While many leaders brood on downtime, they often fail to demonstrate to their team members how to execute the plan and minimize productivity decrease.
As previously indicated, your employees are integral to the efficacy of your BCP. And the only way to perform their roles correctly is to become well-versed in the plan.
To ensure this, explain how the staff should respond during crises. Tell them how to handle their clients if your systems go down. Don’t forget about the location and schedules that will be effective while the main office is off-limits.
The final part is to have your team practice these tasks so they can complete them more easily when disasters strike.
Mistake #4 – Prioritising Operational Continuity Over Team Safety
When accidents occur, it’s understandable why business owners focus on assessing the effects on their business. Nevertheless, considering operational continuity only and neglecting your staff’s safety and well-being can have dire consequences.
Your people are crucial to executing your BCP appropriately, so check on them first. Data plans that nobody can facilitate are useless, regardless of their effectiveness.
You have to make sure your staff is safe and reachable after a crisis. The crisis management task force should be able to contact them easily and see if they can help them.
This will help guarantee your team can bounce back after an accident and go back to work quickly.
Mistake #5 – Having Improper Tech Solutions
Waiting for natural disasters to strike before establishing toll-free hotlines for your employees is a huge mistake. Likewise, failure to set up data backups might render your systems useless in case of data breaches.
If you have no proper technology to mitigate accidents, you could be exposing your business to higher risks, revenue loss, and prolonged downtime.
To avoid this, consult technology specialists or your IT sector to verify your system has all features and components that can keep your networks intact. Such a system should allow you to streamline communications, minimize downtime, and secure your workloads
Mistake #6 – Only One Person Manages the Plan
Developing a BCP all by yourself is possible, but it’s also more prone to error. A much better approach is to gather people across all your departments to account for all contingencies. Otherwise, you’ll restrict your team’s insight into all the processes and risks under your plan.
Forming a BCP management team that involves multiple functions and departments offers a company-wide perspective to your planning. This diversity can help resolve problems and streamline your strategy.
Mistake #7 – Using Broad Generalizations
Continuity plans with broad generalizations often lead to uncertainty and confusion. A BCP needs to be concise and, if possible, explain each detail in short steps. Such forms enable anyone to understand the directions and visualize their roles.
Mistake #8 – Skipping Risk Assessment
Risk assessments are a critical step that must take place before developing your BCP. As the name suggests, they can help you discover the potential risks in your area.
Depending on the size of your organization, location, and activities, your company faces different risks. For example, there’s no need to plan for disaster recovery after a hurricane if your region isn’t prone to them. It would only increase your costs and waste time.
Don’t Let Your Operations Grind to a Halt
A detailed BCP goes a long way in improving your response to disasters. Avoiding the above-mentioned mistakes will put you on the right track and help your staff cope with new conditions more easily.
If you need help in creating your BCP, give us a call today. Let’s have an obligation-free chat to determine how we can help you.
