2022-05-19
With hybrid work now the norm across many sectors and industries, businesses are seeing first-hand the challenges it imposes on Business Continuity. But, with these challenges comes equal opportunity to engage staff in BCM in ways never before possible…
Can a hybrid workplace be resilient?
A key part of building resilience in the hybrid world and workplace is to ensure as many people in the organisation as possible are aware of, and take some responsibility for, Business Continuity.
This, however, can only be achieved if you have an effective way of embedding business continuity throughout an organization. The hybrid way of work provides us with the opportunity to achieve this in a way that hasn’t ever been possible.
If, for example, your organization runs a short ‘town hall’ regarding Business Continuity, pre-pandemic; you would expect employees to attend in person. The presenter, also there in person, would then inform everyone about the latest updates and news regarding business continuity at the organisation. People who weren’t onsite – for whatever reason - would miss the meeting and, crucially, miss the information.
Virtual Business Continuity
The hybrid world has changed all this. Put simply, company-wide programs and initiatives, like those described above, just don’t work this way anymore.
It’s become easier than ever to share BCM information, whether via short virtual meetings (which can also be recorded and shared with the organization) or virtual / hybrid ‘town halls’, given the ease of bringing everyone together for an online meeting, versus face-to-face.
We’re even seeing monthly breakfast briefings whereby team or entire organizations can tune in and start their working day with the latest activity and updates regarding BCM.
How to use BCM metrics
How can metrics be used to win senior management buy-in? What obstacles do you face and how can you overcome them? Get the answers from the 4C BCM team.
How to engage an organization in Business Continuity
This can all be taken one step further by providing what we call “spotlight exercises”.
A spotlight exercise is a (deliberately) high-level and light-touch view of organizational BCM, allowing for some interactivity around current threats and hazards for the coming months.
Asking simple questions, using readily available online tools or chat functions, easily elicits thoughts and responses on how people and your organization should prepare and respond, and what your current considerations and focus areas are.
Spotlight Exercises as an engagement tool
Spotlight exercises are a great way to encourage people to show a new interest in Business Continuity, and they can be great fun too.
One added benefit of this approach is that the output of such sessions can be used to great effect in more formal exercises with key stakeholders. As such, they can help to shape the scenario for an exercise by allowing you to understand how emerging threats and hazards may affect the different areas of your business.
This is highly valuable information, so having a way of storing and filtering your spotlight Q&As is a real benefit.
Gartner features Exonaut BCM
Gartner, the global research and advisory firm, has named our Exonaut® software platform in its Hype Cycle for Business Continuity and IT Resilience.
In summary: Digital BCM tools & the hybrid world
The hybrid world of work offers a rare chance to embed BCM in the organization and engage staff in a way that simply wasn’t possible before. Tools like spotlight exercises offer an improved understanding of the current state of BCM, the threat landscape, and what scenarios and exercises best meet an organization’s capability development needs.
Ultimately, hybrid working has opened up opportunities to bring people together from across the organization, and engage them in BCM, and this isn’t a chance we can afford to miss. We can now conduct exercising that can build the BCM capabilities of staff at every level, in a way that wasn’t possible previously.
Without a doubt, digital tools and the hybrid world can help our organizations be more resilient.
