Our enterprise-wide business continuity policy governs business continuity (including pandemic planning) and disaster recovery planning for critical business functions performed at all our major business locations. The focus of our plans is to protect the health and safety of our employees, mitigate business and operational disruptions for our Clients and carry out our regulatory and contractual obligations in a responsible manner. The business continuity plan is flexible and can be adapted to a wide range of events.
Our approach includes building contingency plans founded on “all hazards” crisis management, business continuity, and disaster recovery services including support from vital external service providers and external business partners. Response plans include pandemic, facility outages, systems, power outages, etc.
Disaster recovery plans include offsite recovery and back-up data storage facilities. We also employ a dual recovery strategy which includes redirecting work and/or staff amongst multiple sites, or having staff work-from-home where possible. In some circumstances elements of our recovery plan include participation of major third party service providers. These elements are governed by contracts which include service level agreements.
Overall coordination, guidance and compliance monitoring for business continuity across Sun Life is a centralized function, and a crisis management team comprised of senior management across Sun Life with support teams for Human Resources, Legal and Compliance, Communications, Information Technology and Facilities, is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the business continuity and recovery activities.
Our business continuity policy requires all business continuity plans to be tested at a minimum on an annual basis.