DOE Earmarks $430M To Improve U.S. Hydropower Grid Resilience
Continuity Insights Staff
Short Takes... on Business Continuity
ACP October Webinar Announced
Deciphering Overlapping Standards and Requirements, Using the BCP Genome Why focus on just one standard, when you could comply with any or all of them? Discover a better way to interpret the alphabet soup of ISO, FFIEC, COBIT, COSO, NFPA, NASD, DRI, BCI, Basel II and other standards to your greatest advantage. Join ACP for its October webinar “Deciphering Overlapping Standards and Requirements, Using the BCP Genome” on Wednesday, October 18, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Eastern time. The session will be presented by Frank Purlmutter, Founder & President, Strategic BCP. The webinar will address: ISO22301:2012—is it really the gold standard for your industry? Explore whether a one-standard-fits-all solution is desirable, or even practical. Harnessing the best attributes of standards, best practices, and frameworks for your BC, DR, and EM plans. Evaluating BC standards. Learn how one company has already mapped multiple business continuity standards to 101 essential characteristics, and how you can build upon that logic in your BC plans. Additionally, the strategies behind the BCP Genome framework and how that approach can help you develop more practical and thorough business continuity plans will be discussed. Registration is now open.
Shadow IT – More Vital Than You Might Think . . . 5 Self-Help DR Steps to Take Now!
By Jon Murphy Love it or hate it, with the consumerization of IT and rapid adoption of all things cloud computing, most organizations are loudly demonstrating their need for new tools to do more – faster and more efficiently than ever before. That in part is making Shadow IT pervasive in most of those organizations. Some estimates have it accounting for as much 30%-50% of IT spend. Other estimations have as much as 80% of workforces using some form of unsanctioned software (SaaS or otherwise) to get their day-to-day jobs and special projects timely completed. By “Shadow IT” we are referring to, what some have also dubbed Stealth IT, describing hardware and software used by people in organizations without explicit authorization by the organization’s IT department. This hidden-from-IT software and systems also includes innumerable homegrown Access databases, scripts, and Wordpress/PHP files on local desktops as well in various places out in the cloud, like AWS for instance. So, with this much utilization of, or even dependence on Shadow IT, what would happen in a Disaster Recovery (DR) scenario in which the organization’s work force lost all that work in progress (WIP) or connectivity to the countless sites that corporate IT is “officially” and sometimes blissfully, ignorant of today? Some might be inclined to say, good riddance to bad rubbish. After all, most traditional IT pros will tell you that all those doings in the shadows can introduce security risks when unsupported hardware and software are not subject to the same ... Read more
The Next Generation of Crisis Management + Business Continuity
How will Gen X and Millennials change the BC landscape? As the power base within companies continues to change include more of these professionals, crisis management and business continuity programs will need to adapt. Our industry must find ways to communicate and implement our programs in better ways. In her presentation from the 2017 Continuity Insights Management Conference, Grace Burley of Strategic Crisis Advisors explored how to best use metrics and the power of a great story to communicate with Gen X and Millennials to get their buy-in and develop plans and tools to support them. Her presentation from the conference is now available for the business continuity community.
The Blind Spot in Workplace Violence Prevention Programs: Part Three
By Steve Crimando, Behavioral Science Applications Bringing It Home In this final installment in our three-part series addressing violence prevention for employees working from home, we will focus on strategies and techniques that employees can use to reduce the risk of violence and ensure a safe and healthy work environment. In Part One we reviewed OSHA and Workers’ Compensation concerns related to home office work, and made the case that an employer’s Duty of Care extends to home-based offices. In Part Two we explored this issue from the employer’s perspective. Wrapping up Home Office Safety and Security Week (HOSSW) 2017, we will bring our discussion right into the home office work space. In doing so we will divide our attention between developing a proactive mindset about home office violence risks, and specific security practices, as well as physical security enhancements. Just as employers have a Duty of Care for employees working from home offices, employees have responsibilities, too. These include: Following the employer’s policies and procedures for safety and violence prevention. Taking reasonable care of their own and other people’s safety in and around the home office. Maintaining an awareness of their surroundings and any possible threats to their personal safety when working from home. Contacting the local police department or searching online for local crime statistics for the surrounding area can help employees gain a wide-angle perspective on the risk of violence near their homes. Being involved in assessing risk and identifying safety measures in the home office. Taking part ... Read more
The Blind Spot in Workplace Violence Prevention Programs: Part Two
By Steve Crimando, Behavioral Science Applications In Part Two of our series on The Blind Spot in Workplace Violence Prevention Programs we will continue the discussion of workplace violence prevention for home office workers (A.K.A. telecommuters, remote workers, or employees working from home). In Part One of this three-part series, we explored the OSHA and Worker’s Compensation perspective on home worker safety and security, and in Part Three, the focus will be on physical security and security practices that the individual employee can adopt to reduce the risk of violence. Central to the discussion in Part One was the concept of “universal vulnerability;” that no worksite is immune from the possibility of workplace violence, including the home-based office. As such, our recommendation is that… the employer’s workplace violence prevention program must envision the possibility of violence affecting the home office worker, and afford home-based workers the same sorts of protections as those working in traditional office environments. This installment will address strategies and techniques that employers can use to mitigate the risk of violence to home office workers. Both employers and employees benefit from a pragmatic and proactive approach to identifying risks and resources to reduce the possibility of violence. The Duty of Care is a shared responsibility between a worker and their employer; each must do their part. Home-based workers have the same workers’ compensation benefits as in-office employees. Cases regarding workers’ compensation have shown that the law tends to see the home office no differently from the office ... Read more
The Blind Spot in Workplace Violence Prevention Programs: Part One
By Steve Crimando, Behavioral Science Applications Out of Sight Cannot Mean Out of Mind Professionals concerned with safety, security and workplace violence prevention are likely to be familiar with Type IV workplace violence. In its well-worn four-type model, OSHA describes Type IV violence as intimate partner or domestic violence that follows an employee from their home to the workplace. But have we sufficiently considered violence that follows an employee from the workplace to their home? The Case of Ms. Smith Mr. Johnson, the stereotypical disgruntled former employee, has continued to send angry emails to his former employer perseverating about being unfairly terminated due to what he perceives as inadequate supervision and his supervisor’s personal dislike of him. The frequency of his emails has increased over the past several weeks, but there have been no overt threats made toward the organization or his former supervisor. Ms. Smith, Johnson’s former supervisor has, for a number of reasons, transitioned to a different position within the organization that allows her to work primarily from home. She has set up a suitable home office, and has established an effective work routine allowing her to meet or exceed her performance objectives. Both Ms. Smith and her employer are satisfied with the arrangement, and in fact, nearly 20% of the company’s employees work at least part of their time from their homes or other remote locations. About one year ago, Mr. Johnson was terminated due to performance and attendance issues. Ms. Smith was Mr. Johnson’s direct supervisor ... Read more
