Employees and Business Continuity

We always talk about the fact that our people are our most important asset. Now is the time to assess how well we are handling this asset and to consider the employee's role in business continuity - or, as one of this week's articles calls it - the Employee Factor. There seem to be almost no end to the employee issues you are required to deal with; hiring, firing, privacy, safety, and ethics are only some of these. Check out this week's articles to see if you've missed any critical steps you should be taking to ensure your employees' well being and that of your business.

What would happen to your business if your workers were unable to perform their jobs? (Item #1)   Here are four reasons that IT executives charged with BC/RM/DR need to consider their employees and operations heavily in their plan. (Item #2)   The author discusses four areas of human resource consideration in business continuity planning. (Item #3)  

There are three key issue drivers for strategic workforce planning. (Item #4)   Are your employees aware of the ethical implications of their actions? (Item #5)   If you plan on deploying security cameras in your organization, please communicate with your employees and explain the new initiative to them. (Item #6)  

As always, we look forward to hearing your comments & insights regarding business continuity. If you have a topic you'd like us to cover, email me at [email protected].

Bob Mellinger, President
Attainium Corp



1. Getting personal with business continuity

An event that disrupts your business, no matter how limited or broad in scope, can undermine your ability to remain competitive-and maybe even to survive. But while disaster recovery planning for your facilities and technology is critical to your business continuity, you also need to fully consider the impact of a disruption on your most valuable asset: your employees.
ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/sa/wh/n/buw03015usen/BUW03015USEN.PDF


2. The Employee Factor of Continuity Planning:
     Four Reasons It Matters to IT Executives

Business continuity planning, risk management, disaster recovery -- whatever you call it, it's falling into the laps of the IT executive more often than ever before. If -- or when -- you find yourself called upon to extend your role and take responsibility for programs beyond data-centric implementations, you'll find that there are more considerations than you'd ever dreamed, not the least of which is employee preparedness.
http://esj.com/Articles/2010/02/23/Employee-Continuity-Planning.aspx


3. Organizing Human Resource Issues for Business Continuity

Part of the dilemma in planning for business continuity is the myriad of human issues to be dealt with - the human resource policies and procedures that impact employees involved in the response to disaster. My experience as a recovery planning consultant has provided me many instances where the human resource function was a critical but often ignored function in the planning for recovery.
http://www.drj.com/drworld/content/w3_021.htm


4. Workforce Planning

Employers often go straight to developing workforce proposals, strategies, and programs. Instead, they should first clearly define the nature and scope of the issues they need to address.
http://www.dop.wa.gov/STRATEGICHR/WORKFORCEPLANNING
/Pages/IdentifyWorkforceIssues.aspx


5. Avoiding Ethical Misconduct Disasters

Integrity management should be a priority not only because it is legally required, but because it is the right thing to do. Employees who know that particular workplace decisions, behaviors, and processes exist in an ethically judged context are more aware and motivated to act ethically.
http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/053/integrity.html


6. Using Security Cameras While Respecting Privacy

Preventing internal theft, drug use and workplace violence; these are all valid reasons for using security cameras in the workplace. Such activities can cost your business plenty in terms of lost inventory, decreased productivity and injury. But while you are responsible to protect your company's bottom line, you also need to respect your staff's right to privacy. This article will give business managers and owners some guidelines for using security cameras as part of a reasonable security policy.
http://bizsecurity.about.com/od/privacyissues/a/video_privacy.htm


Quote of the Week:

"Research indicates that workers have three prime needs: Interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company."
-- Zig Ziglar

Contact Us:

Attainium Corp
15110 Gaffney Circle
Gainesville, VA 20155
www.attainium.net