Business Continuity Coordination for Facility Managers Training Course

Course overview

Facility managers are often the first operational leaders to face a site closure, utility failure, fire, flood, hazardous-material incident, severe weather event or loss of access. Yet continuity plans frequently sit separately from maintenance schedules, contractor arrangements, emergency procedures, asset registers and occupancy requirements. This course addresses the practical coordination gap: how to keep critical facilities, services, people, suppliers and recovery priorities aligned when normal building operations are disrupted.

Participants learn to build and coordinate facility-focused business continuity arrangements using ISO 22301 principles, business impact analysis, site dependency mapping and recovery time objectives. The course covers critical asset and utility assessments; alternative workplace and decant planning; contractor and supplier continuity; emergency-to-recovery handover; communications escalation; recovery sequencing; and exercising plans through realistic disruption scenarios. Participants practise translating enterprise continuity requirements into usable actions for engineering, security, cleaning, catering, IT, property and occupant-facing teams.

Delivery combines instructor-led technical sessions with site-based case studies, continuity plan reviews, mapping workshops and facilitated incident simulations. Participants work with a structured facility continuity toolkit, including dependency maps, recovery action cards, a disruption communications matrix, exercise records and recovery trackers. By the end of the week, each participant produces a facility business continuity coordination pack for a selected building, campus, plant or managed property portfolio, ready for refinement with internal stakeholders.

The course is suited to experienced facility professionals who already manage operations, maintenance, safety, contracts or property services and now need to coordinate resilient recovery arrangements across multiple functions. It is equally valuable for employers seeking stronger evidence that their sites can sustain essential operations and restore services in a controlled, documented sequence.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Conduct a facility business impact analysis that identifies critical services, maximum tolerable downtime and recovery priorities
• Map building, utility, technology, people and supplier dependencies using a facility continuity dependency model
• Define recovery time objectives and minimum operating levels for critical facility services
• Develop disruption response action cards for facilities, engineering, security, cleaning and occupant-support teams
• Create an alternative workplace and decant plan covering capacity, access, equipment, welfare and service continuity
• Evaluate contractor and supplier continuity arrangements against site-specific recovery requirements
• Facilitate a tabletop exercise using injects, decision logs, escalation thresholds and after-action reporting
• Produce a facility business continuity coordination pack aligned to ISO 22301 requirements

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Facility Managers — who must restore safe, usable premises and essential services after disruption
• Facilities Operations Managers — who coordinate maintenance, security, cleaning, catering and front-of-house teams
• Property and Estates Managers — who oversee continuity across buildings, campuses or occupied portfolios
• Engineering and Maintenance Managers — who manage critical plant, utilities, spares and technical recovery priorities
• Health, Safety and Environment Managers — who need continuity controls to connect with emergency and incident arrangements
• Business Continuity Coordinators — who require detailed facility input for organisation-wide continuity plans

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience of facility operations, property services, maintenance, HSE, security or business continuity coordination. They should be familiar with their organisation’s basic emergency procedures, key building systems and principal service providers, and should be able to read simple site plans, asset lists and operational procedures. Prior exposure to risk assessment, incident reporting or continuity plans is helpful. A laptop with spreadsheet and document-editing software is recommended for workshop activities. Certification in business continuity, formal auditing experience, specialist engineering qualifications and prior knowledge of ISO 22301 are not required.

Training methodology

The programme uses short instructor-led briefings to establish continuity methods, followed by applied workshops built around a disrupted facility scenario. Participants analyse asset and service information, build dependency maps, set recovery targets, draft action cards and test decisions through timed incident injects. Small groups examine contractor commitments, utility vulnerabilities and alternative workplace options, then compare their decisions against ISO 22301-aligned criteria. Each day closes with an applied output that is assembled into a final facility continuity coordination pack and a 90-day implementation plan.

Course outline

Day 1: Facility continuity foundations and critical service priorities

• Business continuity lifecycle for managed facilities
• ISO 22301 clauses relevant to operational site continuity
• Emergency response, crisis management and recovery handover boundaries
• Facility service catalogue and critical activity identification
• Business impact analysis interview structure
• Maximum tolerable period of disruption assessment
• Recovery time objectives and minimum operating levels

Workshop: Participants complete a business impact analysis for a selected facility and produce a ranked critical-service recovery list.

Day 2: Dependencies, vulnerabilities and recovery options

• Building systems dependency mapping
• Utility failure analysis for power, water, gas and telecommunications
• Critical plant, spare parts and maintenance backlog risks
• Occupancy, access and life-safety constraints during partial operation
• Single points of failure and resilience controls
• Alternative workplace and decant strategy design
• GIS and floor-plan-based recovery mapping

Workshop: Participants create a dependency map and recovery-options register for a utility disruption affecting a multi-tenant site.

Day 3: People, suppliers and coordinated response arrangements

• Facilities incident command roles and decision authorities
• Escalation triggers and facilities-to-crisis-team communications
• Contractor continuity assurance questionnaires
• Supplier recovery commitments and service-level agreement clauses
• Mutual aid, temporary service and emergency procurement arrangements
• Occupant communications and welfare service continuity
• Facilities recovery action cards and contact cascades

Workshop: Participants draft action cards and a communications matrix for the first 24 hours of a major building access loss.

Day 4: Testing facility continuity and managing recovery

• Tabletop exercise objectives and scenario design
• Incident injects, pacing and participant briefing techniques
• Decision logs and recovery status reporting
• Damage assessment and safe reoccupation criteria
• Recovery sequencing for services, contractors and occupants
• Resource tracking and emergency expenditure controls
• After-action review and corrective action management

Workshop: Participants facilitate a tabletop exercise involving flooding, power loss and contractor failure, producing a decision log and improvement register.

Day 5: Assurance, documentation and implementation planning

• Facility continuity plan structure and document control
• Evidence requirements for ISO 22301-aligned assurance
• Continuity metrics, testing schedules and management review inputs
• Integrating continuity actions with preventive maintenance plans
• Asset register, contractor register and contact-list maintenance
• Internal audit questions for facility continuity arrangements
• Ninety-day continuity improvement roadmap

Workshop: Participants assemble and present their facility business continuity coordination pack, then produce a prioritised 90-day implementation roadmap.

Tools & standards covered

ISO 22301, NFPA 1600, Microsoft Excel, ArcGIS Online

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions