Business Continuity Planning
- What is BCP and our responsibilities?
- How to escalate an incident
- What happens during an incident?
- Emergency contact numbers
- FAQs
Business Continuity is a business’ level of readiness to maintain critical functions after an incident or disruption. This could be a disruption caused by anything from a fire affecting Carnival House, a long-term loss of key personnel, or a Technology failure affecting critical systems.
Business Continuity Planning is therefore essentially a process of analysing risks and documenting back-up plans/processes to enable the business to recover as quickly as possible from an incident.
General Responsibilities
In order for this process to be effective, everyone needs to be aware of their expected responsibilities, either day-to-day or in relation to an incident occurring. As a Carnival UK employee, and/or a user of Carnival House and/or its Technology you’re expected to:
- Where applicable, always take your company issued laptop and mobile phone home with you. This ensures that if you were unable to get back into the building for any reason, you’re equipped to work from home or an alternative location.
– You should enable requests to update your laptop/mobile when prompted
– Always lock your computer when walking away from your desk
– Report any faults, issues, or suspicious activity to the IT Service Desk as soon as possible - Ensure any workarounds to processes and key contacts for critical activities/processes are documented, familiarised and accessible to those who may be asked to carry these out. The location of these must be shared with your BCP coordinator.
- You should ensure that your line manager and BCP Coordinator is aware of any changes in contact details so they’re always able to get hold of you either via a work mobile or personal mobile/landline, in the event of an emergency. This information will be securely kept by your BCP coordinator in a document referred to as a ‘call tree’.
- Ensure contact details are maintained in myHR Portal. Please note that in the event of a crisis or business continuity incident, any contact details in myHR Portal may be used to notify and/or instruct you.
- Ensure any faults, issues or suspicious behaviour/packages are reported via the correct channel as soon as reasonably possible. This could be with the building itself, or equipment/people within the building.
Critical systems/Technology related incident
If you’re the first person aware of the situation it’s your responsibility to contact IT Service Desk directly and inform line/senior management as soon as reasonably practical:
Contact number: +44 (0) 2380 65 6000
CUK office hours: 08:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday (GMT time zone)
Out of hours (Technology)
CUK IT Operations, operate an on-call support function and is available 24/7/365 out of office hours. Please call the CUK Service Desk number (+44 (0) 2380 65 6000) if you have High or Critical issue only outside of CUK office hours.
If you get through to a voicemail, then please leave a message with the following details:
Your name
Your contact details (i.e. phone and email)
Organisation – your role and area of organisation (e.g. ship, department, operating company, external company)
Description of the issue
Impact of the issue
The SLA for responding to calls is within 15 minutes.
Incidents relating to Carnival House and/or People
Examples:
- Natural disaster – Weather, fire, flood
- Suspect packages
- Threat of sabotage, terrorism, disgruntled employee/guest
- Power/Energy disruption
If you’re the first person aware of the situation it’s your responsibility to contact the following immediately:
In CUK office hours: 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday (GMT time zone)
| SCENARIO | CONTACT | MOBILE NUMBER | ALTERNATIVE CONTACT |
| Natural Disaster: Weather, Fire, Flood etc. | Facilities | 07730 732148 | If unavailable, please contact the 24 hour security number 07917 520076 |
| Operational Resilience | 07817 948274 | 07423 487681 | |
| Suspect Package, Terrorism, Sabotage, Power Disruption | Facilities | 07730 732148 | If unavailable, please contact the 24 hour security number 07917 520076 |
| Security | 07917 520076 | 24 hour number | |
| Operational Resilience | 07817 948274 | 07423 487681 |
Incidents relating to a breach of data
If you become aware of, or suspect, an incident relating to a breach of data, relating to our Guests, Crew, Employees and/or Vendors, please escalate to privacy@carnivalukgroup.com
Out of hours (Carnival House/People)
Any crisis or disruptive event that originates at our CUK location or within the vicinity must be reported immediately by phone or e-mail using below contacts only:
| Carnival Maritime – 24 HOUR Fleet Operation Centre (FOC)+49 40 302 393 9000 foc@carnival-maritime.com |
Note: You should report to the FOC during CUK office hours if you have been unsuccessful in contacting someone from the table listed above.
In the unfortunate event that the Business Continuity Plans need to be invoked, the Crisis Team will contact your Function’s BCP Coordinator or Owner. If necessary, they will activate your Function’s ‘call tree’ to notify all team members of what action needs to be taken next. This could happen out of hours or following an emergency evacuation, for example. A call tree is a cascade of messages via telephone.
If appropriate, the BCP phone line will be updated with messages as and when an incident progresses. If this happens, you can call 0844 412 9002 for updates. Note, if you have a CUK-issued Laminex (access pass), this number is on the back.
Any managers or leaders who have specific responsibilities other than to remain on standby and await instructions will be made aware of these within their Business Continuity Plans. Please remember that sensitive company information, such as the details of an incident, should not be shared externally or through any social media platform. Press/journalist enquiries should always be referred to the CUK Vice President, PR. For more information, please refer to the Social Media Policy using this link.
With the majority of us working remotely some of the time it’s more important than ever that we are well connected and contactable in an emergency.
We’re updating our text message communication system to make sure we have the latest mobile numbers for all Carnival House employees should we need to send any urgent notifications.
We will be updating the system using the contact details listed within your departmental business continuity contact list (known as a call tree).
If you are unsure if your contact details are up to date, or you would like to change your contact details please contact your department business continuity co-ordinator who can update the call trees with your latest contact details.
Please note the numbers we have may well be personal numbers – if so these will also be uploaded to the system and will be used to contact that device in the event we need to send important notifications.
Key contact details on your phone
Make sure you have these useful numbers in your work or personal phone so you can easily access support:
- IT Support – 023 8065 6000
- People support – 023 8065 6666
- Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) – 0800 358 48 58
- Business Continuity – 023 8065 6169
- For government advice in an emergency please visit Prepare – Prepare
What is Business Continuity Planning (BCP)?
Business Continuity is a business’ level of readiness to maintain critical functions after an incident or disruption. This could be a disruption caused by anything from a fire affecting Carnival House, a long-term loss of key personnel to a Technology failure affecting critical systems. Business Continuity Planning therefore, is essentially a process of analysing risks and documenting back-up plans/processes to enable the business to recover as quickly as possible from an incident.
What is a BCP Function?
The business has been divided into Functions (similar to departments) in order to undertake the annual reviews and design plans at the right level of relevancy. Each Function has a designated BCP Coordinator and Owner (typically the VP for that area)
Who is my BCP Coordinator?
Click here for the most up to date list of BCP Coordinators.
How do I report an incident?
Please refer to tab above for the incident escalation process.
What’s a Call Tree and what is its purpose?
A Call Tree is essentially a document containing contact numbers for every employee within that Function. The purpose of this document is to enable us to contact all employees in the event of an incident or disruption whereby alternative methods of communication are either compromised or not appropriate (due to time of day, for example). This document is securely kept and accessible only by your BCP coordinator, Owner and CUK’s Crisis Team.
Do I need to give my details for the Call Tree?
All employees should be listed on their Function’s Call Tree. If you have a company-issued mobile, you must provide the number. Personal numbers can be given if you are happy to do so but these are not mandatory. However, if you don’t have a company-issued mobile and are not happy to provide your personal number for the Call Tree, your line manager should have your personal contact details. Please also ensure your contact details are kept up to date in MyHR as this is where the data will be pulled from, once we can implement a system to assist with this.
Isn’t there a better, less manual process?
Currently we have no way of contacting employees en-masse when our usual communication methods are compromised. We are in the process of implementing a system which will allow us to do this, but we will still require Call Trees as a ‘back up for the backup’ – after all, this is what BCP is all about!
What should my function’s BC Plan include?
All functions have been provided with a template to set the framework of the Plan; from key contacts, processes for escalation and an overview of your most critical activities and key detail relating to those. Ultimately the Plan needs to be useful for you/your Function in the event of an incident or disruption so should be tailored as such and include any relevant recovery processes or workarounds.
How often should Call Trees/Plans be reviewed?
Call Trees – should be updated with any joiners/leavers as soon as reasonably possible. Plans – Key contacts to be updated as and when there are any personnel changes. Plan content should be reviewed at least annually (during the review cycle), and following any incidents and/or changes to your team’s processes.
Who needs to know about the content of our Function’s documents?
We fully appreciate that it’s neither practical nor necessary for everyone within your department to be fully aware of the detail contained within your BCP documents. However, as a minimum, everyone should be aware of the escalation processes contained within the Plan. We have produced a separate document to assist with this (See Employee Responsibilities document). In addition, senior leads within your Function should be aware of the contents of your documents and anyone with a responsibility listed within the Plan or the Call Tree should be familiar with these and understand what’s expected of them in the event of an invocation.
Where and how are documents stored?
All Functions are responsible for keeping an updated copy of their Business Impact Analysis (BIA), BC Plan and Call Tree within their own drives. Any new versions should be sent to business.continuity@carnivalukgroup so that Operational Resilience can update their files also.
The Business Continuity Teams space also holds a copy of each of these files, and is only accessible by the BCP Coordinators, Owners and specific members of the Crisis Team.
Hard copies of these documents are stored in Svalbard (which is only accessible by Crisis Team members) and with your BCP Coordinator, Owner and any designated representatives as agreed by your BCP Owner. Hard copies should be watermarked ‘confidential’, stored in sealed envelopes and old versions discarded in confidential waste bins, available in Carnival House.
How does the business respond to an incident?
Depending on the severity/impact of the incident, the response will either be coordinated by the ORCA team (Maritime) with the relevant business stakeholders, or the response will be led by the Crisis Team which includes representatives from multiple areas of the business. For BCP incidents, the Crisis Team should liaise with the relevant BCP representatives to cascade information and collate any requirements.
My role involves accessing non–CUK files and systems, should it still be documented?
Yes, if you use files/systems from another part of our Corporation, ensure these are shared with your BCP Coordinator.
Please note, if these files/systems are from external vendors, even if you have dealt with them for many years, please reach out to the Third Party Privacy & Security Risk Management team at TPPSRM@carnival.com who will ensure they have adequate security controls.
Who can I contact if I have any questions?
If further information is required, please email business.continuity@carnivalukgroup.com.