Associate Business Continuity Planner
Job Purpose:
Assists in the development and implementation of advance arrangements and procedures to ensure the Company can respond to a disaster so business functions can be resumed within a defined time frame and the amount of loss can be minimized. This responsibility includes the maintenance, and exercising/testing of business continuity plans and procedures for critical functional areas of the Company; assessing implications of organizational changes; evaluating and analyzing revisions to plans and procedures; maintaining business continuity program documentation; and assisting in establishing effective communication channels.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
- Planning and Development: Assists in reviewing and evaluating the development and documentation of business unit continuity plans and procedures for the Global Resiliency Program. As needed, schedules and organizes the business impact analysis survey and business continuity plan completion with business units to determine critical business processes, identify acceptable recovery priorities, and establish resources required for successful resumption of business operations in the event of a disaster. Independently responsible for the periodic notifications to planning participants for annual review deadlines, past due reminders and plan approval verification and notifications ensuring that business continuity plans remain current and up to date. Determines when a follow up with planning participants is necessary and escalates complex problems or issues when appropriate.
- Program Analytics and Reporting: Collects business continuity planning data and develops/updates reports for the reporting and sharing of priority and critical resources information to different levels of the organization periodically such as monthly, quarterly, semi-annually and annually. Developing/updating reports requires a clear and overall understanding of the business to analyze the data and confirm business units have accurately provided the information. As needed after analysis, associate planner may independently engage with individual business units to clarify an issue to ensure accurate reports.
- Testing and Exercising: Helps develop and conduct multiple tabletop exercises involving business units throughout the calendar year and/or whenever significant changes are made to business unit functions or a technical component of the business continuity plan. Associate planner is responsible for the takeaways, action items and follow up discussions with multiple business units and as determined by analysis of the action items, escalates issues when appropriate.
- An enterprise-wide alternate site exercise is conducted periodically, usually annually, as defined by the Global Resiliency Program Standards. As part of the exercise, associate planner is responsible for creating the exercise schedule, coordinating with the recovery teams for scheduled events, and monitoring the exercise for technical problems or issues that require escalation or additional documentation for later resolution.
- Change Management: Analyzes and assesses the business continuity planning strategy and program implications of continuous technological and/or organizational changes and, using independent judgment, implements revisions to existing business continuity plans and procedures necessitated by such changes and escalates complex problems or issues when appropriate.
- Administration: Responsible for monitoring the business continuity administration and help email boxes to respond to assistance requests, business continuity portal access requests, and other ad hoc requests from planning participants and delegates.
Education:
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in emergency management and planning, business, information management or a related field. Entry level or above certification in business continuity or emergency management (ABCP, ABCI, CERT) is preferred.
Experience:
Minimum of 3 years cumulative business continuity, continuity of operations (COOP) or disaster recovery work experience is required.
Knowledge, Skills & Responsibilities:
- Understanding of major regulatory requirements that impact incident decision-making and the impact if regulatory requirements are not met. Must be able to provide guidance on how to mitigate associated risks
- Working knowledge and understanding of current business continuity planning techniques and technologies.
- Organizational and project management skills with the ability to assist with planning and coordinating the exercising of business continuity plans and procedures.
- Human relations skills to interface with all levels of employees within the organization.
- Strong verbal communication, written communication and presentation skills.
- Good understanding of business impact focus and sensitivity.
- Strong working knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite and an understanding of relational databases.
- Conversational foreign language experience (Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, or Mandarin) beneficial.