CUs Looking at Pandemic Plans in Light of Coronavirus

Coronavirus has the world’s attention right now, and that’s got a lot of credit unions thinking about pandemic preparedness, according to Jonathan Derby, chief information officer at Ongoing Operations, which provides disaster recovery, business continuity help and other services to credit unions.

Many have reached out to the company for help, Derby told CU Times. And that’s been keeping Tim Daugherty, director of business continuity planning at Ongoing Operations, busy.

Daugherty said credit unions can do several things right now to ensure that they’re prepared for a pandemic.

1. Assign someone to monitor reports. Daugherty recommended that credit unions have one person, typically someone in HR or a business continuity coordinator, monitor the websites of the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as other information sources to stay on top of what’s happening and report changes to senior management. That way, “we don’t have all these resources that are trying to track and see what’s going on. You have that one person,” he said. “We’re not wasting resources necessarily just to trying to monitor what’s happening.”

2. Create a written plan. Credit unions can get guidance from the FFIEC, NCUA or other organizations, Daugherty said. Among other things, credit union pandemic plans should document special roles and responsibilities, which vendors will provide special help, and what work can be done remotely, he said. “You really start taking a look at each individual department and what is their base or skeleton crew that they could actually still do their business processes,” he said.

3. Make the plan accessible. Printing out one copy of the plan and locking it in an office file cabinet can be risky if people can’t access the plan in an emergency. Keeping the plan online ensures that people can access it if the office is locked or quarantined, or if key players are in other locations. “Make sure that the plan’s accessable for everyone, so they don’t have to memorize what they need to do,” Daugherty said.

4. Review the plan and practice. “You should at least annually be looking at this plan, dusting it off, making sure that everything is still up-to-date,” he said. Daugherty also recommended that credit unions do tabletop exercises, which gather department heads and managers in a room to walk through what they would do in specific pandemic-related scenarios, such as if large portions of the staff call in sick or a contagious member visits a branch. “It’s not a test; it’s not a pass/fail,” he said. “It’s to find those gaps that may be also within the plans.”

5. Think beyond the coronavirus. The spread of any contagious illness — even more well-known diseases such as the flu or measles — could affect credit union staffing and operations. “There’s always different diseases out there,” Daugherty warned. “We were talking about the virus going on right now, but … there’s always something going on there.”