How to Make Business Continuity a Part of Your Organisational Culture

The most successful business continuity plans are those that have full involvement and engagement from employees. A shift in mindset and a recognition that business continuity is not solely the responsibility of a dedicated team or department, but a collective effort that requires a certain level of active participation from those involved. Disruptions can significantly affect an organisation's ability to deliver essential products and services, influencing its relationships with clients, employees, and stakeholders.

Embedding business continuity and resilience into an organisation’s culture is one of the most critical steps in ensuring you not only sustain business-as-usual activities but also raise awareness about the value of business resilience.

What is Continuity Culture?

When you embed business continuity as part of organisational culture, it requires revamping the practices, habits, and mindsets of employees from senior leadership to each and every one of your employees.

It also requires a change in investment for organisations since building a business continuity culture involves resources, training, communication, and change in critical processes for your employees to build awareness.

Essentially, adopting a business continuity organisational culture involves orienting your employees to ensure that the critical functions and processes show resilience amid changing external business landscapes. It is more than just your ability to recover from the disruption your company faces at any moment.

A business continuity awareness campaign can serve as a structured approach to inform and educate employees about continuity plans within an organisation.

Similar to building a business resilience strategy, your organisational culture on business continuity planning permeates every aspect of the organisation. Therefore, it requires the involvement of all, not just most employees or senior management, to become a success.

To embed business continuity as part of your organisation’s culture means that it isn’t a task that you check off your to-do list. It is an ongoing process of business continuity management, business impact analysis, testing, reviewing, and updating. There are several processes that require active involvement for employees in your company, especially business continuity plans that involve more than just one department.

It's worth noting that not every employee must become an expert in business continuity planning and management, though. Company-wide buy-in and awareness of the importance of business continuity can be supplemented by strong leadership and appropriate tools and processes to facilitate everything from planning and implementing to testing and exercising.

How to Make Business Continuity Part of Culture at Work

Understanding the impact of embedding business continuity in your organisation is only the first step. Now, you have to figure out how you can embed business continuity as part of the company culture.

A business continuity culture requires several steps and resources to raise awareness of business continuity management and equip employees with proper training and tools to perform their job.

Step 1: Assessing Awareness Level

Before raising awareness could happen, you must assess the employees’ current awareness level of your business continuity plan. Measuring awareness level is challenging since it is constantly changing and can vary from one employee to another, but it’s a crucial step in building a continuity culture.

Collect information from senior leaders to new employees. Send them surveys and questionnaires so you can determine their awareness of your business continuity efforts. Use the information you gather to gain insights into the current knowledge level of your employees, and what steps you must take to achieve a continuity culture.

When assessing your employees’ awareness level of your business continuity planning within the organisation, take time to consider how accessible information is to them. You have to ensure you are not putting barriers to your own progress as you attempt to embed business continuity in your organisational culture.

Step 2: Identify Requirements

Once you have assessed the employees’ awareness level of your business continuity planning, you can identify the requirements for each group. Different personnel groups require a different approach in your effort to embed a business continuity culture. For example, senior leadership will require the involvement of governing committees and departmental management to facilitate raising awareness. You must demonstrate the importance of making business continuity culture a part of your organisation‘s strategic priorities.

A business continuity programme is crucial in fostering awareness among organisation personnel. It helps employees understand its objectives and benefits, encourages engagement through a top-down and bottom-up approach, and facilitates dialogue to address concerns. As the BC manager or resilience lead, you should also target the staff responsible for contributing to the business impact analysis and business continuity plan. Their awareness level can be critical in how effective your business continuity planning and implementation could be and vice versa.

Then, you must also identify the needs of those staff. How are they going to provide you with their input? How and where will it be captured, and at what time intervals? This group is critical to ensure business continuity since they are directly involved with the activities that enable critical business functions to remain operational. Ensure they are fully equipped as you build a business continuity culture, and consider using business continuity software solutions to support this.

Step 3: Define Objectives

Clearly defining your objectives for embedding business continuity culture into the organisation is also a crucial part of the process. Your objectives will determine the extent of training and resources required to raise awareness of business continuity as an organisational culture, and what other training is required to address gaps in your existing business resilience and continuity practices.

You must define these objectives locally, which means you have to evaluate business practices at the core business or functional level. But even if you establish objectives locally, they must align with the overall organisational culture to ensure business resilience and continuity strategy success.

Step 4: Training

After assessing the awareness level and defining your objectives for establishing a business continuity culture, the next step would be to train your employees. It is crucial to understand the different types of disruptions that can occur in the context of business continuity awareness training to ensure comprehensive preparedness.

The provision of information is vital to your business continuity efforts, which must also be aligned when training your employees and embedding business continuity. Monitoring the effectiveness of business continuity plans and programs is equally important to ensure that the training sessions enhance staff awareness and preparedness.

You can use internal resources, external sites and publications, reference events, and potentially hire business continuity experts to provide the necessary knowledge to those directly involved in business continuity planning and management.

However, training for other employees, who are not directly involved in BC planning and management, can be less in-depth and introduced as part of the company culture as a whole.

Step 5: Implement Cultural Change

The transformation of an organisation's culture does not happen overnight. It is often a long, demanding process, but it is essential if you want to reap the benefits of business continuity planning in your organisation.

Involve Top Management

Getting the support of internal stakeholders and senior management is essential to the success of your effort to embed business continuity into the organisational culture. Therefore, you need to get them on board with this effort and showcase the amount of assets and resources (both monetary and non-monetary) you could save when a disruption occurs!

Leverage Software Tools and Technologies

Companies nowadays have access to an extensive suite of business continuity solutions and technology tools. Make sure to utilise the technology to facilitate communication, coordination, and implementation of your business continuity plans. Using software tools also helps streamline your business impact analysis and business continuity planning and gives it structure for others to easily comprehend and follow.

Some companies and their employees hesitate to adopt technology for business continuity, but it can speed up your effort to embed business continuity into the company culture because it streamlines processes and automates the day-to-day management. Business continuity management software allows organisations to effectively manage their continuity activities, thereby enhancing the efficiency of their continuity plans.

Introduce Business Continuity Ambassadors

Identifying and designating business continuity ambassadors work best for larger organisations. These ambassadors will serve as the voice of the company in its effort to implement an organisational change that focuses on business continuity management as embedded into your workplace processes. It becomes easier for employees to adopt when the champions of change are among them, instead of those from senior management.

Communication is Key

Communication is one of the overlooked aspects that are critical to the implementation of a cultural change, a business continuity culture included. To embed business continuity in your organisation effectively and successfully, constant reminders are required for employees across all levels, including senior leadership.

Consider integrating business continuity planning into the project management process. It starts with the onboarding process, which is one of the best ways to embed business continuity for new hires. You should also schedule regular business continuity concept reviews and analyses while setting aside time for role-specific training.

Set up Monitoring and Review

Monitoring and review are essential components of business continuity management, ensuring that plans and procedures are up-to-date and effective. Regular review and update of business continuity plans help organisations to identify areas for improvement and address emerging risks. Key stakeholders, including employees, clients, and board members, should be involved in the monitoring and review process.

Business continuity awareness campaigns can help to raise awareness and promote a culture of continuity within an organisation. Ongoing monitoring and review help organisations to demonstrate their commitment to business continuity and resilience. The use of business continuity software and tools can support the monitoring and review process, providing real-time insights and updates.

Establish Employee Roles and Responsibilities

Employees play a critical role in maintaining business continuity, and it is essential that they understand their roles and responsibilities. Business continuity awareness training should be provided to all employees, ensuring that they are equipped to respond to disruptions. Employees should be involved in the development and review of business continuity plans, providing valuable insights and feedback.

Clear communication and access to information are essential for employees to perform their roles and responsibilities effectively. Employees should be trained on the use of business continuity software and tools, ensuring that they can respond quickly and effectively in the event of a disruption. Ongoing training and awareness programs help to reinforce employee understanding and ensure that they are prepared to respond to disruptions.

Is Your Organisational Culture Built for Business Continuity?

Business continuity as part of your company culture can be a powerful step in building organisational resilience, especially in this business environment rife with changing threats. Your ability to get your board members and teams involved in this major shift can be difficult but worthwhile as you experience the benefits of maintaining business resilience and best practices that ensure continuity. Strengthening defences within an organisation by ensuring that staff are well-trained to recognise threats and understand their responsibilities is crucial for reinforcing resilience against potential disruptions.

C2 Meridian is a complete business continuity and organisational resilience platform that can help your organisation maintain its vital functions even in the ever-growing threats in the industry! Training employees to understand their roles and responsibilities positions them as the last line of defence against potential disruptions, highlighting the importance of their preparedness and awareness in maintaining business resilience.

Book a demo today to see how C2 can support your efforts in building a business continuity culture!