One of the things I find annoying about these online conversations is how fragmented they often are – too many entities trying to own the conversation (competing blogs and web sites) and as a result we get limited people engaged. The most annoying are those that are locked away behind a login and those that do not allow syndication in some way.
I have a block in the left margin of each page where I highlight other blog posts that I have commented on (where they support that technology) in the hope of drawing other people to those conversations. Also in the right margin of this page is my Blogroll (the ones I read regularly), my bookmark feed from Delicious and some interesting stuff from Google Reader. Despite all this some valuable discussion s are still locked away.
Recently I have been engaged in some very interesting discussions on the LinkedIn Groups feature. These Groups exhibit both of my major annoyances. The subject has been around the people aspects of BC – or the lack of attention to this aspect by many people.
Here are the links to the Groups/Discussions. LinkedIn is free to join and both Groups have moderated membership so you need to wait for your request to join the Group to be approved. I encourage anybody interested in resilience thinking (or in fact in doing BC properly) to join and contribute – after all the people part of this is probably the most important.
The first conversation was started by Josh Eudowe, a person new to the BC field. It is posted in the Group BCMIX – BCM Info Exchange. Here is what he posted;
I’m a business continuity professional (relatively new to the industry) and I’d like to focus less on the facilities and more on the people. For example, work with clients on how to prepare employees for a crisis and to help management to design and implement programs to:
1. Identify how employees can/will be affected by all possible situations
2. Identify the possible responses from employees
3. Prepare a plan to ensure employee retention and effectiveness
4. Communicate to employees what’s being done, without causing concern
5. Implement training programs
6. Create an effective “employee continuity plan” and test for readiness
This thread currently has 35 comments – which is an amazing level of response. Responses to any thread are varied and different readers will get value from different posts. Often you pick up good links to other writing in the responses, such as Mike Jacobs paper published at Continuity Central. I have also added a couple of new LinkedIn contacts based on what they had to say.
I would really like to be able to share these debates with a wider audience but they do not have RSS feeds or any other way to share with a non-LinkedIn audience.
One of my contributions to this discussion was to raise the profile of a new LinkedIn Group – this one is called “Human Continuity“. At the time it only had 2 members and no activity – fortunately 3 new people joined from the first thread.
I made this post on the discussion board – as yet there is no debate;
Reading thru the two related threads it seems to me that we are often talking at cross purposes about what “people” mean in the context of Business Continuity.
You will see references to “Human Aspects” and “Human Infrastructure”. Reminds me of one of my favorite Dilbert cartoons where the Evil HR Director suggest we refer to them as ‘Human Cattle’.
Do these labels seek to dehumanise? Note the question is not do the specific people who used those labels seek this – but is the need for the labeling indicative of a model of thinking that requires it.
Is this a feature of the very mechanistic “BC is a system/process” thinking?
We also talk about people as plan content – the content of Call Trees, who must attend the Command Centre/Recovery Site, who must be trained in roles.
And as people who must be cared for after a catastrophic event, the welfare aspect.
If we are seeking to achieve the continuity of business operations – then people are extremely important. Planning is important – plans are simply artefacts.
If we write plans for people to read, and perhaps follow as an option if it makes sense in the incident they face, then the plans exist to serve the needs of the people – not the other way around.
Do you have a view on this subject – then I encourage you to join the group on LinkedIn and contribute. If not you are welcome to post here and I will write up a digest of the comments I get.
How do you view ‘people issues’ within BCM?
Are the people there to serve the plans, or is it the other way around?
People – both staff and visitors – are THE most critical aspect of any organization.
However, convincing management of this often is a time-consuming, frustrating, and in the end, losing battle. SO, this practitioner (certified, 13-plus years experience) identifies PEOPLE as a “risk” to critical processes (which, indeed, they are). If the organization lacks people – skilled people as well as casuals – it can't function. If the organization's people are injured or, G-d forbid, killed, the organization faces a financial hit (as well as loss of expertise). If some critical people (those managers?) are unable to perform, the organization might take an image, client confidence, and financial hit.
Generally I can live without a facility (there are alternate sites and perhaps work-at-home options). I can live without IT (remember paper and pencil?); I can live without email (although I would have terrible withdrawal pangs) – in fact, my organization can live sans most things, but it cannot exist without people. Even an IT business needs people to fix machines that WILL fail.
Bottom line: I may have to “sell” people priority in a round-about manner, but I know that protecting people is the #1 goal of a good plan; no people, no organization. To my mind, a simple equation.
Thanks for joining the debate John, good approach with the selling part.
In your experience how effective have you found the HR function in contributing to BC?
Also how have you gone about preparing the people for the various impacts that a significant BC event may have? As extreme weather events are an ongoing threat in your part of the world this is probably something that others have not addressed as much.
In a word: Very
But it depends on the HR people.
True story: Asked HR boss if he had anything at risk.
He thought a bit then said, “No.”
Fortunately, his (more experienced) “assistant” was in the room and reminded him about I-9 forms, the lack of which can be very expensive if the Feds come to see them ($1k/person, but a sliding scale).
This particular HR jobbed out salaries.
On another job, I helped HR write the policies and procedures for BC-related events and had a very good relationship with HR's boss, in fact with all the “C” level folks.
If the planner happens to be captive (“staff”) and reporting to IT/MIS (as I once did) it really pays to have friends in HR so that IT has a little advance notice of terminations (to cut off system access).
HR can be an absolute gem to work with or just the opposite. I've had HR managers at both ends of the scale.
As to other events, the idea of Business Continuity is to continue to meet SLAs “no matter what.” I would never focus on one threat over another; we DO prioritize where to spend the always limited coin based on probability vs. impact, but to plan for a weather event and ignore human risks or technological risks would be foolish. I also look outside the organization to vendors, clients, competition, lenders, governments, and more.
jg
Further to the post – there has been an additional Group created on LinkedIn to progress the same series of discussions. The new group is called “HR, EAP and Business Continuity”. this is the link – http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=274157…
The idea is to get people who are working in the various disciplines together in the conversation, rather than just the BC people. Please spread the word with your colleagues.