August 23, 2002—Many leading British companies are still inadequately prepared for the impact of terrorist attacks. Worse, much of the advice being issued by government and the FSA underestimates the impact that such attacks have on employees, say two UK academics.
More controversially, they suggest that for many businesses remaining in city center office towers is too risky.
The claims are made by Professors Keith Alexander and Martin Betts of Salford University. Almost one year on from the September 11th tragedy in New York, many companies still do not have coherent business continuity plans to safeguard their staff and premises and recover their business in the event of a terrorist attack, they say.
“Although many companies, especially those headquartered in tall office blocks in major city centers, have now revisited their approaches to contingency planning, disaster recovery and risk management, they have failed to integrate them in a continuity plan that fully protects the business,” says Professor Keith Alexander, director of the Center for Facilities Management at Salford.
Since September 11th the Center has been working with its members to identify fully integrated approaches to assuring business continuity, including addressing the implications of major terrorist attacks.
“Proper business continuity planning requires the alignment of strategies involving property, workplace, people and technology. Yet we find that most organizations completely underestimate the people dimension. Much of the advice being issued by Government and others advising the key institutions in the City of London, for example, focuses on the physical elements of business continuity. Unfortunately the critical impact on people is underplayed. Insufficient thought is given to the effects of trauma, the need for counseling and the broad effect that such attacks have on people’s lives—including their relatives and friends,” argues Alexander.
Many enterprises adopt a project management approach to corporate property planning and disaster recovery, he says, so employees can get overlooked. Back-up facilities may be ready to go, yet few companies are prepared for the fact that another September 11th could leave many staff debilitated and unable to populate them: “The trauma is extensive, yet few firms include staff counseling in their planning.”
According to Professor Martin Betts, head of the School of Construction and Property Management at Salford, fragmented corporate policies within many enterprises mean that boards and senior managements make location decisions which affect employees but which don’t take into account the personal impact on them. In some organizations facilities management and disaster recovery plans are prepared, then simply left on the shelf and ignored.
“Unfortunately in many large organizations facilities management, re-location and business continuity plans tend to overlook the wider people impact, so that factors such as staff disruption and the resulting churn rates associated with office moves often get missed,” says Betts.
“The September 11th tragedy also shows that you cannot afford to treat facilities planning as an inanimate planning function. The impact on people has to be considered as part of boardroom decision-making on business continuity planning. For many enterprises this means facing the reality that staying in high rise office accommodation in, for example, the City of London, is a risk too high to take,” he concludes.
—Richard Byatt
Reprinted with permission; copyright 2002 i-FM
