Business Continuity Plan

Sarah Rooney

041068641

OHS4120

March 24th, 2023

1. Scope

2. Organization Background

3. Issue Identification

4. Internal vs. External Factors for Consideration

5. Strategy Identification to Mitigate Issues

6. Roles and Responsibilities

7. Communication Strategy

8. Budget

9. Human Capital

10. Other Resource Allocation Considerations

11. References

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 Business Continuity Plan

1. Scope

The following plan is created to ensure the continuity of our organization in the face of a

pandemic. As we have seen with the COVID-19 pandemic, the way that a business operates can

change very quickly, and if organizations are not able to plan ahead and adapt to the changing

times, they will fail. The scope of this continuity plan falls across all organization activities. We

want to ensure that every structure of our business is able to adapt to a possible workforce loss

due to the pandemic, therefore, this plan will cover all aspects of our organization. The

implementation of this plan will occur in the case of a pandemic outbreak and continue until

work is able to return to normal.

2. Organization Background

Our organization is a medium-sized consumer packaged goods company that focuses on

production of packaged condiments. Due to the fact that we have both in-office corporate

employees as well as plant employees who operate the production and packaging of our

products, we need to ensure that our business continuity plan is focused around both our

corporate employees as well as our plant employees. From the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw

how businesses adapted their technology usage to turn work completely remote from a

corporate standpoint, and there were many different ways that organizations adapted for their

plant productions. Due to the fact that we are a food packaging company, our products will still

be in demand, even if there are lockdowns. Our typical operating conditions are a medium-

sized corporate office with a bull-pin desk set up to promote interaction between employees,

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paired with a few medium and large meeting rooms and private workspaces. Our plant

operates from 7am to 7pm and has teams associated with each production division that have

their own team leaders. It is mandatory that our production employees attend work in office,

because there is no remote way to conduct their job. Our corporate division currently works

with a hybrid work-from-home program to help promote more work-life balance.

3. Issue Identification

The issue that we have identified is the possibility of another pandemic outbreak that would

cause lockdowns, work closures, and the possibility of at least 40% of our staff unable to attend

work. This would deeply affect the way that our organization is run, so we need to ensure that

we have a plan in place to ensure the success and viability of our organization. As we bared

witness during COVID-19, organizations that were unable to adapt to the change in operating

procedures were faced with negative business outcomes such as decrease in sales, production,

and possible bankruptcy. The COVID-19 pandemic saw close to 60 percent of small businesses

(one to 19 employees) and 32 percent of large businesses (500 or more employees)

experienced revenue declines of 20 percent or more during the lockdown (Statistics Canada,

2020). Another pandemic would cause a similar issue in lack of revenue for many businesses,

which is why it is imperative to have a plan set in place to ensure our organization is able to

prosper.

4. Internal vs. External Factors for Consideration

Internal factors that are important to consider are the production capabilities. We need to

understand how much we can produce with our current resources. Additionally, another

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internal factor that will affect this is amount of employees that are unable to work for a period

of time due to the illness that is being spread during the pandemic. Shortage of staff will be a

major issue to overcome, especially if our demand increases as we expect it to. Another key

thing to consider is work refusals from employees who would be required to attend work in

office. Our employees have a right to refuse work that they feel is unsafe, and we are unable to

force employees into the office if they believe that it will cause them to be further at risk to

catching the virus. This could affect our human capital, and we will need to adjust to see

whether or not we need to hire new plant employees willing to work during the pandemic. d

External factors that need to be considered are certain events due to the pandemic that can

affect our business and employee attendance. For example, with the COVID-19 pandemic, we

saw multiple lockdowns that shut down entire businesses for weeks, and where employees

were not able to leave their home unless they were required to for essential work. Due to the

fact that our products will still be in demand during a pandemic, even if there is a stay at home

order, we will have to consider that our plant employees will be able to attend work under new

and improved operating procedures to reduce the spread of the illness. Another external factor

that will contribute to this is the demand of our product. Again, during COVID-19, we saw an

increase in sales to certain packaged food companies that meant that they needed to increase

their production from their normal selling rates.

5. Strategy Identification to Mitigate Issues

We have created multiple strategies to mitigate the risk of issues that would be caused by a

pandemic:

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 The first step of our business continuity plan is to create guidelines for management

and business decisions. Anyone is able to get sick, even the big decision makers of

our organization. We want to ensure that there are guidelines and protocols in

place to ensure that business decisions can still be made quickly and strategically.

 We will create a pandemic response team that is dedicated to ensuring that the

business continuity plan is followed by creating the chain of command, ensuring

that everyone is following prevention activities, assign tasks, adjust the plan as

needed, etc. The response team roles and responsibilities will be outlined in the

following section.

 Due to the fact that we have an essential organization whose demand will not cease

during a pandemic, we know that our plant will remain operational and that we will

not be able to close our organization completely. As such, we will need to plan

alternative ways to conduct business.

 We will do an audit on our plant productions to see what minimum level of staff

that we require to continue to conduct business to keep up with the demand. We

will be able to conduct our corporate functions remotely but will have them

returning to office as soon as it is not deemed a health risk.

 Other risk mitigation tactics will include increasing handwashing facilities and hand

sanitizers and have cleaning staff regularly clean all surfaces that are touched by

employees such as door handles, machines, washrooms, etc.

 We will also ensure that we have PPE provided to all staff that require them such as

masks, gloves, face shields, etc.

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  We will adjust the operations in our plant to ensure that employees are social

distancing themselves where they can or are provided additional PPE if close-

contact work is required. In situations where close contact is required, we will keep

the same work cohorts on the same shifts to ensure that we are limiting the amount

of people that our workers need to stay in close contact with.

 From a policies perspective, we want to ensure that we are keeping up-to-date with

our sick leave policy, and adjusting it to the reality of the pandemic that we would

be facing. We may need to increase sick days if the illness being spread requires an

isolation period, or if it is a reoccurring sickness with extended recovery time. Once

we understand exactly what illness is being spread from the pandemic and how it

effects individuals, we will be able to adjust our sick leave policies accordingly to

ensure that employees have all the support that they require from our organization.

 We will ensure that we are keeping a record of who is in-office working each day to

ensure that we are able to support public health in contact tracing if there is an

exposure at work.

6. Roles and Responsibilities

We have created a response team in the case of a pandemic who will be in charge of

ensuring that the business continuity plan will be followed. We have assigned a project

manager to this business continuity plan that will oversee enacting each protocol identified

above and ensuring that the plan is followed. This role will be covered by Sarah Rooney,

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director of human resources. As part of the role as project manager, Mrs. Rooney will be in

charge of ensuring that everyone else on this project team is doing their job correctly as well as

coordinating the overall function of the continuity plan. We will also hire a professional to

assess the health of our team at the door of the building – checking temperatures, screening

questions for symptoms of the virus provided by public health, etc. This individual will keep a

record of all employee screening to ensure that we are able to contact trace. The head of

logistics for this project team will be run by Louise Roblin, who is the manager of our sales

department. Mrs. Roblin will be in charge of ensuring that all logistics created in this continuity

plan are followed accordingly. She will be in charge of creating reports on the pandemic, what is

happening in the industry, and what is happening within our own organization. Our finances

will be run by Sam Harvey, who is the head of our accounting department. Mr. Harvey will be in

charge of keeping the rest of the team up to date on our financial status, ensure we are staying

on budget, and provide any updates that the rest of the team would need on the organization’s

finances. Our final team member on this project team will be Katie Macintosh, the plant

manager. Mrs. Macintosh will be in charge of coordinating the plant activities. She will keep

everyone on track with new and updating safety training due to the pandemic, and ensure that

all plant employees are following protocol, as well as keeping our team up to date on any

staffing shortages due to the pandemic.

7. Communication Strategy

Communication is key for this business continuity plan to work. We want to ensure that all

of our employees clearly understand exactly what is expected in the case of a pandemic, who is

responsible for what tasks during the uncertain times that is a pandemic. We will hold a

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meeting with all department managers to clarify the business continuity plan and agree with

expectations in the case of a pandemic. This business continuity plan will be sent to all

employees of our organization as soon as it is finalized. This will ensure that each employee

knows what is expected of them, and what is expected of the organization. The managers of

each department will hold a meeting with their teams to ensure that each employee

understands the business continuity plan, and this will be a time for employees to ask any

questions about the plan.

In the case of a pandemic, there will be a mass communication to all employees that is

sent out by Sarah Rooney. This communication will outline what the pandemic is, what the

symptoms are, and what the adjusted protocol will be. Depending on the severity of the

pandemic and public health guidelines, managers will hold an in person meeting with their

teams to specifically discuss the expectations from their departments, what will be changing,

and what the new protocols will be. This will also be the time when the new sick leave policy

will be sent out via email to all employees. Sarah Rooney will be in charge of communicating

any changes to the continuity plan or adjustments due to the pandemic, and this will be done

via email or zoom to ensure that there is limited contact between employees.

8. Budget

The following table has been created as a draft budget to cover all aspects of our business

continuity plan in the case that we would need to enact this protocol:

Item Budget

Re-staffing plant employees $20,000

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 Additional PPE $5,000

Workspace adjustment for social distancing $3,000

Increase in resource prices $30,000

Employee Training $50,000

Total $108,000

This budget is subject to change in the case of the actual pandemic – once we

understand exactly how the pandemic will affect our organization, we can more clearly define

exactly what our budget should look like, and what prices will be. For example, in the case of

business closures, resources may be harder to access and more expensive, but we wouldn’t

know these prices until we are actually facing the pandemic itself. The table above is a draft of

expected costs that we may incur during a pandemic.

9. Human Capital

Human capital consists of the knowledge, skills, and abilities of our employees. One of the

key ways that we will focus on improving our human capital during the pandemic is to increase

our training. We want to ensure that all of our staff has the proper training to ensure that we

are able to conduct our business in the most strategic ways possible. One of the first training

sessions that we will conduct is health and safety training for our plant employees who will be

required to continue to work in office. We will bring in a professional expert who will evaluate

our current plant, analyze what processes need to be changed to ensure that optimal safety

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plans are created. Following the analysis, we will begin training each plant employee on the

new operating procedures and safety measures that need to be taken.

Due to the fact that our corporate employees will be conducting their work remotely, we

want to ensure that we have strategic training and mentorship programs that ensure that our

employees are remaining productive and engaged in the organization. It is difficult to promote

interaction and teamwork while working remotely, which is why we will create a mentorship

program for all of our corporate employees to aid in ensuring that they are maintaining on their

goals and training, and ensuring that they keep up with productivity. Additionally, it is beneficial

to have someone to check-in with employees on a regular basis to ensure that they are not

suffering from any fall-out effects from a pandemic such as poor mental health, loneliness, etc.

10. Other Resource Allocation Considerations

We want to ensure that we are underestimating our resources at the time of the pandemic

to make sure that we are staying within budget on all ends. This means that we want to assume

that we have less finances as well as raw materials to ensure that we are planning within our

limits. Times of a pandemic are extremely uncertain and materials and resources that we think

we will have available may not be available, which is why it is imperative to underestimate what

resources we will be working with during the pandemic. The global supply chain network is

most likely to be disrupted during a pandemic, which is why we will need to plan alternate

resources. One way of doing so is looking locally for our raw materials rather than globally. We

want to ensure that we are able to access materials, even if there is a disruption between the

global supply chain. This task will be completed by the logistics coordinator of our business

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continuity response team, Louise Roblin. Additionally, we want to ensure that we are adding

extra security to our online processes. Due to the fact that our corporate employees will be

conducting their business fully online, we want to ensure that we have extra technological

support and safety to ensure that we do not run into any security breaches or technological

issues that could affect business processes.

11. References

Sood, S., Johnston, C., & Li, B. (2022, January 6). Impact of COVID-19 on small businesses

in Canada, fourth quarter of 2021. Retrieved March 24, 2023, from

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/45-28-0001/2021001/article/00043-eng.htm

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