Norfolk students get savvy about business continuity
Background An innovative programme linked to the UK Young Enterprise scheme has been piloted in Norfolk, with the aim of introducing young people to the principles and practices of business continuity management. Young Enterprise (YE) is the UK’s largest business and enterprise education charity. Each year, through a range of programmes, it reaches more than 320,000 young people aged from four years through to 25. The YE programmes are based on the principle of learning by doing and bring volunteers from businesses into the classroom to work with the link teachers and students. Having been a volunteer business advisor for YE for the past couple of years I (Deborah Stewart) have found it very rewarding. Why introduce business continuity into the YE programme? This came about during a seminar with the Norfolk Major Incident Team (NORMIT), where a comment was made that trying to introduce business continuity into local schools had been very difficult. It seemed an ideal opportunity to get NORMIT involved in the YE Company Programme. After some discussion the possibility of building an education programme around a competition for students to develop business continuity plans was mooted. These plans would then be assessed by NORMIT, with a monetary prize going to the student team that developed the best one. Training and education would be given to students throughout the plan development process. I then made contact with Patricia Hagan, company programme manager for YE, to see how she felt about the possibility of piloting the scheme within Norfolk schools for 2007/2008. Patricia was more than happy to allow this to happen. Promotion The next step was to communicate the proposal to stakeholders. Introduction letters were sent out to each company registered with YE, with the costs of this mailing being covered by Norfolk County Council. The letter included a separate poster which promoted the new programme and also displayed Norfolk County Council and Norwich Union’s sponsorship details. The latter donated £500 to cover the cost of a glass trophy and £100 prize money for the writers of the winning business continuity plan. A press release was issued in January 2008 and titled “Students are getting set to cope with the worst”. This was a very suitable title for the article, which covered very briefly what the programme was trying to accomplish. Workshops The scheme got underway with a series of workshops which formed the basis of the education programme for the students. These were held at Norwich Union’s training facility. The auditorium supported multimedia presentations and allowed the students to spend time way from the school environment. Thought was given to the length and content of the programme. The workshops were short, lasting three hours, to ensure that they were focussed and held the students attention. In addition the sessions were divided between presentations and practical work so that the students were able to learn the key elements of a business continuity plan and then work through completing a return for their own company. In the first session the key presentation was made by NORMIT. This covered the main elements of the business continuity plan in detail and used question and answers to reinforce the information. The next session concentrated on each YE team applying the business continuity information to their own companies. The link teachers worked with the students to talk through any issues and additional support was provided by the workshop facilitators. To provide realism Alan Goulder, Norwich Union Service Continuity Consultant, covered the practical issues of business continuity. A key point here was to provide not only the real life context of Norwich Union’s experience but to enable the students to be able to relate to the examples given. Judging The YE teams submitted their business continuity plans to NORMIT who in turn requested that its Governing Panel review the plans and select an overall winner. Eleven teams made it through to the finals, where they had to prepare a presentation and put together a display stand. The presentations were given in front of the Mayor of Norwich. The winning team was then presented with their trophy. All participants in the programme were given a certificate. Conclusion and outcomes Overall this pilot scheme worked extremely well and the students enjoyed the workshops outside of the school environment. In addition the certificates that the students earned evidenced achievement that their fellow students outside the programme were unable to obtain. The real achievement of this programme has been to create awareness of business continuity planning at a very early age and show the real benefit that effective planning provides to any business. With the success of the first programme there is no doubt that the foundations are in place to create successful business continuity education in schools for many years to come. Authors: Deborah Stewart MBCS, DIP, Business Continuity Specialist, Young Enterprise Business Advisor Dpstewarts@aol.com Alan Goulder, Service Continuity Consultant, Norwich Union GOULDEA@norwich-Union.co.uk
•Date: 13th June 2008• Region: UK •Type: Article •Topic: BC general |
