Forum at Toronto’s Courtyard by Marriott.
“Business continuity is a situation where you beat down as many of the risks as you can,” he explained. “Those risks you can’t avoid, you write plans that tell you what you might like to try as a strategy to keep going with your business.”
Before you beat down those risks, Jannaway said, you need to know what’s important in your business. Once that’s in place, usually through what Jannaway referred to as a business impact analysis or program impact analysis, you’re ready to tackle your continuity plan.
In creating the plan, he said, it’s important to remember the three pandemic phases: before, during and after, as well as(at least)the three audiences you’ll be addressing during these phases: management, staff and external parties.
Before the pandemic strikes, you want to try to build resilience of your organization, said Jannaway, and that starts with senior management. “It’s important not only to gain and hold management’s interest in business continuity, but convince them that it doesn’t need to be an expense,” he said.
Get management’s support for prevention programs such as handwashing or sneeze in the sleeve, he said, then begin communicating this information to employees.
Speak to Human Resources on such issues as compensation for time off and dealing with work refusal. “How do you deal with people’s fear—justified or unjustified—that ‘I do not want to come to work; I do not want to get ill and die,'” asked Jannaway.
Investigate whether some employees can work from home, or cross-train employees so they’re able to do two jobs with “reasonable competence,” Jannaway said.
Create an emergency contact list of the people who need to be contacted during a pandemic and what their role is. Have an emergency operating centre for senior managers to gather, and train them so they get used to “making decisions that are time-limited and information-restrictive,” said Jannaway.
Above all, remember to talk to your staff. “People need to know what will be expected of them and what will happen to them at a time of any contingency, specifically pandemic,” said Jannaway.
Gather the emergency team in the emergency operation centre, Jannaway said, which should have as many phone lines, faxes, cable/and or satellite as possible, and monitor what’s going on in the media via TV, radio, online.
Get in touch with staff, he said. Consider a staff hotline that’s updated every morning. And inform external parties—suppliers, customers, regulators—that your business is open.
Review what worked and what didn’t, and find out what other organizations did, said Jannaway. Also, look to other countries for how they handled the situation.
Other points to remember, he said, include de-briefing staff and thanking those who helped(there’ll be many who worked long hours). Inform external parties that everything is back to normal and thank them, too, for their continued support, he added.
Most important, Jannaway said, “celebrate as an organization your continued existence.”
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