Comprehensive Preparedness leads to Resiliency

Resiliency is the overarching umbrella that encompasses Emergency Preparedness, Business Continuity Planning, Crisis Response, Emergency Response Management, Disaster Recovery. These are all terms bandied about when some event hits the headlines, but did you know these are not interchangeable terms? The fact is, they are not synonyms and are different business functions. There are distinctive differences between these terms – assessing & understanding the roles ensures the organization correctly accounts for each.

Businesses with multiples (such as emergency preparedness, business continuity, and disaster recovery) are already a step ahead - since these are distinct functions that can make or break a company. While these fields have overlapping interests, the main goals of each are quite different. For instance, emergency management safeguards people from harm, business continuity focuses on the continuity of key business operations, while disaster recovery restores a company's information technology. Effectively managing an emergency will certainly impact business continuity and disaster recovery efforts, but it is not the same.

Emergency management is often the procedures and actions that are taken immediately after a crisis occurs. The business continuity and disaster recovery teams, on the other hand, take steps to maintain or restore the organization to its pre-crisis state.

In the ideal set-up, emergency management and business continuity personnel would be separate entities with their own teams. However, in practice, we find these roles often get lumped together based on the misguided notion that they are the same.

Emergency preparedness, business continuity, and disaster recovery involve very distinct tasks:

• Emergency preparedness is directing people and resources away from risky areas and practices, staging emergency training, drills, and exercises, evacuating facilities and working with first responders to ensure all stakeholders make it through a crisis safe and sound.
• Business continuity planning includes protecting the business' reputation online, establishing, and maintaining redundant systems and support teams, and ensuring employees can return to daily work tasks following an emergency.
• Disaster recovery planning includes protecting data assets and restoring IT systems.

Prevention, Preparation, Response, Recovery

The best offense is a strong defense is an adage that applies to many fields of endeavor, including business, games, and military operations. Of course, since resiliency includes Prevention, Preparation, Response, Recovery, there needs to be an overarching strategy for the different goals and job roles, recognizing how each aspect will prepare for a crisis with a distinctly different perspective.

1. Prevention – actions taken in advance. Sometimes this is referred to as risk/threat mitigation. Examples include berming, weatherization, fortifications, drainage/diversion, alternative power sources, and alternative communication systems. Prevention activities are a moral & ethical responsibility that should be happening all the time.
2. Preparedness – planning, creating, deciding, and testing plans, as well as training, educating, and sharing information to prepare for an emergency event. These are also activities that should be ongoing.
3. Response – the intervening actions during or immediately after an emergency. Focus is on saving lives and protecting assets (buildings, infrastructure, data, and other assets) - measured in hours or days.
4. Recovery – the collaborative process of supporting disaster or emergency-affected communities in reconstructing damaged infrastructure and the restoration of emotional, social-economic, and even physical wellbeing - usually measured in weeks, months, or years.

Prevention and preparation staff should assess all the possible hazards & crises that could hit an organization, such as natural (e.g., severe weather, flooding), technical (e.g., cyberattack, power outage), or human-made (e.g., gun violence and terrorism). With the Resiliency framework in place, teams hold regular planning, preparation, and readiness drills or exercises (i.e., Desk-Top (DTX) or Table-Top (TTX), ensuring the entire business is aware of threats and understands what to do in case of a disruptive event or emergency. Leadership and respective teams should also establish a way to effectively distribute emergency management plans, response plans, key contact lists, and other relevant documents to employees, mutual-aid organizations, and other key stakeholders.

Meanwhile, the business continuity team develops plans to avoid potential business-disrupting problems. The business continuity plans (BCP) aren't generally distributed to the entire company but rather to key responders and stakeholders who will likely be involved in the business continuity efforts. These stakeholders may include the executive team, the IT department, public/community relations/communications, and other groups.

Despite the differences between emergency management, business continuity, and disaster recovery, in the end, these groups work toward the same objective: helping ensure the success of the business. While their specific, day-to-day focus is different by cooperating and collaborating, these teams will better position the company for survivability and success.

How are resiliency, emergency management, business continuity, and disaster recovery handled in your organization? Are they viewed as multiple distinct fields, or are they lumped together into one?

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