"Somebody, somewhere - save us!"

You settle down to watch the movie. Aliens have landed. Everybody panics and waits for the hero to arrive with a plan to save the planet. Until someone screams, "But he's on annual leave this week!"

We all hope that somebody, somewhere will take care of whatever disasters affect our workplace - fire, flood, burglary etc. Somebody, somewhere must be getting paid to sort all that out, right? Well hopefully. But you too have a big part to play.

If someone in your business is working on a business continuity plan they will have started by identifying what the biggest threats are to the most important things the business does. For example if the main building is getting old and prone to power cuts, leaks etc but also happens to house the reception desk, the team that organises customer deliveries and the payroll people- well, there better be a plan. The continuity planner will go through the options:

• Buy a new building
• Renovate the old building
• Separate critical teams out into different buildings
• Have an alternate location where teams can work if something goes wrong

All of the above will have cost and hassle implications. But here's where you come in. There may well be a plan out there that says in certain circumstances you need to work from home or in another building miles away. The important thing is that you are aware of your role in the business continuity plan. That you know what to do even if it's just wait at home until your manager contacts you. (This assumes your manager has your up to date contact details and this little bit is an important part of business continuity planning.)

Planning for and dealing with emergencies is difficult for two reasons:

#1. "Sods law" This states that when something goes wrong it will be in the early hours of a Sunday morning or that the person who could most easily fix it will be on holiday.

#2.Secondly, emergencies always have unexpected knock-on effects. (eg vandals start a fire so the police close off the road. The fire brigade arrive but can't get through the security gates because the manager with the keys is stuck in traffic - because the road has been closed off..etc etc)

Again here is where you come in. The planners and heads of departments can see the big picture, how teams and departments link together across the business. What they don't have is knowledge of the detail. Why some equipment really is essential and others not, why trying to do something at a different time or in a different place simply wouldn't work. They need advice from staff that do the job about what will work. So raise any concerns you have about potential threats and look for holes in the business continuity plans.

Another crucial area but one which is easy to overlook is dependence on suppliers and subcontractors. It is not good enough to tell angry customers that it was contracted out to them and they let us down. The business needs to know that suppliers and contractors have continuity arrangements. Again it is you who has the day to day experience of dealing with external providers and you know how well they cope when something goes wrong at their end.

So at work tomorrow find out about the business continuity plan. Ensure you know what part you need to play and check whether you think the plans will actually work. (Unless the Earth really is destroyed by an alien space fleet which means you can have tomorrow off.)

FIN

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About the author - Stephen Belshaw works at Safe in the Knowledge ( http://www.safeintheknowledge.com ). We provide an online tool to check your own disaster planning arrangements and those of your key suppliers.

Editor