Welcome back to our AuSAE Member Chat Series – Half an Hour of Power. This week we are delighted to have sat down with AuSAE member, Donna South, National Manager Membership & Marketing, Weld Australia.  

In a short 30 minute interview we discussed four key questions with Donna to reflect on the last four months and look forward to the future post this crisis.

What do the next 6 months look like for your association and your members 

Anyone who tells you they know what the next 6 months is going to look like is lying. I think it’s safe to say we are all in a state of uncertainty and trying to plan and lead in this environment is extremely challenging.

In saying this since the onset of this crisis I have been pleasantly surprised by the impact and reaction from both our members and internally within our own organisation. From a member perspective the news isn’t all bad, we have a broad and diverse membership which means the impacts are felt differently across all levels of our membership. Some of our members particularly at the SME level are experiencing an upward trend, harnessing the opportunities of new business from clients who would normally go overseas and are now coming back locally. 

As an association the next 6 months will be challenging but it is full of opportunity. This crisis has forced us to push the reset button – reminding us why we are here, what we need to do and how we need to do it. Our members have never needed us more and in the next 6 months we will continue to increase member value through personal touch points, check in calls, and find new ways to communicate with members to ensure we understand what their challenges and opportunities are going to be moving forward.

Areas of concern 

The main thing on my mind as I look forward and begin planning for 2021 is the uncertainty. The uncertainty not just about the pandemic but the economic impact and the flow on effects as we move forward. There is no guidebook for this, and as I constantly say to my team, we’re building the ship as we’re sailing it. I think once we all accept this level of uncertainty in our operations, we can start to look at the risks we can control and plan around this as a starting point.

Like all associations we’re exploring changes to our member value proposition to meet the needs of our members now. I am conscious that we are changing and adapting our member benefits for a very specific moment in time. This won’t be around forever so the changes we have implemented will either stop or continue and I want to ensure we are forward planning for this from a time, resource and investment perspective.

Of course, another area of concern is the ongoing impact on our members. I have spent every day on the phone conducting welfare calls to our member base and I’m hearing that members are okay for X amount of time as long as things don’t shift and change too dramatically. However, not one member I have spoken to has said ‘I will be okay indefinitely’. 

Areas of opportunity 

I am a big believer in never wasting a good crisis. The opportunities and the rate at which these have unfolded would never have been possible normally. For example, we have been working on transitioning our products and training into an online environment for a number of years, and meeting resistance from our authorising body in Europe. Since the pandemic this has changed and the flexibility is now on the table to offer our training modules online for members. We have launched two of our most popular courses online and have sold out of every session. The success, uptake and feedback from members has been incredible.

As an association we are able to go back to grass roots, we have been given the opportunity to stop, breathe and assess our role as an association and what we can do for members now and into the future. We are all guilty of getting caught up in the day to day activities and rolling out programs and events year on year. But we’re all in a position now where we have to basically throw it all out and start again, keeping our members front of mind in this next stage.

Since the start of this crisis, Australians have stepped up to support local, whether this be ordering coffee from your local café, eating at a local restaurant or purchasing Australian clothing. We are becoming supportive and educated buyers who want to understand where our products are made, and this has instilled a level of patriotism in all areas of the supply chain. We have a real opportunity here to advocate for our members and harness this consumer behaviour to keep manufacturing and fabrication on shore.

Celebrated moments in the last four months 

One of our biggest moments to celebrate during the last few months was the speed and quality our team injected into the roll out of our online education courses. As mentioned above the uptake and feedback from members has been overwhelmingly positive and it’s a project we have waited years to see come to fruition.

We have been pleasantly surprised with the increased engagement with current members as well as the number of new members we have welcomed since the world turned upside down. The team has worked tirelessly to increase communication and ensure we are opening the door to new members with a broad range of topics that effect our sector.

I am also very proud of how the entire organisation embraced and successfully adapted to working from home. Everyone has welcomed this change, remained flexible and adapted to their new environments.

The economic fallout of the pandemic has forced many associations to lay off employees. Career experts recommend grieving the loss, being honest, and building your brand while seeking a new professional home.

As attendees streamed into the Career Center during the ASAE Virtual Annual Meeting earlier this week, one of the hotter topics of online conversation focused on the impacts of a COVID-19 layoff. Two of the career experts that took part in that discussion offered up some advice that can assist people affected by pandemic job losses.

Dany Bourjolly Smith, SHRM-SCP, founder of DB Smith Consulting and an Association CareerHQ lead consultant, said it’s important to first acknowledge that losing a job is hard.

“Take some time to grieve,” she said. “Even if it’s not COVID-related, any time you lose a job that you wanted, needed, or enjoyed, it’s hard.”

After grieving the loss, candidates can get back on the horse again. While traditionally a layoff or release has looked bad on the resume, COVID-19 has changed perceptions.

“So many talented people have had to be laid off because of COVID that people have a different view,” Smith said. “It doesn’t mean you were a poor performer. You’re in a position some of the people who are hiring could be in themselves.”

Cynthia Mills, CMC, CPC, CCRC, FASAE, CAE, president and CEO of The Leaders Haven and an Association CareerHQ coach, agreed. “There is no shame in a COVID layoff,” she said. “Just acknowledge it right up front and address it in your cover letter. What you’re doing is removing the question from the table.”

After updating the resume, job seekers should hone their personal online brand. “The very first place I would start is making sure your LinkedIn [profile] is current, and there aren’t conflicts between LinkedIn and your resume,” Mills said. “Audit your presence online and make sure things are consistent. Ask yourself, ‘If somebody saw you online first, is the way you have framed it and your story the way that would attract them to you?’”

While job seeking, continue to develop yourself as well. “Take the time to learn new skills,” Smith said. “Write that article, start that blog, look for speaking opportunities. There is work that you can naturally do that adds to your resume, profile, and accomplishments.”

While it can be tempting to apply for everything when out of work, Smith encourages reflecting on what you want for your career. “What is your heart work? What is important to you?” Smith said. “Can you create or look for in your next opportunity work that speaks true to your experience but also connects to what you want, personally, in this next stage in your career?”

If people begin feeling burned out with applying, Smith said volunteering can help. “When you are experiencing transition, dedicating and sharing some of your time in a positive way can be very beneficial,” she said.

When job seekers do score an interview, they need to be honest and frame the layoff in the best way possible. “Say something like, ‘I loved my position, I loved my former organization, and unfortunately, I find myself as one of those who was part of a layoff process. Now I can’t wait to find my next professional home,’” Mills said.

Mindset also matters during this time. While getting laid off can leave people feeling dejected, they need to mentally move forward. “Your job is to spend your days seeking your next professional home,” Mills said. “Project where you want to be, not the circumstances you’ve been in. Get out of your COVID head and get into your next position.”

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here, and is written by Rasheeda Childress. 

A new sense of urgency defined the conversations at ASAE’s 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting, with implications for years to come.

Things are moving fast for associations.

That’s not something I’ve said very often in the better part of a decade of writing this blog; I’m certain I’ve used the phrase “slow-moving ship” a lot more. But one theme that emerged from the sessions I attended at last week’s ASAE Virtual Annual Meeting & Exposition is that a newfound sense of urgency has taken hold.

Of course, I wish this change might be happening under more positive circumstances. As it is, the combination of a global pandemic, an economic recession, and national reckoning with racial justice has prompted associations to do the necessary work of updating their thinking on a number of fronts. And though there was plenty I’ve missed, there were still many examples of the ways associations are stepping up to lead. Below are a few.

DE&I IS TOP OF MIND, BUT STILL A CHALLENGE

The summer of Black Lives Matter protests has prompted many organizations to deliver statements of support. But what comes next, and how to put that goodwill into action?

The move to remote work, convenient as it is in some ways, presents a further challenge to associations that are trying to improve their efforts on diversity, equity, and inclusion. As Cushman & Wakefield’s Debra Moritz pointed out in a session titled “The Future of Workplace for Associations,” remote work can preserve longstanding biases about who typically gets heard in an organization; those who had already been feeling unheard may have that feeling exacerbated.

And though organizations may want to rush to have difficult conversations about race, it’s important to read the room. As Society for Personality Assessment Executive Director Nathan Victoria, CAE, pointed out in the session “Disrupting Biases,” “The first step is starting with rapport. You can’t just jump into these conversations. You need to make sure that everyone is ready to be vulnerable.”

CORNER-OFFICE JOB HUNTERS HAVE WORK TO DO

As Jeffrey Tenenbaum told me in an interview before his session “Association CEO Employment Contracts,” associations want evidence of innovation in their CEO candidates more than ever, now that the recession puts fresh ideas at a premium. At the session “Fire Fighters: The CEO Who Chooses the Hot Seat,” panelists acknowledged the sudden shift and noted that job hunters will want to take a closer look under the hood of potential employers too. Consultant Suzanne Berry, CAE, advised them to look at what’s being said about an association online, the history with CEOs, and the kind of turnover the organization has experienced. Turnover isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but be mindful of a revolving door in the C-suite.

ADVOCACY HAS ADAPTED TO THE ZOOM ERA

Government relations professionals know it can be hard to get the ear of a policymaker on a normal day. The physical distancing forced by COVID-19 has made the challenge even harder, and organizations have had to pivot. At the session “Advocacy Beyond Government Relations,” Emily Reineke, CAE, of the Consumer Brands Association noted that they shifted from the slow-moving process of getting guidance out on AI—lots of meetings, lots of talk about buy-in from stakeholders—and rapidly produced a book on the subject and gave members the leeway to connect with policymakers on their own.

FUTURE FOCUS NEEDS TO HAPPEN NOW

It’s been conventional wisdom that a COVID-19 vaccine should be available in early 2021. But what if it doesn’t show up until 2022? Or 2025? Nabil El-Ghoroury, CAE, executive director of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, noted that his organization is scenario-planning that troubling prospect as a way to better handle future changes. An all-virtual environment impacts IT budgets, staff expectations, how board meetings are handled, and what the culture of an organization will look like. Distressing as the problem might be, he says, “we have to be prepared. We have to have a business continuity plan for our association.”

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here, and is written by Mark Athitakis. 

Taking your conference virtual doesn’t mean you have to lose the networking and interaction that occurs at your in-person events. Some ideas for building better online engagement.

As associations continue to host virtual conferences due to COVID-19, many are concerned about the ability to replicate the interaction, networking, engagement, and hallway conversations that are staples of face-to-face events.

During a March 2020 ASAE webcast called “Tips and Tools for Creating and Awesome Virtual Event Experience,” the two presenters said it is definitely possible—you just need to be thoughtful and creative.

Here are five ideas that 360 Live Media Director of Experience Design Beth Surmont, CMP, CAE, and Matchbox Virtual Cofounder and CEO Arianna Rehak shared during that webinar that are still relevant today:

Prepare your speakers. “It is extremely difficult to present to nobody,” Surmont said. “A lot of speakers feed off their audience. So, the first time you present to no one, it is very strange experience and it can throw people off.” That means associations need to talk to their presenters about what to expect—and also what they can do to deliver the best experience to attendees. If they’ll be on video, that includes having a clean background (“think newcasts,” she said), wearing clothing that is not distracting, and having front lighting.

Get your audience ready too. “It’s very important to bring a specific level of intention to your virtual event to help your audience understand how they can have the best experience,” Surmont said. Tell them how to engage. “For example, submit your questions here. Raise your hand this way,” she said.

Surmont suggested thinking of engagement through four dimensions: physical, physiological, intellectual, and emotional. For the physical dimension, for example, consider where people are participating from and offer tips on how they can create the best environment for themselves: “Keep your door closed, or put a sign on your door so you won’t be disturbed,” Surmont said.

Build a virtual environment that’s conducive to conversation. “While pre-recording sessions often gets a bad rap,” Rehak said, doing so allows speakers to engage actively in the conversation that is going on while attendees are watching their session. “The speakers love this by the way,” she said. “They are seeing their content come to life.”

If you do go this route, Rehak recommends having chat animators who “create a positive conversational environment that signals to other that they can join,” she said. “That can be as simple as being the first to say, ‘Hey, really excited to be here and get started.’ That will set the right tone.”

Host virtual roundtable discussions. “If you want attendees to dive into a specific topic, you may want to consider video chat breakout rooms,” Rehak said. “It’s really a way for folks to meaningfully connect with one another.”

To make this happen, have a designated facilitator in each room so the conversation stays focused and gets people talking. If your association is unable to provide multiple facilitators, Rehak suggest supplying each room with a list of guiding questions. “You want to give them a sense of purpose around their interaction together,” she said.

Offer a little bit of fun between sessions. Create moments between sessions that capture people’s attention. For example, you can provide additional content during breaks, such as meditation or a trivia game. Or if you have awards to present, consider playing short videos of the winners. “Really, the world is your oyster in terms of that you can offer attendees during these breaks,” Rehak said.

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here, and is written by Samantha Whitehorne. 

Trying to put together a 2021 budget based on a nonexistent crystal ball? One association found a novel approach to assessing member engagement to solve its 2021 budget quandary.

If you’re wondering how to prepare a 2021 budget amid unmatched uncertainty, join the club—it’s crowded!

An ASAE member recently posed a question in the Small Staff Association Professionals Community on ASAE’s online network, Collaborate, about how to figure in membership dues in a 2021 budget process. Christina Lewellen, CAE, executive director of the Association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools, had some excellent advice based on her own recent experience. I followed up with her to learn more.

FACTORING IN THE UNKNOWN

Lewellen started putting together a 2021 budget and quickly realized that so much of what ATLIS normally relies on in a traditional cycle didn’t exist. “The economy had just dropped off a cliff,” she said. “Nobody knew what was going to happen with independent schools and their budgets, or whether they would be able to open again in the fall.”

Once you get past the fear of frozen budgets and dire predictions of associations going under, she said, then you get down to what people need. “People will prioritize your offerings if you’re bringing them value.”

The more Lewellen looked at budget options, the more she realized nothing was resonating because there were too many unknowns. Without a crystal ball to work through projections during a global pandemic, ATLIS figured the best approach would be to isolate the variables.

The solution: a phased budget approach. Lewellen said the first major financial hurdle would be to get through the membership renewal cycle—which takes place from July through November—and then tackle the spring financial components when their in-person events were scheduled to happen.

LEVELS OF ENGAGEMENT

Without any capacity to project those in-person spring events in the short-term, the staff charged with budgeting decided to take them off the table and save that conversation for later. They took the overhead part of the budget down to a zero-based—or austerity—budget for all other departments besides membership.

Once they had isolated membership, they could analyze different levels of membership based on member engagement, looking at factors like longevity, volunteering, and participation in meetings.

“If you’ve got a decent database, you can see how many webinars [a member] came to, how many virtual town halls they participated in, and how many times they came to a conference. All of those things make them more ‘sticky,’” Lewellen said.

Each of those engagement elements, or “stickiness,” helped them gauge a member’s likelihood of renewing. Lewellen and her team divided up members into different buckets—red, yellow, and green—based on their levels of involvement with the association, ranging from high risk to low risk, and were able to put a dollar figure on the anticipated renewal rate.

“It made sense for our organization to look at members on a case-by-case basis and make our best guess of whether we thought that school would come back or not,” she said, “and that’s how we built the budget.”

She approached the renewal projections knowing that it was not productive to live in fear. “None of us has ever lived through anything like this before,” she said. “It’s time to be creative and find solutions that make sense for today.”

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here, and is written by Lisa Boylan. 

Welcome back to our AuSAE Member Chat Series – Half an Hour of Power. This week we are delighted to have sat down with AuSAE member, Joanne Phillips, Membership and Events Manager, AMPLA. AMPLA is the peak body for energy, resources and renewables law. AMPLA’s members are predominantly private practice lawyers in law firms, the membership also includes in house or general counsel in energy companies, academics and other professionals interested in energy and resources law.

In a short 30 minute interview we discussed four key questions with Joanne to reflect on the last four months and look forward to the future post this crisis.

What do the next 6 months look like for your association and your members 

Our members have been impacted financially during this crisis, with budgets striped right back across all levels of their organisations. However the sector they work in will always be here, and there are significant opportunities for the industry to harness to move out of this crisis and into a strong and prosperous future.

From our association’s perspective the next 6 months will be crucial to ensure we are providing the support our members need through thought leadership, high quality education and development opportunities. Like most associations right now, we are having open and honest conversations with our Board in relation to strategic outcomes, risk analysis and investment into the organisation’s future.

Areas of concern 

One of our areas of concern currently is membership renewals, we run a calendar year membership and will be starting the renewal process shortly. With the impact on our members and the “October cliff” coming we are looking at what we can do here to mitigate this risk.

This is something that I’m sure all associations are considering but the return to large face to face events is another concern. What has unfolded this week alone in New Zealand is cause for concern. We are beginning to run smaller hybrid events in South Australia and Western Australia. As a national association it’s difficult to plan with any great confidence as things are changing so rapidly. And when we do return to larger face to face events and gatherings, how do we solve the issue of providing networking opportunities and interactions between members with social distancing rules in place. Our members are social and value the collegiate environment we provide, so how do we as an association provide that opportunity and the same level of value they are used to receiving?

Areas of opportunity 

This disruption has been challenging, stressful and unrelenting, however it has provided our association with opportunities, challenged our thinking, and expanded our member value offering and proposition. From the onset we have looked at this crisis as an opportunity to capitalise on the positives and I don’t think we could have made such rapid progress within the organisation without this disruption.

We pivoted quickly into the digital space, offering our members education, content and information in webinars and online learning events. By doing this we have ignited a new face to our membership and opened the door to a new engaged community. This crisis serves as a great reminder about our forgotten members, those members that you don’t hear from but are there – every member is important and every member is looking for a different and personalised experience with you.

Moving forward as we move out of this crisis, we will keep this digital presence with our members and explore this new area of growth and opportunity in our membership community.

We have also accelerated the development of new programs and offerings that we had in our strategic plan for the next five years which have now moved to next year. This includes the introduction of accreditation for our industry as well as the development of a partnership and sponsorship program.

Celebrated moments in the last four months 

In all of the craziness that 2020 has brought, we also accomplished the following: migrated to a new CRM, designed and launched a new website, and launched a new membership structure. As these projects were rolling out we were hit with COVID-19 and then moved quickly to expand and change our offering for members. As a small team we are proud to have achieved all of this while responding to our members, the crisis and the impacts on our own association.

By now you will have heard the news, New Zealand is swiftly moving into Alert levels 3 and 2 to break the chain of community transmission of COVID-19. Auckland has fallen back into Alert Level 3 restrictions.

The rest of New Zealand will be in Level 2. Remember that this isn’t new to us; we’ve been here before, and we’ll get through this again. To help you navigate Lockdown 2 our most useful guides are listed below.

For Auckland-based businesses

Vaughan Granier, HR Assured NZ’s Workplace Relations Manager, has published an article to help you navigate the constraints and trading limitations as the region returns to a Level 3 Lockdown. You can read it here: Managing the workplace during lockdown

Resources for all businesses:

If you find yourself needing any guidance or simply a refresher on what the Alert levels mean for your workplace, below is a list of our COVID-related guides and resources for employers:

On H&S and Working from home:

• The home truth about H&S and working from home
   
• Social Isolation and mental health

On Alert levels:

• The rules for level 3 - published when the country initially moved to level 3, the rules for returning to level 3 still apply!
   
• Moving from Alert level 3 to Alert level 2 - published when the country moved to level 2 in May but provides a comprehensive refresher on workplace obligations.
   
• Contact Tracing and the Privacy Act 1993

Full Detail on Alert Level Restrictions:

The rules and obligations we’ve experienced before remain the same.

You can find all details on Alert level 2 and 3 restrictions at covid19.govt.nz.

Stay safe, New Zealand. We can do this!


Kind Regards,
HR Assured

As the months go on, are you still struggling to manage your remote team effectively? Here are four ways to reboot and refocus on results.

Try as you might, remote work isn’t getting any easier to manage, even after five months of practice—and the reason for that may be rooted in the office you’ve left behind. Many employers are still trying to adapt their in-person management practices to virtual work. If that’s been your organization’s approach, it’s probably not going particularly well.

So it might be time for a reset, especially considering it may be a while yet before it’s possible to a return to a traditional office experience. A few tips to help you start fresh:

Reconsider how you schedule team meetings. The software company Basecamp, which has been operating remotely for decades, has a smart approach to virtual meetings. In comments to Medium’s Marker site, Basecamp CEO Jason Fried said the secret to productive remote work is to minimize distractions. “Having video conferences all day long is totally the wrong direction,” Fried said. “The beauty of remote working is the opportunity to improve the way you work, to cut way back on meetings, to cut back on the number of people that need to be involved in any decision, to cut back on the need to FaceTime constantly.” Consider setting aside dedicated meeting-free times to give people the bandwidth they need to work without interruption.

Encourage employees to find their own work rhythms. Employees have been asked to make a whole lot of changes in short order to account for shifting needs. It’s only fair that employers do the same for them, allowing workers to structure their days in a way that produces their best results. That won’t look the same for everyone, writes Alexandra Samuel in the Wall Street Journal. “If you miss the creative spark that comes from in-person brainstorming, for instance, maybe it’s time to experiment with online whiteboards and mind-mapping tools that let you brainstorm with your colleagues in real time over the internet,” she writes. “If it’s hard to concentrate when you know the kitchen is full of dirty dishes, perhaps make a habit of calling into your first meeting of the day by phone instead of video, and do the dishes while you listen in. If you find yourself struggling with the blues every afternoon, when the isolation of home-based work sets in, maybe try restructuring your workweek around two-part workdays, and spend the middle of each day going for a walk or visiting with a friend.”

Understand that distractions will happen. People are working from home in unusual circumstances—with children, spouses, and roommates also present. In addition, television, social media, video games, and other home-based distractions are always within reach. Managers should try not to sweat it too much: Even though employees may be more easily pulled away from their desks, there’s evidence that they tend to work longer than they would in a traditional office—as much as two hours longer on average.

Worry less about the schedule and more about results. In other words, rethink your expectations. A New York Times piece recommends that leaders focus less on when people work and more on the performance results they show. “To adapt, managers should be very clear about expectations for the work assigned and when it’s due, researchers said—then leave the ‘how’ up to the workers and not worry about following the traditional 9-to-5 schedule,” Claire Cain Miller writes.

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here, and is written by Ernie Smith. 

Keeping members engaged is often considered the hard part. One association CEO outlines key membership engagement points that work no matter what, even in troubled times. The key to it all: value.

“Membership engagement solves everything.”

That’s a pretty bold statement. Tom Morrison, CEO of the Metal Treating Institute, backs it up with impressive numbers: More than 80 percent of MTI members are engaged at some level, and the organization has maintained a 97 percent retention rate for 10 years in a row. He says engaged members lead to fiscal growth, better volunteerism, and program involvement, which is why it’s his number-one priority as an association leader.

Morrison recently cohosted a webinar outlining successful strategies for keeping members engaged, even in a crisis.

KNOW YOUR VALUE

“Members support your mission, but they buy your value,” Morrison said. It is essential, therefore, for associations to know exactly what their value is.

We all know advocacy and meetings are core elements of an association’s value proposition. Without advocacy and meetings, what’s left? Good question.

Several years ago, during a strategic planning session with MTI’s board, as part of an exercise to determine value, they took advocacy and meetings off the table. That forced leadership to look internally at problems and “high pain points” and analyze them. Sales forecasting, financial benchmarking, training, and professional development emerged as important value drivers for members.

Another value proposition that has re-emerged is information. It was a high-value point in the ‘80s, Morrison said, but now with the advent of widespread misinformation distributed across many platforms, “associations are back in the channel of interpretation of information.” Associations need to ask what information they are engaging members with, where it comes from, and how to become the authority on interpreting it, he said.

PERCEIVED VS. ACTUAL VALUE

“Relevance is directly related to your value as an association,” Morrison said. Members engage in what they value. But value can be perceived or actual, and the latter is the one that counts.

Morrison noted, for example, that some associations offer members a discount on car rentals, which he says most people can easily get on the internet for an even lower price so that is not technically an actual member benefit. It is something some associations put out there, but it isn’t really meaningful—so it falls into the perceived value category.

Associations need to drill down on their benefits and determine if their value is actual or perceived. Morrison noted that many members pay for consultants to help with issues that associations could be helping to solve at a fraction of the cost—or at no cost at all. You need to know what members are going to need on any given day that your association can provide, so they don’t go looking for it elsewhere.

Morrison said he keeps hearing people ask, “How do you communicate value during COVID?” Talking about value is not enough right now, he said, “It’s time to do your value.”

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here, and is written by Lisa Boylan. 

Your association may have weathered the initial disruption of COVID-19. That doesn’t mean you’re prepared for the next calamity. It’s time to review your business continuity plan.

Your 2020 bingo card probably didn’t include spots for last-minute cancellations of annual events or jury-rigging “office furniture” out of what you have at home. But that’s the point behind a business continuity plan, or BCP: anticipating what could go wrong and ensuring that your organization is resilient enough to to get through the worst.

Now that your association has done its best to weather the initial disruption of COVID-19, this is the time to give your BCP a thorough review. That review needs to be forward-looking, beyond the problems currently at hand, to make sure that the plan will stand up to future unexpected crises.

COVID-19 brought a dramatic uptick in BCPs specific to technology and cybersecurity due to the shift to remote work. But those plans may not be adequate, because many mobility infrastructures and cybersecurity measures assume that there’s still some connection to a physical office, according to Praful Krishna, a computing and AI expert, writing for CMSWire.

“Under security policies for most enterprises, remote access is limited in its permissions and bandwidth,” Krishna says. “IT and other support functions are based out of physical locations. In many situations even drive backups occur only over the office Wi-Fi. In other words, the current setup expects everyone to show up to work at least periodically. That’s no longer sustainable.”

Other aspects of BCPs need careful consideration too: leadership, continuity of workforce, financial and other types of risk, communications, and other core functions. As Jim Lippie put it at the Channel Futures blog, “Although it might feel a little late in the game for business continuity planning, the initial shift to remote work is only skimming the surface when it comes to preparing businesses for a variety of disruptions. VPNs and laptops are only one aspect of what’s required for firms to survive and thrive when things get crazy.”

THE GREAT UNKNOWN

Taking an approach that considers all kinds of scenarios provides organizations with the broadest protection. The next threat might not be about a physical workplace; it might be a condition that severely limits remote work instead of supporting it. It could even be something that happens halfway across the world—a possibility that organizations that heavily rely on global supply chains need to factor into their BCP. As an example, Krishna covers Fitbit’s decision to source from four countries instead of just one, anticipating a trade war with China, the primary materials source before the diversification.

Whatever needs your organization has, regular reassessment, reviewing, and testing will help ensure a thorough response to changing conditions, as Seth Siegel points out at Information Week. This diligence will also help you prioritize when plans are translated into action.

People need to be at the top of the priority list, according to Siegel: “Keeping them working, safe, productive, and engaged should be a top priority.” That goes for your own employees, but your members and the broader community your association supports need to be considered as well.

At Special Events, Patrick Hardy shares the story of an RV tradeshow that took a now-familiar digital pivot because of COVID-19. On a technical level, everything went smoothly. “What they did not anticipate, however, was that many of the vendors no longer wished to participate, as their customers preferred a kinesthetic experience and one-on-one interpersonal interaction with sales representatives. The value, for them, then, diminished, even when a virtual platform was deployed seamlessly.”

Even the most robust plans will need adjustments once they become reality. But by keeping resilience through disaster top of mind, association leaders can use this moment as a springboard into the future, however uncertain it may be.

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here, and is written by Autumn Whitefield-Madrano.