BCAW 2022 Blog Competition: 'Embedding Business Continuity in a ‘Post-Covid’, Hybrid working world' | BCI

Covid has made each of us take stock of our personal lives and priorities, we have all realised what is important to us and what we can afford to leave behind in a post covid world (albeit we are not quite ‘post covid’ yet!).

The workplace is no different and companies across the globe as now looking at how they handled Covid, what lessons are to be learned and what changes are worth keeping and embracing.

My company is no different and rather than looking back on what we ‘could’ have done differently (the dreaded hindsight), we are facing the future head-on with a new mindset to our Business Continuity model, now that we have fully adopted hybrid working. Changes need to be made to ensure the BC programme continues to provide a robust and resilient service to our company now that we are no longer all in the office as much as we used to be.

1. We are adapting our approach to completing the BIA’s and subsequent BC Plans, making the most of screen sharing and video calls.
2. Exercising in a room with a lot of people around a desk, whilst nice to do, is also taking a back seat to video calls. While it may seem nice to have everyone together, let’s think about the benefits of a video call:
   • No limit to geographical locations and the number of people involved
   • Easier to fit into people’s busy diaries
   • No travel costs to the company
   • Calls can be recorded for ease of note-taking
   • And most importantly, no cream cakes sitting in the middle of the table to put us off our train of thought!

Less than 10yrs ago the idea that Home Working would become a BC Strategy would have been dismissed, the use of Work Area Recovery sites was seen as our only option should our building become unavailable, but here we are, it is not only a BC strategy, it is a daily way of life for the vast majority of people. So, whilst we still very much plan for buildings being unavailable what we now focus on has changed from WAR sites to:

• Ensuring all staff have the equipment they need to work from home       
• Advising our employees to regularly test their equipment and connections and have a backup in place, such as a mobile hotspot should their home internet go down.
• Ensuring our employees have access to support both from a work perspective and ensuring their physical and mental health are looked after too.
• For those in the office they now are safe in the knowledge that should something occur that causes disruption there, they have a backup at home.

Change is not always a bad thing, the disruption caused by Covid should be used as a mechanism to embrace the positive changes we can make and reset how we view things.

Author: Judith Miller, Business Continuity Manager