Til death do us part: the importance of contingency planning at work

In this weeks industry-led long read, Jane Robson, CEO of the National Association of Licensed Paralegals, explores why organisations should always have a contingency plan – a plan devised for an outcome other than in the usual. Despite more and more companies deciding to hire remote workers, these types of plans should always be in place to protect staff’s mental and physical wellbeing. 

What is the worst that could happen to your organisation? What unexpected event could leave you reeling? What would you do if a key member of the team unexpectedly passed away? These are things none of us like to think about – until they happen.

Hopefully they never will, but if they do, it really is best to be prepared. This is why ‘contingency planning’ is so important. To me, it can help to use an older term ‘Disaster Recovery’ because, at the end of the day, you are considering the worst-case scenario; what ‘disaster’ could befall your organisation and how you would handle it, regardless of how unlikely that scenario seems to be.

For example, these days many organisations are deciding not to have a permanent office address but rather have all staff working remotely. It can be easy to assume that the risk of a disaster has therefore been lessened. But, has it in reality? Standard contingency planning tended to look at what happens if utilities are lost at a single address, but now you are looking at the loss of utilities in multiple locations. Many companies are reliant on cloud-based servers which can offer great reliability and security, but similarly they are only as good as the Internet connection that your staff have. When everyone was based in an office, it was quite simple to ensure that staff were cross trained on multiple duties so that there was always cover. But that can sometimes be more difficult to implement when people are working remotely.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that the advent of remote working is wonderful, and it can do great things for flexibility, productivity and even staff retention, but I think we do have to recognise the risks and ensure that our contingency plans fully reflect the new way of working, particularly when it comes to the possibility of suddenly losing a staff member.

I have always prided myself on having a strong a contingency plan in place, even though we are a very small business, but it really didn’t consider the full impact of losing someone in that way.

So, what has this tragic situation taught me about contingency planning for the loss of a key member of staff?

The first thing this has taught me is how important it is that, whilst you may already have great procedures in place for the saving of documents and work, people and systems are both fallible and you need to be aware of that.

Staff need to be reminded of the importance of saving work to the correct place and ensuring that files are saved regularly, not just at the end of drafting a piece of work. This is even more important when staff work remotely. And there should be a contingency if a remote worker cannot get onto a cloud-based server – such as arranging for a copy of what they have worked on to be emailed to a colleague. Also, all remote workers should have a back up to cover for Wi-Fi issues, such as using mobile data connected to their phone, even for just long enough to email documents to a colleague.

Secondly, training and reinforcing the company policies and procedures are vitally important, particularly when you have a remote workforce. If we are honest, we all know that we get complacent about how we and our staff are doing things providing the job is still getting done. But you need to think about what would happen in the worst-case scenario. What if the remote worker dies and you cannot get their laptop or other equipment back and it has their work on it? If they have saved the work, and their calendar to the organisation’s cloud facility, then the loss of equipment won’t be as big an issue as it would be if the staff member had just saved a lot to their work to their laptop or on a personal account on the cloud.

And also, very importantly we need to consider the emotional impact on members of the team.

Handling stress

Losing a colleague suddenly can cause a great deal of stress for the other team members, both emotionally and mentally. If someone resigns or retires, as sad as that can be for the rest of the staff, they normally have a notice period to get used to the idea and to ensure that the work is handed over in a sensible and controlled manner. When someone dies unexpectedly there is no such period of adjustment. Their team members are left trying not only come to terms with the loss of someone they knew and worked with, but also having to try and pick up the threads of the projects their late colleague was working on. Not having a thorough contingency plan in place can exacerbate the stress felt at these times.

Grieving

The one thing that a contingency plan may not help with is the grief felt by staff who were close to the deceased. After all, some of our strongest relationships are made at work and in smaller firms employees may be friends or family so the relationship may have been established for many years. Not only can the grief caused by the loss of their close friend affect their general mental health and have a detrimental effect on their performance at work, it can also have longer term effects. For example, it can be particularly difficult when trying to find a replacement for the role. The thought of working with someone else can be extremely hard to even contemplate. These mental health issues can be difficult to navigate. It may be that you need to arrange, or encourage, those affected to seek professional counselling.

We all hope that the worst will not happen. But as with most things in life it is best to be prepared. Then you will be ready to take action to keep your organisation running and support the members of your team.

Jane Robson is CEO of the National Association of Licensed Paralegals (NALP), a non-profit membership body and the only paralegal body that is recognised as an awarding organisation by Ofqual (the regulator of qualifications in England). 

Images: Jane Robson, Brett Jordan and Rodion Kutsaiev

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