By Sam | June 1, 2015

How can you make Disaster Preparedness strike a chord for your Credit Union?

We all know that Disaster Recovery plans are required. The examiners make mention of them and audit them regularly. Are you planning just to get through the audit or are you focused on Credit Union business continuity as a whole? The more engaged staff is in planning, the better prepared they are to react and respond to a disaster.

Credit union BCP Staff engagement begins with participation and accountability! Participation isn’t only about documenting processes and writing procedures. It includes updating, testing and communicating the plan to others. There’s a lot involved in your Credit Union’s business continuity plan. Create a Business Continuity Plan Committee comprising of representatives from the functional areas. This team should regularly update the Board of Directors with status, challenges and progress. Keep in mind that the board has oversight and strategic responsibility over your Credit Union – this includes business continuity. 5 Important Things to Tell (Show) Your Board About Your Credit Union DR/BCP provides some additional detail of keeping the Board engaged as well.

At the beginning of the year (or another regularly scheduled timeframe), outline a testing and training schedule. There may be some changes in dates, but the more you plan these out and perform them on a regular basis, the more likely for follow through. Your schedule should include (but not be limited to the following):

• Department Plan Reviews – As part of your Ongoing Operations partnership and use of CURecover, don’t forget to schedule your reviews. It’s included in your service.
• Policy and Procedure Review and Updates – changes occur regularly. With a review process, you’ll ensure the procedures included in your Credit Union business continuity plan are applicable at the time of an incident.
• Business Impact Analysis Review and Update – technologies, staff, processes and dependencies change regularly. That also impacts our recovery needs and expectations. A system needed within 24 hours last year may require faster turnaround this year due to increased usage and member impact. Not only are we dependent on systems, there are cross departmental dependencies. The more discussion that takes place, the more these dependencies are identified and gaps able to fill.
• Tabletop and Disaster Recovery Exercises – include more than just the BCP Committee in these exercises. Depth of knowledge of your Credit Union’s business continuity plan is built with involvement of all staff. Change the participants up from exercise to exercise, build challenges into the scope, have some fun with testing and report the outcome to your Board of Directors.
• Emergency Response testing and training (branch evacuation, tornado drills, bomb threat and security training, etc) – don’t forget the branches! It’s not just the corporate facility that needs to work on staff awareness and testing. Emergency Response procedures are for ALL!
• Call Tree Testing (Crisis Management Notification System, if applicable) – don’t forget to include the Board of Directors, Supervisory Committee and other volunteers. Due to weather situations, many of us have tested this regularly over the past couple of years. However, some have been lucky to not be impacted by weather. Regardless, communication is critical and needs to be tested. Have some fun with it and give a “dress down day” or something to create more camaraderie in the workplace.

When public flogging or whipping with a wet noodle aren’t good options, include DR and BCP in your Credit Union’s scorecard giving everyone accountability toward the same goals.

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