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Start with the work that must continue, not with the departed employee’s job title. Identify essential activities, document the knowledge and authority they require, assign a primary and backup role, transfer the practical know-how, and test whether the backup can operate without the incumbent. Then maintain the plan whenever people, systems, suppliers, or assumptions change.
What changes when a key employee is lost
A key employee may be the only person who knows how to release a payment, satisfy a major customer, operate a specialized system, approve an exception, maintain a regulator relationship, or interpret an informal rule. Losing that person creates more than a vacancy. It can remove decision authority, system access, historical context, supplier contacts, and the ability to recognize unusual conditions.
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A continuity plan addresses the business capability at risk. It is different from an organization chart, a recruiting plan, or an IT disaster-recovery runbook. It should show how essential work will be performed during an absence, who may make decisions, what minimum service can be delivered, and how the organization will restore normal capacity.
ISO describes ISO 22301:2019 as requirements for a business continuity management system (BCMS): a management system that is planned, implemented, monitored, reviewed, maintained, and continually improved. That makes the plan a living operating practice rather than a document filed after an employee leaves.
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The following method works for an unexpected absence, a resignation with notice, retirement, illness, dismissal, or the loss of several people in a small team. Adapt the depth to the consequences of interruption and to your organization’s size and complexity.
1. Set the plan’s scope and assumptions
Write a short scope statement before listing successors. Specify the business unit, location, service, product, or process covered; the plan owner; and the situations it addresses. State assumptions that affect decisions, such as whether the departing employee’s account remains available for a defined handover period, whether a contractor can be engaged, or whether work can be moved to another site.
Ready.gov’s Business Continuity Plan template begins with scope, objectives, and assumptions. Use those prompts to prevent a plan from quietly expanding until nobody can maintain it.
Define the outcomes customers and colleagues depend on
List the outputs that must continue: orders accepted, payroll processed, safety reports filed, customer incidents answered, production released, or a regulated service delivered. For each output, describe the minimum acceptable service during disruption. “Keep sales running” is too vague; “acknowledge priority customer incidents within four business hours and route them to an authorized resolver” is testable.
Set boundaries without pretending they are universal
Do not copy recovery times, staffing levels, or legal requirements from another company. Your acceptable downtime, minimum service, records-retention duties, privacy controls, and notification obligations depend on jurisdiction, industry, contracts, and the service involved. Record those questions as assumptions to validate with the appropriate legal, compliance, safety, or regulatory adviser.
2. Identify essential activities and their dependencies
Make an inventory of activities, then rank them by the consequence of interruption. Begin with the activity’s output and work backward through the people, decisions, systems, records, suppliers, locations, and relationships needed to produce it.
| Essential activity | Consequence if interrupted | Minimum service | Dependencies to record |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer incident response | Service credits, lost trust, or safety escalation | Priority incidents acknowledged and assigned within the defined target | On-call rota, ticketing access, escalation tree, customer contacts, severity rules |
| Supplier payment approval | Supply interruption, late fees, or fraud exposure | Urgent, validated payments approved under delegated limits | Banking access, invoice records, approval limits, segregation-of-duties checks |
| Regulatory reporting | Missed filing, enforcement action, or loss of authorization | Required reports prepared, reviewed, and submitted by the due date | Source data, reporting calendar, review authority, submission credentials |
| Production release | Unsafe, defective, or delayed shipments | Only batches meeting documented quality checks released | Quality procedure, test results, release authority, laboratory or supplier contacts |
The table is a starting format, not a universal classification. Add measures that matter to your organization, such as cash exposure, patient or customer harm, contractual penalties, safety risk, or loss of a time-sensitive opportunity.
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For every essential activity, ask:
- Who performs the hands-on work today?
- Who makes judgment calls or approves exceptions?
- Which contacts exist only in a personal address book or phone?
- Which system roles, keys, certificates, or physical credentials are unique?
- Which supplier, customer, or regulator relationship depends on personal trust?
- What historical decisions or unwritten rules would a replacement need to understand?
- What happens when the normal process fails?
Mark each dependency as documented, shared with a backup, or concentrated in one person. This exposes risks that a title-based succession list misses.
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3. Find single-person dependencies before choosing a successor
A single-person dependency exists when the business cannot complete an essential activity without one individual’s knowledge, authority, access, or relationship. Look beyond senior executives. A payroll specialist, maintenance technician, dispatcher, account manager, laboratory analyst, or system administrator can be the critical point of failure.
Use evidence from the work itself
Review recent tickets, orders, approvals, incident records, month-end checklists, customer escalations, and supplier correspondence. Ask colleagues to perform the activity from the existing written material. The places where they stop, guess, or call the incumbent are evidence of concentration.
Separate knowledge risk from authority risk
Someone may know how to complete a task but lack permission to approve it. Another person may hold the approval limit but not know the operating details. Record both dimensions separately. A complete continuity assignment names the person or role that performs the work and the person or role authorized to decide, spend, communicate, or accept risk.
Check access and relationship fragility
Confirm that essential accounts have an approved backup administrator, that credentials are handled through the organization’s secure process, and that critical contacts are stored in a shared location. Do not put passwords or private keys in an unprotected document. If a relationship is personal, introduce a second organizational contact before the incumbent leaves.
4. Assign primary and backup responsibility with explicit authority
For each essential responsibility, name a primary role and at least one backup role. Role-based assignments survive future personnel changes better than a list of individual names, although the plan should also identify the current people occupying those roles in a controlled directory.
Ready.gov’s template specifically prompts planners to identify lines of authority, succession of management, and delegation of authority. Treat these as operational instructions, not ceremonial statements.
| Responsibility | Primary role | Backup role | Authority that transfers | Boundary or escalation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer escalation | Service operations lead | Senior support supervisor | May set incident priority, approve customer communication, and engage an emergency vendor | Contract changes and compensation above the stated limit require executive approval |
| Payment release | Finance controller | Delegated finance manager | May approve validated payments within the documented limit | Dual approval and fraud checks remain mandatory |
| Production release | Quality manager | Qualified quality engineer | May release batches that meet recorded test criteria | Any failed or missing test is escalated to the quality director |
Write an order of succession
For leadership and critical operational functions, list the order in which authority moves when the primary role is unavailable. State the trigger, the effective time, and how the transfer is recorded. For example, an operations manager may transfer authority to the shift supervisor after an absence is confirmed, while spending above a limit remains with a named executive. Avoid language such as “someone senior will decide”; specify the role and the boundary.
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State who can declare that the continuity arrangement is active, how staff are notified, and where the current contact list is stored. Include an alternate communication channel if the normal collaboration system is unavailable. The plan should be usable by a manager on a busy day, not only by its author.
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5. Capture operational knowledge in a usable form
Knowledge transfer should produce a backup who can perform the work, not a folder of long descriptions that nobody has tried. Create short, task-focused procedures for each essential activity and have the backup use them while the incumbent or another qualified expert observes.
Include the details that disappear first
- Trigger: what starts the task and how to recognize that it is due.
- Inputs: systems, forms, records, data fields, physical materials, and supplier information required.
- Normal steps: the sequence, including where evidence is recorded.
- Decision points: thresholds, approval limits, quality criteria, and conditions that change the route.
- Checks: reconciliations, peer reviews, safety checks, or customer confirmations.
- Exceptions: common failure modes, workarounds that are approved, and conditions requiring escalation.
- Contacts: organizational roles, not only personal mobile numbers, with a backup contact.
- Access dependencies: the approved process for requesting accounts, tokens, keys, or physical access.
- Records: where the final decision, transaction, or customer communication is stored.
Keep instructions close to the work and label the owner and review date. A screen recording can help with a complex interface, but it should supplement written decision rules and access instructions rather than replace them.
Use shadowing, reverse shadowing, and demonstration
Where possible, let the backup observe the incumbent completing a real task. Next, have the backup perform the task while the incumbent explains gaps. Finally, run a realistic case without coaching. Record questions and update the procedure immediately. If the employee has already left, use logs, completed examples, customer or supplier contacts, and a qualified subject-matter expert to reconstruct the process; mark assumptions that still need validation.
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Transfer only the information the successor needs, through approved systems. Remove personal data that is not necessary, preserve audit trails, and revoke access that is no longer justified. Never solve a continuity problem by sharing an individual password or bypassing segregation-of-duties controls.
6. Prepare the workforce and outside organizations
CISA’s Emergency Services Sector Continuity Planning Suite, Worksheet 7: Human Resources, separates continuity personnel, all staff, and human-resources considerations. Although it was written for the Emergency Services Sector and dated February 2018, its structure is a useful prompt to distinguish the people who perform essential functions from the broader workforce. Adapt it rather than treating it as a universal template.
Tell employees what their continuity role means
Give each affected employee the role, expected availability, decision limits, contact method, and escalation path. Explain what happens if that person is also unavailable. Make sure managers understand how to release staff from normal duties when an essential activity is activated and how to record overtime, reassignment, or temporary accommodation under applicable policy.
Include contractors, vendors, and partners
Ready.gov’s template asks planners to address interaction with outside organizations. Identify suppliers, outsourced administrators, logistics partners, advisers, and customers whose cooperation is necessary. Record contract contacts, service expectations, alternate contacts, notification requirements, and the information they are permitted to receive. Confirm that a substitute contact at your organization can invoke the relevant service or approve a change.
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Plan the human response, not only the task
ISO/TS 22330:2018 describes people preparation through awareness, needs analysis, learning and development, response and disruption management, and support after return to business as usual. A sudden loss can create workload, uncertainty, and wellbeing issues for the remaining team. Build in handover time, reasonable workload limits, support channels, and a process for returning temporary assignees to their normal work.
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7. Compare continuity options deliberately
There is rarely one correct replacement strategy. Compare alternatives against the activity’s minimum service and consequences rather than choosing the cheapest option automatically.
| Option | When it fits | Advantages | Risks to test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cross-train an internal backup | The work is recurring and internal knowledge is important | Preserves context and organizational control | Training time, competing workload, and skill decay if the backup never practices |
| Split duties across two roles | No single replacement can cover the whole job | Reduces concentration and creates peer checks | Handoffs, unclear authority, and duplicated effort |
| Temporary internal reassignment | A short absence requires rapid coverage | Fast activation when a qualified person is available | Deprioritized work elsewhere and fatigue |
| Qualified contractor or partner | Specialist capability is scarce internally | Access to expertise without a permanent hire | Confidentiality, supplier dependency, onboarding time, and approval limits |
| Automate or simplify the process | Rules are stable and volume justifies change | Reduces manual concentration and repeatable error | Exceptions still need judgment, and systems become a new dependency |
| Temporarily reduce service | Full capacity is impossible but a safe minimum can be defined | Allows scarce skills to focus on the highest consequences | Contractual, safety, customer, or regulatory impact if the limit is wrong |
For each option, assess: the essential activity protected; the minimum service sustained; time to resume; skills and authority transferred; cost and practical feasibility; and dependencies on people, systems, suppliers, locations, and records. These are practical comparison axes, not a verbatim ISO scoring formula. Use more formal analysis where interruption could cause serious harm.
8. Assemble the plan so another manager can use it
Keep the operational plan concise and link to controlled procedures rather than copying every policy into one file. A workable structure is:
- Purpose and scope: covered activities, locations, services, assumptions, and plan owner.
- Activation: triggers, who invokes the plan, notification method, and first actions.
- Essential-activity register: outputs, minimum service, consequences, and dependencies.
- Responsibility and authority matrix: primary and backup roles, succession order, delegation limits, and escalation routes.
- Procedure index: links or locations for task instructions, forms, checklists, and records.
- People and contact list: continuity personnel, all-staff communication channels, contractors, suppliers, and external organizations.
- Resource and access register: systems, equipment, locations, credentials-request process, and approved workarounds.
- Exercise and improvement log: scenarios, observed gaps, owners, due dates, and closure evidence.
Control access to the plan because it may contain sensitive operational, personal, supplier, or security information. Maintain a readable copy through an alternate channel if the normal document system is unavailable, while ensuring old copies can be identified and withdrawn.
9. Activate the plan after an absence
When a key employee is unavailable, avoid improvising the entire response. Follow a short activation sequence:
- Confirm the situation and scope. Establish which person, activity, location, or shift is affected and whether the absence is expected to be brief or open-ended.
- Invoke the relevant continuity arrangement. The authorized manager records the activation time and notifies the primary and backup roles.
- Transfer authority explicitly. Confirm spending, customer communication, system access, safety, quality, and exception limits. Record the transfer in the designated log.
- Start the minimum service. Use the task procedure and prioritize outputs whose interruption has the greatest consequence.
- Secure access and information. Request or adjust accounts through approved controls, preserve records, and prevent unauthorized use of the absent employee’s credentials.
- Contact affected parties. Notify customers, suppliers, partners, or regulators only when required by the plan, contract, or applicable rule, using an authorized spokesperson.
- Escalate exceptions. If the backup cannot complete a step, record the precise gap and move to the next authority or qualified external resource rather than creating an undocumented workaround.
- Review each operating period. At the end of a shift or day, check backlog, unresolved decisions, access problems, staff workload, and any change to the minimum service.
When the employee returns or a permanent successor is appointed, document what happened, reconcile temporary access, close delegated authority, and preserve lessons that should change the plan.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.10. Exercise, measure, and maintain the plan
ISO 22301 treats continuity as a cycle of planning, implementation, monitoring, review, maintenance, and continual improvement. The sources do not prescribe one exercise frequency suitable for every organization, so choose a cadence based on consequence, change rate, and complexity.
Run a focused absence exercise
Use a simple scenario: the key employee is unavailable today. Ask the backup to locate the procedure, obtain the needed authority and access, complete a normal case, handle an exception, and escalate a decision. Observers should record elapsed time, missing information, unclear authority, failed contacts, security issues, and work that was silently dropped.
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Turn observations into owned actions
- Describe the failure in operational terms, such as “backup could not approve an urgent payment because the delegation limit was not recorded.”
- Assign one owner and a due date.
- Update the procedure, role matrix, access control, training, or supplier arrangement.
- Retest the changed step and retain evidence of closure.
Review after meaningful change
Trigger a review after a departure, role change, new system, supplier change, reorganization, site move, major incident, failed exercise, or change in legal or contractual obligations. At minimum, verify that contacts still work, backups remain qualified, access is appropriate, procedures match the current systems, and the stated minimum service is still realistic.
Common failure modes and fixes
The plan lists job titles but not work
Symptom: It says who owns “finance” or “operations” but not which outputs must continue. Fix: Build the essential-activity register and define minimum service, dependencies, and decision points for each output.
The backup is named but has never performed the task
Symptom: The successor discovers missing steps during the real absence. Fix: Require observation, reverse shadowing, and an uncoached demonstration; update the procedure from the questions raised.
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Authority is assumed
Symptom: The backup knows what to do but cannot approve spending, release work, communicate externally, or access a system. Fix: Record delegated authority, limits, succession order, activation trigger, and the approved access-request path.
Confidentiality is traded for speed
Symptom: Staff share passwords, export unnecessary personal data, or give a contractor unrestricted access. Fix: Use named accounts, least privilege, time-limited access, audit logs, and the organization’s secure credential process.
External dependencies are invisible
Symptom: The internal backup cannot obtain a supplier delivery, customer approval, specialist service, or regulator submission. Fix: Add alternate organizational contacts, service expectations, notification rules, and a tested escalation route.
The document is written once and forgotten
Symptom: A contact has left, a system has changed, or the procedure points to an obsolete form. Fix: Assign a plan owner, record review triggers, exercise the plan, and track corrective actions to closure.
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- Define the covered unit, services, locations, owner, and assumptions.
- List essential outputs and the minimum service for each.
- Rank interruption consequences and identify time-sensitive work.
- Map people, decisions, systems, records, suppliers, locations, and relationships for every activity.
- Mark knowledge, authority, access, and relationship dependencies held by one person.
- Assign a primary role, at least one backup role, and explicit authority limits.
- Write task-focused procedures with triggers, steps, checks, exceptions, contacts, and records.
- Transfer knowledge through shadowing and a backup demonstration.
- Store credentials and sensitive information through approved secure controls.
- Brief continuity personnel, all staff who may be affected, contractors, and key external organizations.
- Compare cross-training, work-splitting, reassignment, external support, simplification, and minimum-service options.
- Document activation, communication, succession, delegation, and escalation.
- Run an absence exercise and record failures, owners, and due dates.
- Review after departures, role or system changes, supplier changes, incidents, and exercises.
- Obtain organization-specific legal, regulatory, safety, privacy, and contractual review where consequences are material.
What the standards and templates contribute
Ready.gov’s Business Continuity Plan template provides prompts for scope, objectives, assumptions, roles and responsibilities, lines of authority, succession, delegation, and interaction with outside organizations. It is a template to adapt, not evidence that any particular plan is adequate for every business.
CISA’s Worksheet 7, Human Resources, organizes planning around continuity personnel, all staff, and human-resources considerations. It was produced for the Emergency Services Sector and should be tailored before use elsewhere.
ISO 22301:2019 supplies the management-system framework: plan, implement, monitor, review, maintain, and continually improve. ISO/TS 22330:2018 addresses the people aspects of continuity, including awareness, needs analysis, learning and development, response, disruption management, and support when normal operations resume. ISO states that ISO/TS 22330:2018 was reviewed and confirmed in 2022 and remains current.
In a 18 June 2012 ISO article, ISO Expert Malcolm Cornish wrote: “For business continuity to be successful, people with appropriate knowledge, skills and experience must be in place to both contribute to the BCMS and respond to incidents when they occur.” The practical implication is straightforward: continuity depends on prepared people, clear authority, usable knowledge, communication, and support—not on a document alone.
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