Disaster Recovery Journal Spring 2024

ing and asking for accommodation in the workplace to be more productive employ ees. Having more neurodivergent people in the workforce may mean we must shift around how plans are created or how exercises are done to be more equitable to the people responding to events. We may need to provide information differently than how it has always been done, which is fine. Updating and changing our practices is a good thing, and there should always be a review to ensure the plans still meet any company or certification standards while also ensuring plans are practicable for the people and teams working on the plan. Reducing long passages of text, when a checklist would suffice, is a change that allows for the information to be con sumed by more groups. It has been said many times, no one is reading the plan. Is the text overwhelming when one is given information and asked questions from all directions? People can consume informa tion in various ways. How can we, as professionals, ensure people get informa tion in the easiest ways to consume? One of the most significant changes is that we now have five generations in the workplace, ranging in age from 16 to 75. Those five generations all have differ ent experiences and how they want to interact and be treated in the workplace. Generation Z, which is the youngest in the workplace, is much more digitally native to the Baby Boomers and the ones in the silent generation who are still working. How all those people want to receive information is different; some may still want paper plans, while others expect it to be in an app if it isn’t auto mated, the action that needs to take place. Navigating these differences in gen erations while ensuring safety is highly important because if there is a misunder standing, that could mean a difference in how quickly operations can return to normal. As continuity professionals, the aver age age tends to skew older, so how do we continue to bring new people to the fold to ensure they feel like they can learn and be respected in the industry? Students

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Continuity and Resilience By RAY HOLLOMAN O ver the last few years, there has been an increased focus on diversity, equity, and inclu sion (DEI) in the media, but what does that mean for our industry? First and foremost, the top shifts in the workplace since the begin ning of the pandemic. There has been an increase in the awareness around neuro diversity, generations in the workplace, disability, and gender identity and expres sion, among other topics. If we are tasked with ensuring people are safe in our workplace, especially during a crisis or incident, these plans should be accessible to everyone in our organization. priority for many professionals is that our business continuity plans are enacted to ensure everyone can make it home safely. While there is much focus on race and gender when we talk about DEI, there are other categories we should be taking into consideration, especially with some of the Neurodiversity has risen in visibility in the past few years as there has been more access to people who are no longer mask

26 DISASTER RECOVERY JOURNAL | SPRING 2024