Disasters can happen to any company and they come in many forms and severities. They can be anything from a natural disaster, to a well-meaning employee accidently downloading a dangerous virus, to something essential getting mistakenly deleted. These what-ifs can keep you up at night, so for your own reassurance develop a disaster recovery plan.
Decide What’s Important
The first step is to determine what data is vital to your business. What data must be recovered quickly for your company to run? This will tell you what you should back up.
Make a Plan
Next, decide what steps have to be taken to recover that data that is lost if a disaster strikes? What data and systems must be up and running first? Start with the worst possible scenario and decide what’s needed.
Know Your Workflows
I’m sure you have an overall understanding of the way your company is run, but knowing every last process is almost impossible. That’s why you have employees. Have your employees document their workflows so that any team member can execute the tasks in case of an emergency.
Decide Who is in Charge
Depending on the kind of disaster you go through, your employees could panic. Before this happens, select one levelheaded person in the organization to be “in charge” of the disaster recovery plan. They should know the plan as well as you do and possibly have helped you develop it. This is the individual 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.
