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Building Organisational Resilience for Pandemic Preparedness
Dr Suvarna Moti
Independent Public Health Specialist, Mumbai. Email: pathare_suvarna@outlook.com
Introduction
COVID-19 pandemic has marked 2020 globally1. This pandemic has exposed inadequacies in responses
at the community, state, national and international levels – be it health system,
governance/economic/political or multilateral agencies’ responses2. The world of work is severely affected
during the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-2019) pandemic3. Rise of the recent coronavirus
identified the need that enterprises must increase their resilience and help ensure community well-being by
embracing modified work patterns and future work tools and practices.
Enterprises responding well to the pandemic have worked beyond business continuity planning bringing in
resilience capability to manage their business. Organisational resilience goes beyond recovery of critical
operations after an unexpected event and includes aspects of an organisation's operations including its
supply and distribution chains, customers, investors and brand.
Defining organisational resilience
An organisation’s ability to respond effectively to adverse events depends on their structure, the
management and operational systems they have in place, and the collective resilience of these4.
Organisational resilience is defined as ‘the ability of an organization to absorb and adapt in a changing
environment’. (ISO 22316:2017 Organizational resilience – Principles and attributes. 2017)5. Organisational
resilience has become a vital element of contemporary corporate strategy. It is a dynamic strategic initiative
to allow an organisation to sustain in an evolving environment while facing disruptions and emerging
successful6. Resilience cannot succeed in isolation since it depends upon the interconnectedness of
business units and their interactions with the community and business environment to contribute to the
organisation’s objectives1.
For operational purposes, resilience can be defined in terms of a set of organizational capabilities/routines
that shape the three inclusive and interconnected resilience stages of a firm’s resilience capacity as shown
in Figure17. Capabilities of all three resilience stages will need to develop to define the organizational
resilience. This includes anticipation capabilities to identify potential risks and take proactive steps leading
to the development of a resilience potential. Anticipation capabilities build effective responses to critical
situations whereas, coping capabilities help to realise resilience potential by applying crisis plans and use
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collective knowledge to develop crisis specific solutions. Learning is necessary to adapt to changes,
transform prior knowledge, and develop capabilities that underlie the first two resilience stages7.
At each resilience stage, cognitive actions generate and select action alternatives, and behavioural actions
utilise the best options to respond effectively to the situation. Briefly speaking, resilient organizations can
only emerge with effective interplay of cognition and behaviour. Changing behaviour without any cognitive
development or creation of knowledge without any accompanying change in behaviour doesn’t work
effectively. Besides, contextual factors (e.g., resources, social capital, and power) are important to the
successful accomplishment of the three resilience stages.
Organizations should develop a diverse knowledge base to anticipate change, away from the organisation’s
core business to ideate for crisis reaction and decide for the most suitable solution. Each resilience phase
includes some learning – be it for anticipation, for coping, and/or learning from crisis (adaptation). Resource
availability fosters development of all three capabilities. Social resources positively influence development
of coping capabilities. Power based on expertise and shared responsibilities promote adaptation
capabilities7.
Fig. 1 Duchek’s capability-based conceptualisation of organisational resilience7 Duchek, Stephanie. Organizational
resilience: a capability-based conceptualization. Business Research (2020) 13:215–246 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40685-019-0085-7
Alternatively, organisational resilience can be expressed as a function of the overall vulnerability, situation
awareness and adaptive capacity of an organisation in a complex, dynamic and interdependent system5,6.
Suffice to mention here that as the world of work evolves while navigating through the COVID crisis,
organisational resilience can be sequestered into specific opportunities listed here6:
1. Risk management to reduce possibilities of exceeding the organisation’s recoverable limits
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2. Business continuity planning to redefine and extend the recoverable limits for the organisation
3. Situational awareness algorithms for early recognition and reduced response time
4. Creative and responsive systems for responding to change in the face of challenges
Figure 2 lists six foundations of organisational resilience operating through some key principles1. These six
foundations will be responsible for developing the three resilience strategies and are addressed in detail
later in the process. Considering the resiliency focus continues to be on developing capacity and capability
among employees across the business, a broader remit needs to be expressed for emphasis on enterprise-
wide risk and resilience function beyond physical risk management and, factoring risk-based resilience
planning, and agile communication strategy for communicating activities and responses to risk events1,8.
Fig. 2 Six foundations of organisational resilience1. Whyte, Mark, Cox, Andy, Spender, Danny & Love, Rachel. Organisational
resilience: evolution and application. Nov 2018. Creating a Resilient Organisation Enterprise Resilience.
https://www.controlrisks.com/our-thinking/insights/organisational-resilience-evolution-and-application
Developing resilience for pandemic preparedness
Possible effects on business from a pandemic event can include:
➢ reduced labour supply, including your regular employees or availability of subcontractors or
temporary employees
➢ customer orders cancelled or not filled
➢ interruption in getting supplies or materials
➢ change in demands (for example, increased internet use, decreased tourism/travel)
➢ reduction or restrictions on public meetings or gatherings (including sports, clubs, theatres,
community centres, restaurants, religious gatherings, etc.)
➢ restrictions on travel (regional, national or international)
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➢ reduced availability of health care or home care services
➢ in more extreme situations, possible disruptions in other services such as telecommunications,
financial/banking, water, power (hydro), gasoline/fuels, medicine, or the food supply9
Framework for actions
Some basic principles to bear in mind while designing resilience are indicated here10. These will help decide
the extent of the resilience strategies and the quantum of action at every stage. All the three stages i.e
anticipation, coping and adaptation are underpinned with crucial inputs from resources like Occupational
Health & Safety, Employee Assistance and Welfare services besides, other key business functions in
resilience planning and execution.
1. Distribution of control across the sites and not merely execution of measures for resilience across the
sites. Central coordination will ensure teams have the necessary capabilities and coordinate the response.
2. Demand and ensure high quality, real-time data. Analytics experts create and use real-time dashboards.
Such analytics are critical to resilience.
3. Committed and caring leadership that listens, cares and responds with role model/leaders whom people
want to follow.
4. Create culture of empathy and develop employee bonding. Empathy for customers, communities,
employees and their families go a long way. The most resilient organisations value employee bonding and
encourage cultures to cultivate these supportive relationships at work. Such social bonds are vital10.
5. Develop community resilience.
6. Reinforced health and safety systems.
Key elements of organisational resilience for pandemic planning
Subsequent to the conceptual framework it is essential to determine the individual building blocks in the
resilience plans. Distributing these elements into enterprise-based and human-centred categories aids in
finer understanding of the elements that drive the resilience8,11.
Enterprise-based Preparedness focus on efforts for system transformation
➢ Clear organizational objectives and roadmap for transformation
➢ Build upon extant knowledge base
➢ Institute central/site-based response teams
➢ Ability to identify emerging threats/assessment of risks
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➢ Monitor regulatory & health updates
➢ Assess market and financial impacts
➢ Strong and supportive relationships with stakeholders
➢ Strengthen Occupational Health & Safety, Medical services
➢ Reinforce coping mechanisms
➢ Create learning opportunities
➢ Continue to build future of work capabilities
➢ Capacity building of external stakeholders
Human-Centred Responses emphasise the development of human capabilities
➢ Engagement with stakeholders
➢ Commitment as unified team
➢ Promote Modified/Virtual/Remote work practices
➢ Increase support for Help Desks
➢ Drive communications
➢ Employee & Customer participation
Process for pandemic resilience planning
Organisations should focus on building a more resilient future by carrying out the listed actions in a
concerted manner. The steps are not arranged in a sequential manner and merit a cohesive, purposive and
multifocal approach.
Key Considerations1, 8, 10, 11, 12
• Post-event review of current pandemic viz. COVID-19 and organisation’s response to it with a
detailed SWOT analysis recognising key steps responsible for resilience.
• Build resilience in a sustainable way. Design for failure, regardless of the threat.
• Elucidate core principles of resilience in the organisation and metrics for assessing, monitoring and
governance. Address the requirement to be responsive and adaptive while weighing the need to
protect and control.
• Develop community resilience plans in partnership with community stakeholders and suppliers.
o Have you developed collaborations for community resilience?
o Find out about pandemic planning in your region and locality, for example through regional
resilience teams and local resilience forums and liaise with agencies and local responders.
o Share best practice with other businesses in your community, as well as through industry
associations.
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• Has the organisation identified a Pandemic Preparedness Team which will develop emergency
response plans?
o Invest in people who excel in strategic foresight and know how to plan for multiple threats
o Establish a team consisting of human resources, finance, business stakeholders (business
continuity planning), supply chain/procurement, marketing & communications executives
and a wide range of stakeholders in the planning process (e.g. health & safety
representatives, union representatives, local resilience teams and responders).
o Ensure the plan has been reviewed and approved by the Board of Directors annually.
• Test and update current business continuity or emergency response plans; stress-test plans, both
discussion-based and full-scale real-world exercises.
o Validate the Pandemic Plan annually (i.e., through tabletop exercises, functional exercises,
tests) so personnel understand their roles and responsibilities.
o Set up authorities, triggers, and procedures for activating and terminating the company’s
response plan, altering business operations (e.g. reducing operations as necessary in
affected areas), and transferring business knowledge to key employees.
• Identify the critical functions needed to operate, maintain and determine how global trends might
impact especially, during a pandemic
o Review the Risk Assessment and Business Impact Analysis to confirm the critical events
and stakeholders will be the focus of continued operations during a pandemic event.
o Review the potential impacts of ceasing non-critical functions
o Consider the manning along with other key elements such as equipment, materials,
suppliers, contractors and logistics for these activities.
o Confirm critical processes can be performed remotely or identify an alternative.
o Validate critical business processes can continue with internal and external support.
o Confirm communication tools are available and operational.
o Validate essential tools to work remotely are available (i.e., laptop, VPN, etc.)
o Do internal resources need to be reallocated to ensure these activities can continue?
• Identify key person dependencies and minimum staffing requirements.
o Retrain personnel for key persons that may be unavailable during a pandemic.
o Define alert levels/triggers, travel guidelines and restrictions, physical distancing
procedures
o Define telecommuting/video conferencing/alternate sites — workplace and leave
flexibilities as well as pay and benefits
o Revise sickness absence policy aligned with government advice
o Adapt business models quickly by providing online learning, teaching and connecting
• Contact key suppliers and contractors to check if they have developed Business Continuity Plans?
o Identify the key suppliers/contractors that support critical activities.
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o Diversify supply chains.
• Is there a clear communications strategy and is regularly updated?
o Identify arrangements for communicating consistently with all key personnel and
stakeholders in the event of a pandemic.
o Key contact details (e.g. employees, suppliers, customers) should be maintained.
o Establish a Help Line to assist employees.
o Develop a communication plan to facilitate consistent internal and external
communications.
o Consider customers’ needs during a pandemic and whether to review business model and
arrangements to continue to meet those needs. (e.g. enhance mail ordering and internet
shopping capacities)
o Establish communication policies for reducing the spread of infection, based on local health
advice.
o Educate personnel, at both the family and employee level - Personal hygiene/protection
tips, Social distancing
• Is it possible to utilise technology to reduce the need for face-to-face interactions during a
pandemic?
o Consider measures such as homeworking and teleconferencing and if necessary,
equipment/software is available to support this.
o Review/update/create work from home policy
• Build risk models for finance.
o Work with supply chain for inventory forecasts and predict supply and demand.
o Assess financial stability and identify variables that will impact revenue and cost.
o Define scenarios that address global slowdowns, model cash flow, etc.
• Introduce measures to relieve mental stress, psychological issues as coping mechanisms.
o Develop occupational health services’ support mechanisms
o Plan for a likely increase in demand for employees’ welfare services especially online
counselling services, during a pandemic
o Stabilise employee assistance programs.
o Identify employees and key customers with special requirements and incorporate the
requirements of such persons into preparedness plan.
• Monitor and track global trends and risks, both chronic and acute, and take early warnings
seriously.
o Are there arrangements in place for the regular review of advice from the Government on
the specific health impacts associated with the pandemic/ health alerts?
o Sign up for local emergency management agency alerts.
o Use the current advice to forecast and plan for employee absence during a pandemic.
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o Align pandemic policies, standards, and procedures with public health recommendations
as well as appropriate laws.
o Update intranet site to link to the World Health Organization (WHO), local public health
departments, etc.
• Occupational Health & Safety and Medical Services’ reinforcement
o Seek guidance and representation of this function as crucial contributors to resilience
planning
o Health risk analysis for modified work practices, environment and employee health
o Allocate resources to strengthen the on-site and off-site medical care arrangements
o Capacity building of medical and nursing staff
o Alternate manpower recruitment planning
o Capacity strengthening of health care facilities
o Decision-making about health system rationale for triggers for activation and termination
of pandemic plans; monitoring alerts
o Monitoring of health situation and advisories and collaboration with local health authorities
o Contribution to developing employee communication plans and capabilities
o Advocacy for infection control practices and employee sensitisation for physical distancing,
cough etiquette, handwashing, early recognition of illness etc.
o Clinical SOPs and relevant protocols for isolation etc.
• How is the learning for adaptation strategies institutionalised?
o Reflection and learning of previous experiences
o Actions upon previous learnings
Conclusion
Organisational resilience has evolved in recent times blending the principles of enterprise risk management,
business continuity and crisis management with change management. Resilience allows enterprises to
display characteristics that help them to not just survive the change by passive response but thrive in it,
allowing an organisation to resume normal or improved business activities as soon as possible. Companies
can create resilience to future threats by applying future of work concepts and practices that are already
under exploration. Future work will be an amalgamation of physical and virtual environments spanning
across collaborations, automations and digital platforms for a dynamic work environment defining future
resiliency.
Organisations can respond to disruptions by pandemics and other disruptive events by:
• Metrics for monitoring effectiveness of program and assessing confidence in response and
recovery plans
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• Utilise technology, AI based digital tools to assess and monitor risks knowing when to escalate
• Determine critical business services, support systems, applications, and third parties to plan for
business continuity.
• Conduct random, unannounced tests to simulate failures to determine the resiliency of connected
systems.
• Practice incident response and recovery planning with service providers to train leaders,
employees, and vendors to handle disruptive events
References
1. Whyte, Mark, Cox, Andy, Spender, Danny & Love, Rachel. Organisational resilience: evolution and
application. 08 Nov 2018 Creating a Resilient Organisation Enterprise Resilience.
https://www.controlrisks.com/our-thinking/insights/organisational-resilience-evolution-and-
application
2. Djalante, Riyanti, Shaw, Rajib & DeWit Andrew. Building resilience against biological hazards and
pandemics: COVID-19 and its implications for the Sendai Framework. Progress in Disaster
Science. Volume 6, April 2020, 100080. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pdisas.2020.100080
3. IAOH Guidance Document. Beyond Flattening the Curve: Post COVID-19 Safe Return to
Workplace. May 2020. www.iaohindia.com
4. Brunsdon, Dave, Dalziell, Erica. Making Organisations Resilient: Understanding the Reality of the
Challenge.
https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10092/2814/12598223_Resilient_Infrastructure-
Brunsdon%20Dalziell.pdf;jsessionid=C1F17C13D67FC7E07D6D0F76BDF6EE4B?sequence=1
5. ISO 22316:2017 Security and resilience — Organizational resilience — Principles and attributes
https://www.iso.org/obp/ui#iso:std:iso:22316:ed-1:v1:en
6. Seville, Erica, Brunsdon, David, Dantas, Andre, Le Masurier, Jason, Wilkinson, Suzanne, Vargo,
John. Building Organisational Resilience: A New Zealand Approach.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/96a9/c5590dc3f021ff669d53dfc41087a814acc6.pdf?_ga=2.1850
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7. Duchek, Stephanie. Organizational resilience: a capability-based conceptualization. Business
Research (2020) 13:215–246 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40685-019-0085-7
8. Deloitte. Increasing organisational resilience in the face of COVID-19. Future of work – Ways of
working to sustain and thrive in uncertain times. March 2020.
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/mt/Documents/about-deloitte/dtmt-COVID-19-
future-of-remote-work.pdf
9. Canadian Centre for Occupational Health & Safety. Flu & Infectious Disease Outbreaks Business
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10. Bersin, Josh. Four ways to build organisational resilience. April 2020.
https://hrexecutive.com/josh-bersin-4-ways-to-build-organizational-resilience/
11. KPMG Pandemic planning as part of an overall resilience strategy. March 2020.
https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home/insights/2020/03/pandemic-planning-as-part-of-an-overall-
resilience-strategy.html
12. Organisational resilience: Guidance on Pandemic planning. Available at
https://www.fva.org/downloads/Organisational_Resilience_Guidance_on_Pandemic_Planning.p
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