Whilst many businesses are still rebuilding after the pandemic, with some industries and sectors impacted more than others, there was one lesson every organisation took from this unimaginable situation: we weren’t prepared.
Organisations have been putting in place contingency plans or business continuity plans together for many years. Some might argue that organisations started to take this seriously during the turn of the millennium as we expected all digital equipment to shut down at midnight. After all the hype, the planning and preparation, midnight passed, and nothing happened. Instead of a sigh of relief, for many, it became the butt of jokes, or was seen as over-hyped fearmongering.
Strategies are consistently reviewed, refined, and adjusted so organisations can maximise opportunities and minimise threats or challenges, but contingency plans are rarely reviewed in the same way. The pandemic changed everything – it made us realise how unprepared we were for such an extreme situation. No one had ever considered that we wouldn’t be able to work for extended periods of time, return back to our workplaces, or work without having any contact with each other. It was only then that we realised how unprepared we were, and whilst the legacy of the pandemic has left organisations feeling more uncertain about the future, what have organisations done since then to improve their resilience?
Many workplaces are now asking employees to come back to work, reducing hybrid and remote working. As we become re-indoctrinated in the old ways of working again, we need to consider how we keep our organisations prepared for the next unimaginable situation to challenge us. If organisations were to identify and have ‘real world’ contingency plans for situations, this would help with decision making, and help provide a solution during an emergency, when the uncertainty and stress of an extreme situation can make trying to think about the best solution, challenging. Part of resilience is forward planning these extreme scenarios, something we never did to the levels required before the pandemic. It may be useful to consider how your organisation would function in those scenarios identified, from the perspective of three critical areas: the People, the Place of Work, and the Product.
The People
One way of improving resilience is to consider how the scenarios highlighted, no matter how farfetched they may seem, could impact on your employees. Take for example, an extreme cyber-attack. How would this impact on your employees? How would they access their emails and respond to customers? How would they carry out basic tasks, or access cloud services? How would you keep them updated and informed? Some people can get very frustrated with their I.T. equipment even when it is working, so during extreme situations, providing support and advice may be critical to them. Should your employees not be able to work, are there temporary contract workers that you could call in at the last minute? Which company would you contact? Where would you find their details when in the middle of a stressful situation? How up to date are the contact details of your employees? When was the last time these details were updated? How easy would it be to set up a ‘What’s App’ group that kicks in, should the worst happen?
The Place of Work
Consider if the workplace network shuts down, or there is a power cut, how could your employees access the plans to know what to do, when everything is stored in the cloud? An emergency text messaging service to all employees should a disaster occur, could be one way of communicating to everyone. What would you do if you no longer had access to your office/ workplace (temporarily or permanently)? Could you operate from a nearby site and how easy would it be to access this? Is there a temporary office space which employees could go and work at – how would they pay for this and how would you monitor this? Working from home during the pandemic gave us insights of what we might need, should this happen.
If you manufacture goods, and your factory is no longer able to operate, is there a secondary supplier/ manufacturer who could ensure your production continues, albeit at temporarily higher additional costs?
The Product
Many products offered by organisations rely on cloud services. Whilst contingency planning is primarily focused on supporting our own organisations, should the worst happen, it is also worth considering scenarios that may impact on suppliers. For example, if Amazon cloud services suddenly suffered a cyber-attack, it could have a devastating impact on your ability to offer your service. Who could you switch to, and how easy would that be? What would you do if your supplier suffered a catastrophic event? Who could you approach to ensure your organisation continues to produce its product? Consider your stockholding and how much back-up supplies you would need, to deal with an extreme event?
Developing Resilience
In the three areas described, we have provided more questions than any answers. This is because part of contingency planning is to think about your organisation, how it operates and the areas which are of greatest importance or concern, to deal with extreme situations. Developing resilience isn’t solely achieved from experiencing extreme events and working through them. Mentally working through how your organisation would deal with different extreme situations, what’s in place to help, and what else you would need, helps develop resilience. Thinking these situations through, allows the development of action plans to ensure any gaps are filled. But, thinking alone cannot be enough, we need to ensure the organisations we work for are ready.
Part of developing our resilience must include developing a more agile mindset. Exposing the organisation to regular ‘drills’, or evoking change on a regular basis, may help. In one media organisation, the CEO insisted the whole organisation moved desks every 6 months, as he wanted them to be change ready. Whilst there were complaints, there was no doubt about the way this was developing greater resilience for change. Consider what you could implement across your organisation to get your employees change ready.
If the pandemic has taught us one thing, it’s that we will not get time to plan and prepare during an extreme event and therefore thinking ahead is more important than ever. In the current uncertain economic and political landscape, many organisations are going to face challenging situations in the immediate future, and contingency planning, combined with implementing strategies to develop a more agile mindset across your organisation, will be key. Business contingency plans should be scrutinised regularly in the same way we review strategies, so we never forget what we or others have learnt from what we hope will be a once-in-a-lifetime event.
