Snow's Coming! Is Your Business Continuity Plan Up to the Test?

Posted by Dina Ferriero on Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

Yet another snowstorm is heading for the northeast making this the ideal time for us to review business continuity steps your hedge fund can follow to prepare.

Earlier we sat down with Lisa Smith, a Certified Business Continuity Planner at Eze Castle Integration, to get insights on what hedge funds must consider when preparing for weather related incidents. Lisa outlined the following important questions that a hedge fund can use to prepare.

This first article of our three part series works off the assumption that your building is inaccessible. In our next two articles, we’ll tackle BCP considerations when your building is open and discuss other hedge fund BCP best practices.

ASSUMPTION: Your hedge fund office building is inaccessible.

Snowing on cars

How will employees be notified of the building closure?

Calling all employees through a manual phone tree can be very time-intensive. Some may not receive the message in time to avoid reporting to an inaccessible office, which could cause confusion and further time loss. Also, if managers and employees are busy calling one another to spread the message, this prevents them from performing more productive work-related activities.

One way to avoid this challenge is to implement an Automated Messaging System that can be configured to deploy a notification to all employees simultaneously. Using this system ensures that all employees receive a consistent message immediately via email, phone call, and/or text message. These systems tend to vary in terms of cost but a base level system can be installed for as low as $8.50 per employee per year.

Where will employees work from?

In advance of the inclement weather let employees know whether they will report to an alternate site or begin conducting their work from a home office. If using an alternate site, be sure it has the capacity to accommodate all critical employees that may need to work from there in the case of an office closure (i.e. extra desks or tables, adequate number of Citrix licenses, phone lines, etc.).

If the plan is to have employees work from home, steps should be taken to ensure that they will have access to all resources necessary for performing their daily tasks. In either case, the alternate work location procedures should be clearly communicated to all employees, and regular testing should be conducted in advance to ensure that any unexpected challenges are dealt with before a major storm shuts down your office space.

How will employees communicate with each other and with external contacts?

Before inclement weather strikes, each employee should compile a list of the phone numbers and other contact information for all individuals on whom their jobs are dependent. For example, it is common among hedge fund firms for people in the trading and operations departments to be highly dependent on one another. Employees in both functional areas should have the home and cell phone numbers of each of their counterparts to avoid a loss of communication when your office is inaccessible.

Additionally, employees should save the contact information of all external parties, such as vendors, investors, and broker-dealers with whom they need to regularly communicate in order to do business. This information should be stored in a location that is accessible from both the office and the employees’ alternate work locations.

Other considerations

There will undoubtedly be some unforeseen challenges associated with the closure of your office building. For example, what should an employee do if he needs a signature from another employee or a manager and both individuals are working from home? How should an employee go about wiring money or carrying out similar transactions from her home office?

The best way to address these issues in advance of inclement weather is to conduct business continuity plan testing days in which employees work from their designated alternate locations and report back on any challenges they faced. This will allow you to make your business continuity plan even more comprehensive, while forcing employees to think about how they will continue doing their jobs effectively if they do not have access to their regular offices.

Up Next

On Thursday we'll discuss business continuity considerations for when your hedge fund office is accessible during a weather incident and other BCP best practices. To get the article delivered direct to your inbox, subscribe to Hedge IT here.

Also, be sure to read our other articles on Business Contunity Planning:

Last but not least, Eze Castle’s Business Continuity Planning Services (Eze BCP) extend beyond technology to focus on the critical operations and processes that a hedge fund or investment firm must have available if a disruption occurs. Our Certified Business Continuity Professionals work with clients to address the full-spectrum of BCP. Learn more!