Chengdu, Sichuan / China – January 232019: travellers all wear mask at airport to prevent infection fromcoronavirus. (Source: Shutterstock)

Coronavirus has the world's attention right now, and that's gota lot of credit unions thinking about pandemic preparedness,according to Jonathan Derby, chief information officer at OngoingOperations, which provides disaster recovery, business continuityhelp and other services to credit unions.

Many have reached out to the company for help, Derby told CUTimes. And that's been keeping Tim Daugherty, director ofbusiness continuity planning at Ongoing Operations, busy.

TimDaugherty

Daugherty said credit unions can do several things right now toensure that they're prepared for apandemic.

1. Assign someone to monitor reports. Daughertyrecommended that credit unions have one person, typically someonein HR or a business continuity coordinator, monitor the websites ofthe World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Controland Prevention, as well as other information sources to stay on topof what's happening and report changes to senior management. Thatway, "we don't have all these resources that are trying to trackand see what's going on. You have that one person," he said. "We'renot wasting resources necessarily just to trying to monitor what'shappening."

2. Create a written plan. Credit unions can getguidance from the FFIEC, NCUA or other organizations, Daughertysaid. Among other things, credit union pandemic plans should document special roles andresponsibilities, which vendors will provide special help, and whatwork can be done remotely, he said. "You really start taking a lookat each individual department and what is their base or skeletoncrew that they could actually still do their business processes,"he said.

3. Make the plan accessible. Printing out onecopy of the plan and locking it in an office file cabinet can berisky if people can't access the plan in an emergency. Keeping theplan online ensures that people can access it if the office islocked or quarantined, or if key players are in other locations."Make sure that the plan's accessable for everyone, so they don'thave to memorize what they need to do," Daugherty said.

4. Review the plan and practice. "You should atleast annually be looking at this plan, dusting it off, making surethat everything is still up-to-date," he said. Daugherty alsorecommended that credit unions do tabletop exercises, which gatherdepartment heads and managers in a room to walk through what theywould do in specific pandemic-related scenarios, such as if largeportions of the staff call in sick or a contagious member visits abranch. "It's not a test; it's not a pass/fail," he said. "It's tofind those gaps that may be also within the plans."

5. Think beyond the coronavirus. The spread ofany contagious illness — even more well-known diseases such as theflu 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'salways something going on there."