When disaster strikes at your small business, it’s important to be prepared on a number of different levels.
Ensuring your employees are safe and your business data is recoverable are just some of the preparation steps your business should take.
Here are just a few tips for putting a disaster recovery plan in place at your small business:
Safety of Your Staff Comes First
Although protecting your data and other digital components of your small business is a top priority, your staff should always come first in an emergency.
Whether it’s a natural disaster, fire, or another type of life threatening event, making sure your business has a sound evacuation plan in place is essential.
With that said, make sure your employees know where all emergency exits are located in your office building. In addition, have a professional contractor or architect designate safety rooms within your building that can stand up to severe weather. Finally, have an emergency warning system in place that your employees immediately recognize.
Implement a Data Backup Plan
Once your employees know how to protect themselves when disaster strikes, you can then concentrate on protecting your business data. You can choose a local backup solution, such as an external hard drive or a dedicated server or, you can back your data up to the cloud.
As the following article looks at, having a solid backup plan in place is just 1 of 5 tips for developing a disaster recovery plan, but it’s only effective if your employees know the proper backup steps to take.
To ensure a successful backup, make sure your employees are thoroughly trained in the backup process.
Consider an Off-Site Storage Solution
In the event of a natural disaster, such as a hurricane or tornado, it’s wise to have an off-site storage solution to fall back on.
If you have on-site servers, considering using cloud storage as a secondary option. There are a number of cloud service providers who specialize in disaster recovery for businesses of all kinds.
Make Sure Your Employees Are on the Same Page
As mentioned previously, training your staff in the proper data backup steps is the key to a successful recovery.
When your employees know exactly what data they’re responsible for and how to back it up, it reduces the chances of duplication, which can ultimately bog down your system.
Making sure your employees follow the proper data procedures is all part of the backup process.
It’s also important that your employees know how to recover the data they’ve backed up, which is where performing regular test runs come into play.
Perform Test Runs
In the event of an emergency, knowing what to do and how to do it is key. That’s why it’s important to perform test runs of emergency and disaster recovery plans.
Running through the data backup process as well as the evacuation process on a regular basis will increase the chances of keeping your employees safe as well as successfully recovering your data.
When it comes to avoiding disaster at your small business, keep the recovery pointers above in mind.
About the Author: Adam Groff is a freelance writer and creator of content. He writes on a variety of topics including data recovery and small business.