Disasters can happen to any organization and they come in many forms and severities. They could be anything from a natural disaster, to a well-meaning employee accidently downloading a dangerous virus, to something crucial getting mistakenly deleted. These what-ifs can keep you up at night, so for your own peace of mind develop a disaster recovery plan.
Decide What’s Important
The first step is knowing what you have and what’s essential. Take an inventory of all the data that is critical for your company to run. This will lead you to the data that ought to be backed up. Utilizing an online provider or the cloud to store all of your data is one method to ensure data recovery if your hard drive crashes and burns.
Make a Plan
Next, decide what steps have to be taken to restore that data that is lost in case a disaster strikes? What data and systems have to be up and running first? Start with the worst possible scenario and determine what’s needed.
Know Your Workflows
I’m sure you have the big picture of your company processes, but what about all the day-to-day processes that you don’t have memorized? Ask your employees to document their workflows and the specific tasks they preform. That way, if something does happen, anyone can pick up where they left off and nothing gets looked over.
Decide Who is in Charge
Depending on the type of disaster you go through, your employees could panic. Before this happens, choose one levelheaded person in the organization to be “in charge” of the disaster recovery plan. They ought to know the plan as well as you do and possibly have helped you develop it. This will be the person you turn to for execution of the plan, so that you can be the strong leader your employees need at a time like this.
When we hear of disaster people often think it can’t happen to them, but we never know what is around the corner. It’s important to be prepared. Having a strong disaster recovery plan will not only make you feel more secure, but will comfort your employees as well.
