The micro Continuity of business

When I discuss business continuity with clients it ususally refers to a major organisational program, a readiness program/documentation or something else on the macro level. Whether it is readiness for an incident, a readiness for a website shutdown, or some sort of event which causes a lack of work force, thus affecting the operations of the company. At all time I work with teams that always approach the subject with meticulous care to ensure maximum capability in addressing these events and mitigating them as much as possible so the risk of operations shutting down is reduced or at least manageable/predictable. These processes do make a difference. In fact we can draw a comparison between an organisation that went through preparation and readiness process to one that hasn't - the difference is remarkable in outcomes both during exercises and real incidents. Nonetheless, on a professional and personal level I think that as a society we are missing something very important:

The small continuities. Gustave Flaubert once wisely said "Le bon Dieu est dans les details", free translation would be "the good lord is in the details" but you would commonly know this phrase as 'the devil is in the details'.

There are countless micro continuity incidents just waiting to happen, slow your business down, create malfunctions. And although they are smaller, seemingly insignificant incidents, if we were to combine all of them together throughout the year we would find they are actually - not that small. From my experience, although I did not make a proper analysis based in numbers - the long run costs organisations both time, money energy and results. Those are incidents based on employees or their lack of which is an increasing issue in the market I work in today: If we look back to the reality of 50 years ago - it was common practice for one employee to stay at the same job until retirement. One employee for 40 years (give or take). This is somewhat different from today's reality where, in hightech in particular, employees usually work anywhere between 2-4 years before moving on to the next place.

In addition we have (thankfully) laws in placeensuring the employment of women and mothers as well as men who wish to be active fathers, to be part of the work force which can potentially mean maternity leaves, sick children leave etc. There are also social laws preserving the employment of people who are facing health issues, And finally, in Israel, where I live there is a vaster work force issue of working men being redrafted for veteran military service until they are about 45 - 1-3 months a year on average.

Before I go on allow me to stress - are the modern changes in the work environment good? YES! THEY ARE! In fact I think they are great and as a working mom I am grateful for the opportunities I was provided. BUT! Those wonderful changes HAVE increased micro continuity events which we, the modern working society, sort of forgot to address. We forgot that changes, even good ones might cause us issues, we forgot changes require reviewing the entire process. I will go as far as to say in some places it is taboo to discuss it because it might sound like criticism of working moms being absent. So no, it is not criticism, it is, a realistic approach stating 'ok, we need to make sure everything keeps moving and support the employee who is currently away as well as supporting the business that is loyal to the employee. A person has to go to military service for two months - "it impediments a project"

A woman is about to give birth - "it impediments everything connected to her role"

A key employee just resigned and he is taking all the knowledge with him - "it takes all planning 6 months back"

No. It doesn't have to. - All these micro continuity events can be solved with the correct approach. I can help you and your organisation reduce the risk of operational gaps in such a way the absence of the working person will not impediment the business in any way. My goal? help organisations and employees create that network of continuity where employees know they can be away and organisations know they operations are fine.