Crises are proving moments. They won't just stress your buildings. They will stress your systems and org chart; your accounting and HR workflows, your IT stack, and all of the little handoffs between departments. If the last discussion was about mindset, this part is about the execution and how to for corporate support.

So let's go from concept to implementation: how your corporate systems, leadership framework, and internal processes will either support the BCP or unwittingly undermine it.

The Corporate Layer: Where Continuity Either Scales or Stalls

At the corporate level, continuity planning answers a couple of simple questions:

• Can we still run the business if headquarters goes offline, key leaders are unreachable, or our core systems are disrupted?
• How do we support the dispersed sites to recover or maintain their operations?

We'll break this down into four parts:

• Defining who can make which decisions, and under what conditions.
• Making sure communication flows across departments and to field operations when normal channels are down.
• Determining which corporate systems and processes must stay online, and what their backups are.
• Building the team: Culture, Training, and Cross-Functional Drills

Get these wrong, and your plan becomes a paper exercise. Get them right, and your sites and teams have a stable bulwark to lean on.

Authorities and Powers – Decentralizing Without Losing Control

You should always consider time precious but in an emergency, time can be more critical than almost anything else. If every meaningful decision or action has to wait for the CEO or executive leader, your continuity plan has already failed. Empower your team to act.

Within your corporate BCP define:

• A clear understanding of your organization objectives and ops level priorities. This is a layer below your standard objectives or commander's intent. Sometimes the objective is a simple as "If power goes out we need to have backup power restored by x hours and full power restored by y". If your teammates know and understand that, they can focus their actions to those even when immediate or top level supervision is available..
• Decision tiers: What decisions can be made at site, regional, and corporate level without further approval. What decisions can't be made at those levels and why? In the example of power being out do your teammates know how much they can spend to make the lights go on?
• Succession paths: If a key leader is unavailable, who steps in next—and how do people know it?
• Emergency spending authority: Like other decisions, what are the clear limits and thresholds for what on-site or regional leaders can commit to without waiting for other approvals.
• Pre-approved vendors and contracts: Don't make legal and procurement a bottleneck when time-sensitive action is needed. At the same time, don't create a field of landmines in post event payables. Back to the power example, have you negotiated preferred rates for generators? Do you have electricians that can make the connections set up and pricing pre negotiated for emergency rates?

This should be less about writing new policies and more about making implicit expectations explicit. When people know where their authority starts and stops, they act faster and with more confidence. 

Communication Channels – Support and Clarity

In Part 1 we talked about communication as the lifeline of a BCP. At the corporate support level, that lifeline has to span multiple departments, locations, roles and dispersed sites. It also must determine how to get communications flowing when traditional communications are down.

If you've been in a regional level event you're likely aware that communication channels like cellphones and cellular data transfer can get diverted to priority needs such as emergency and first responders. Sheer network bandwidth for outbound and inbound communication can get removed or overwhelmed. 

Primary and backup platforms 

 If your main email or messaging system goes down, what's Plan B? What's Plan C? If your phone system is impacted, what's the backup tree?

Fortunately there are some options. Systems like Starlink has portable units that provide satellite internet. They are inexpensive to buy and maintain on standby. Having those in office and in the field is great. They also run on DC power, meaning you can run off a car battery and simple solar setup. There are also phone options with satellite texting available. And if you want to go full apocalyptic HAM radio is a tried and true old school method for when it really hits the fan.

Having runners, or teammates who will act as carriers can also be useful assuming you can still transit in an area. With phones down you can relay information person to person this way.

Crisis "single source of truth"

Create a central place (such as an intranet page, shared drive, crisis portal) where the latest instructions, updates, and status reports live or can be submitted. This should be seen as an internal facing tool for teammate notices and communication. Like other systems, you'll want to plan for backup and let your teammates know; if "x" isn't available go to "y" and then to "z". Tools like elucidin are great for this but they do require connectivity to access.

A good practice is to have printed copies in binders and manuals available for systems that are critical. For example, I kept full startup procedures and wiring diagrams printed for chillers and boilers along with contact info right in the facility. I'd do the same for shut-off and disconnect information. Flashlight in hand, we could make things happen.

So far this has been inward facing communication. You also have to think about outward communication to your residents and customers. A public facing page for your customers, like Facebook, X or perhaps your PMS platform works great. Identify who is responsible to update it, and who has backup access to those tools. If the person who has the keys to the kingdom is off on leave, or affected, your communications channels will be down and that's not good.

Good owners are going to want to keep in lock step with you so be prepared to give routine updates for them. They may be able to bring additional resources to bear to help in recovery. And herein, is another pro tip, make sure they are involved in your business continuity planning by at a minimum sharing with them your basic plan!

Role-based messaging

What executives say to investors might be different from what regional leaders say to site teams or residents. Templates and tone guidance reduce confusion so make sure you are clear.

Communicating with news and media is a whole other aspect. Incorrect information or messaging can be detrimental to your brand far downstream of the event. In a pinch with the pressure on people don't always say the right things. If you don't want your teammates to accidentally misspeak, arm them with something to say. "Were currently focused on helping our residents, let me get you the contact information of someone you can speak to with the info you need." 

And if the media can get a story wrong they will.  Sensational stories get more eyeballs.  Sad fact.   If you have ever been apart of something and then seen how it is reported and translated you know what I mean.   Focus on the facts effort and your intent.

Reporting back up the chain 

How do and how should properties and departments report conditions, damage, and needs so corporate leaders can prioritize response and support intelligently? How do you verify the information you are getting from the field?

One of my first drills I conducted as the guy in charge of the BCP had a scenario where we drilled an earthquake as an event. We picked about 7 assets and communicated directly to them the scenario they were drilling. It went something like this: "Your property is taking part of our PANIC (Plan And Not Incur Chaos) drill. In your email you will find your scenario packet which describes you how your site has been impacted and the parameters you must follow for this drill"

In their packets we gave them information to relay and limitations they might have. For example, we might drill that the site had no gas or electricity, computers were down etc. We wanted to see how the information would be passed along and with that how the local teams would start addressing the issue or what they felt they needed.

Only a handful of us involved knew all the details. Operational VPs were given a heads up about the drill, the CEO was in the loop. The drill was launched and we waited.

What happened next was eye opening.

One of the first bits of information that came in from the field was that there was a fire at one of our sites. It was a site that was participating in the drill. We hadn't put a fire in any of the scenarios so immediately we decided we'd better see what's up. We called the site to confirm there was not really a fire. In that short amount of time the drill started the relayed message went from "You're participating in a drill" to "We are having a fire drill" to "There has been a fire…"

Communication is fragile.  Check.

Corporate Systems – Keeping the Engine Running

Even if your buildings are physically fine, the business can grind to a halt if key systems are offline or inaccessible.

Your BCP at the corporate level should identify:

• Mission-critical systems: Property management software, accounting, payroll, HRIS, sales, communications tools, insurance and claims platforms.
• Recovery Time and Recovery Point targets: How quickly each system must be back online (Recovery Time Objective) and how much data loss is acceptable, if any (Recovery Point Objective).
• Redundancy and access: Cloud backups, mirrored environments, VPN or SSO failover, and how remote or displaced staff can securely access systems.
• Paper and manual workarounds: What happens if you lose system access completely for 24–48 hours or more—how will you record leases, payments, work orders, or approvals until systems are restored?

The goal isn't to build an indestructible IT environment. It's to be honest about which systems are non-negotiable, and how you'll keep them—or their essential functions—available.

It's important to keep in mind that you aren't alone in your planning; your vendors have a big part to play. Your planning should include them. You need to know what their plans are as well. 

And then what about your physical office?

Do you have a fallback plan if your corporate or support office becomes unusable? Will you go full remote work or work from home? Do you have a regroup area and regroup times? Thanks to covid, most offices have flexed this option and have tools to do this.

You may consider having key personnel with access to backup or standby power and communications a la generators and Starlink. They may be the key hub to get your business back up and going.

Team, Culture, Training, and Cross-Functional Drills

The best continuity structures fall apart if people don't understand them or the main objectives. Teammates in your organization should realize that they are all part of the business continuity team. The responsibility of the BCP is not just delegated to a select group of people.

At the corporate support level, that means:

• Training leadership teams: Executives, department heads, and regional leaders should all know the BCP basics, their roles, and their decision rights. In fact the best thing is to have the department heads help develop and continue to update their parts of the plan.
• Cross-functional tabletop exercises: Run scenarios that involve multiple departments—IT, HR, operations, asset management, legal—to see where communication or process gaps appear.
• After-action reviews: Any real event or major drill should end with a structured "what worked, what didn't, what changes now" session. Immediately followed by updating the plan with the needed changes
• Reinforcing the message: Treat continuity like safety or compliance—an ongoing rhythm, not a one and done event.

Take care of your people and your people will take care of business

Critically, your BCP needs to contemplate taking care of your people. Teammates will likely be personally impacted by the events as well. Basic needs such as food and shelter could be compromised. Sorting these out along with child care, transportation, care of elderly or infirm all will impact your team's ability to support your business.

So plan to support your people. Your teammates should also be encouraged to create their own personal emergency plans for their family. Resources like the Ready.gov, the American Red Cross, are available to assist.

In 2008, hurricane Ike came into our portfolio. Our teammates jumped into action and responded admirably. Team morale was upbeat for the first 4-5 days and then we noticed cracks. Our calls had primarily focused on the sites and residents. What we learned was we needed to focus more on the teammates. We had teammates with homes that had lost roofs, power and more. Their needs and their families' were causing strain. They didn't want to complain.

Sensing something was wrong I called some of the teammates directly after the meeting to see what was up and they shared what was happening at a personal level. Info in hand I went back to the support team and we flowed resources; temp housing, gas, water and opened our vendor networks to allow teammates to take advantage of our first tier response with vendors. It was gratefully received but I knew we missed something big in our initial planning by not having thought about that as standard procedure.

Examples of Corporate-Level Continuity Questions

When you sit down to adapt or draft your corporate BCP, these questions are a useful spark:

• If corporate HQ lost power and connectivity for 48 hours, what absolutely has to keep functioning, and how would we do it?
• If payroll processing were delayed, how would we communicate with employees and make them whole quickly?
• If our primary property management system went down mid-month, how would we record rent payments, new leases, work authorizations, and service requests?
• If a regional leader or executive were suddenly unavailable, who is empowered to step in—and does everyone know that?
• How do we coordinate messaging so residents, staff, and investors all get clear, consistent information?
• Who from corporate can "parachute" into the affected area to help bridge support and communications?
• How do we flow resources or additional support to the areas that need it?
• How we keep culture and trust intact when everyone is stressed.

You don't need perfect answers on day one of your planning, but you do need to know what your end state should look like and what success would be.

Setting the Stage for Part 3

This section has been about the "control room"—the corporate systems, authority structures, and communications that make continuity possible across your portfolio. In the next part 3, we'll move closer to where the real stress shows up: on-site and dispersed portfolio operations.

We'll look at how property teams, maintenance staff, and local leaders translate the corporate plan into real-world action when the weather turns, the power fails, or the phones go quiet.

There is a lot to cover in this topic so what did we miss?