PgM 10: Stage 2 - Analyze BCM Training Needs

Stage 2 - Analyze Training Needs

The need to train BC teams is well recognized by the BC industry. Certification courses, seminars, professional practice standards, and other authoritative bodies explicitly state requirements for training BC teams. These prescriptions call for training those individuals who have been charged with the development of the BC Plan.

IC_Morepost_PgM_Analyze BCM Training Needs

Furthermore, the recommended training appears to be restricted to the plan development phase. The fact of the matter is that BC teams need training at four distinct phases of BC Plan development process, namely:

Pre-planning
Planning
Post-plan development
Pre-exercise

On-going training and education is imperative for those individuals in an organization, who will be involved not only in the development and implementation of the BC Plan, but also in exercising, evaluating, maintaining, and executing the BC Plan.

Stage 2 of the training and awareness component presents approaches for providing training for BC teams during all of the four BC planning phases. In this stage, the desired elements of training as well as the target audience groups for each of these four phases are provided with the list of training requirements that may need to be met on an on-going basis, rather than a one-time effort.

Identify Staff Readiness

Like BCP awareness, training programs have to be constantly measured against a baseline or a training roadmap to ensure that the effort of the people managing the programs, the people conducting the programs and the people attending the programs have been well spent and well appreciated.

Corporate-wide training programs have been widely recognized as an important ingredient for an on-going, pro-active approach to disaster preparedness and recovery, crisis management, and BC planning and implementation. While several target audiences may be identified for training, the most important groups are as follows:

Executive Management
Functional management and employees involved in disaster recovery and BC

It is recommended that the Executive Management, functional management, and employees involved in disaster recovery and BC be given formal training at several phases of the BC planning and implementation. These include:

Project/ Program initiation
Establishing the need for and commitment to disaster recovery and BC planning by Executive Management
Risk assessment and business impact analysis
Educating relevant employees in methodology and standards
Development and implementation
Training employees on methodological approaches and enforcing standards across the organization
Testing/exercising, evaluation, and maintenance of the BC Plan
Ensuring that procedures are followed during test/exercises
Ensuring that appropriate methodologies and standards are utilized during evaluation and maintenance

Develop Training Roadmap

Engaging the employees continuously through a well planned roadmap will have the following effects on the employees:

Maintain interest
Enable continuous improvement
Excel in assigned and identified skillset

If this is not promoted, even the strongest interest on the part of the employees can be totally lost as they will get bored with the same level of information and execute mundane activities mechanically.

Thus, developing a roadmap with incremental changes in the level, content and quality of the training and development programs should assist the organization in raising the competency, readiness and potential leadership.

This is similar to the roadmap for the development BC professionals, based on the different stages of BC lifecycle needs in the organization. The major stages of the cycle and the preparation of the employees’ skillsets include:

Reduce

Develop business continuity strategy, recovery plans and recovery readiness in response to disaster

Response

Ensure survival and life safety, so as to reduce the potential disaster impact to the organizational survival as a whole

Recover and Resume

Recover the critical business processes, systems and resources in accordance to the Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) of the organization

Restore and Return

Rebuild the disaster affected site and prepare the restoration of the entire organization business processes

Track Staff Development

There is a need to jointly develop a standard knowledge database with the Human Resource unit to track the skillset of every employee in the organization. This will enable the organization to identify the correct skillset and the potential Business Unit BCM Coordinators within the organization to be developed to their fullest. The process to develop a complete skillsets database starts with:

Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of each employee with respect to their BC responsibilities
Identifying the attributes of these strengths and weaknesses based on their personality, their mindset and culture or a lack of skillsets
Identifying training and development to remove the weak points and reinforce the strong ones
Analyzing the effects of past training and development programs that the employee has undergone
Planning for the next stage of development programs, or training to be used for replacements in the BC teams

Maintain Training Motivators

In order for the BC planning program to be successful and employees to be motivated, the organization must establish certain reward policies.

I am a person who is against the use of reward as motivation but unfortunately in this situation, it is recommended that the stick and carrot approach be adopted. BCM training and awareness can be integrated with job performance and the appraisal process.

Once staff members know that management takes a serious view on BCM, they will be more committed towards the BCM initiative within the organization such as training workshops and awareness seminars. For example, one organization declared a day off for all participants if a simulation test achieves the “pass” status.

Other recognitions and rewards for doing BCM include:

Monetary and verbal recognition from management as well as colleagues for meeting recovery time and recovery point objectives
Inciting a sense of satisfaction for protecting the organization’s reputation
Sense of fulfillment as the organization had subscribed to high ethical standards, especially if the organization implements internationally recognized best practices
Obtaining power and affiliation with others in power. In fact, it is said that Business Unit BC Coordinators amass quite a bit of clout as they often have to work with the Executive Management and business unit heads
Getting good press coverage for the organization if a test turns out to be successful
Meeting the business units’ objectives. This is important as it is directly linked to job promotion

Some of these suggestions may appear to be mercenary, but it is about contesting for the employees’ attention to the BC planning project or BCM program.

The Executive Management may consider gifts, prizes and awards schemes for personnel who have done exceptionally well in BCM activities such as training, tests and exercises. On the other hand, loss of employment and demotion may be meted out as punishment for negligence.

Conclusion

With a continuous training and awareness plan worked out for every employee within the organization, paying close attention to the core BCM coordinators and recovery team players, especially the key appointment holders in the BCM steering committee and appointed BC team leaders will definitely strengthen the BC readiness of the entire organization.

Providing, developing and enriching their skillsets, their BCM knowledge, their decision making process and the power to self-educate in the area of BCP will form a solid foundation for the organization’s capability to resiliency against potential disasters.

Reference

Goh, M. H. (2021). Managing & Sustaining Your Business Continuity Management Program. Business Continuity Management Planning Series (3rd ed.). Singapore: GMH Pte Ltd.

Extracted from "Chapter 10: Stage 2 - Analyze Training Needs"

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