Roles and responsibilities: the key to a successful resilience plan

Implementing an effective resilience plan (for business continuity, emergency preparedness, crisis management, IT disaster recovery, etc.) depends mostly on the judicious allocation of roles and responsibilities. However, one mistake we often notice within a company is to automatically designate the person in charge of the plan implementation project as the overall coordinator of the plan. Yet this role requires specific skills and should not be assigned by default.

In fact, there’s a difference between putting elements in place as part of a project and bringing them to life over the long term. A person competent to start implementing such a plan won’t necessarily be the one who knows how to manage it well once it’s deployed in a real-life situation.

In this article, we explain how to structure the roles and responsibilities in a resilience plan to ensure its effectiveness and longevity.

 

The nuances between leadership and coordination

First, it’s important to differentiate between the role of leader and the one of coordinator. The leader represents authority and strategic vision, making key decisions in crisis situations. He or she is often a member of senior management and must inspire confidence while maintaining a clear guideline for the company.

The coordinator’s main mission is to ensure that the resilience plan runs smoothly, by updating procedures, implementing strategies and resources, planning tests and exercises, and ensuring accountability, among other things. Its effectiveness depends on its ability to structure actions, collaborate with different teams and ensure good communication between stakeholders. During a real crisis, he coordinates the various actions of the stakeholders and is directly involved in managing the disruption. Unlike popular belief, he or she does not usually get any additional power and may be grafted onto the management or crisis committee.

Confusing these two roles can lead to a misallocation of responsibilities, undermining the efficiency of the plan. However, in a smaller organization, it is sometimes possible for the leader and coordinator to be the same person, but this is not an absolute rule.

 

Selecting managers and substitutes

Although managers are often designated as responsible, their workload does not always allow them to fully assume this responsibility. A good approach is to appoint departmental managers, with a manager as back-up and a senior employee as the main person in charge. This ensures better continuity in the event of the manager’s absence, while avoiding overloading the latter, who often lack the time to manage the resilience plan directly.

The aim is to clearly structure responsibilities across three levels (operational, tactical and strategic), and to ensure that the people chosen to have not only the required skills, but also the ability to manage stressful and unpredictable situations. To help them in this process, some large organizations, which are subject to several regulations, use psychometric tests to assess employees’ aptitudes according to different criteria.

 

The importance of delegation

When implementing a resilience plan, the coordinator must be able to devote himself fully to his tasks. However, these responsibilities can easily be hampered by administrative tasks, which, although necessary, do not fall directly within his strategic role.

To optimize his work, it is therefore essential to provide dedicated administrative support. Tasks such as booking rooms or taking notes at meetings can be delegated to a support person or team. By integrating this approach, the organization ensures that everyone involved can concentrate on their key responsibilities without being held back by secondary obligations.

 

Conclusion

As a company, we invite you to ask yourself this question: do your resilience plans include the right people in the right positions? It’s a question that may seem trivial, but it’s one that’s of the utmost importance in ensuring better responsiveness in the event of a crisis.

At Benoit Racette Services-conseils inc. we can guide you through this thought process to optimize the allocation of roles and responsibilities among your employees involved in your plans. Contact us today: [email protected].