Although I love technology I am going a bit old-school with this one so we leave nothing to chance.

Create awareness among process owners that they should always have access to a paper ‘hard’ copy of their plan.  Also, tech it out by making plans available to them in a secure location of your intranet. An internal website is a great place to store plans. Just make sure employees only have access to the plans they own.   In addition, consider providing access to plans in a secure app. Good BCM systems include robust apps.

Paper is important as under certain circumstances the digital copy may not be available and the paper copy can be a business-saver.

You can use this as a template for your awareness message or customize as you see fit:

Dear <<process owner name>,

Disruptive events have a strange way of happening at the most inconvenient times. Your business continuity plan is your ‘cookbook’ for responding and recovering to any disruptive event so it is important to:

  • Keep a printed copy at home (I keep it in my bedroom)
  • Keep a printed copy at work
  • Keep a mini-plan with you always

You can also access your plan on <<name of accessible site – if you have VPN>>. But remember, we are a resilient organization. We frown on single points of failure.  You must have access to a paper copy of your plan in case you do not have power OR your network infrastructure is the disruptive event and you cannot get to the digital copy of your plan.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Thank you,

<<Your name and contact info goes here>>

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