Contingency planning helps you make the best of a bad situation when unforeseen events disrupt your business. A good plan can mean a quick recovery, while no plan could mean the end of your company.
PreparedBC has several guides to help us plan for different natural disasters, as well as a guide for small businesses. These are great tools to help you devise or update your plans.
It occurred to me though, that there is a newer situation that might not be included – people who work from home. Whether that’s occasional, certain days in the week, or full-time, it’s planned, so they have everything they need to do the work. But what if they have to leave home?
We’re already seeing the ads in BC to have a go-bag ready for wild-fire evacuations. You need your insurance papers, medications, and such. But who thinks about their home office? If it’s only one or two employees, you can probably manage without them, but how many are there, and where do they live? And what kind of information might they leave at home unsecured?
Of course you don’t want to jeopardize anyone’s safety. If an evacuation order comes, they have to go. But, in most cases, there is an alert issued in advance, which gives some time to put your plan into action. To create your plan though, you need information. Some things to consider:
- Do they have hard copies of any sensitive information? Could they return these to safe storage at the office? Would it be better for them to shred the info than leave it behind?
- What type of computer equipment do they have? A laptop could probably go with them, but separate components, not so much.
- Some printers have memories. It might be wise to clear any saved files.
- Where are they likely to go if evacuated? This will help you decide if it’s feasible for them to do any work in the short term.
- Do they regularly backup their work to cloud storage? They could do that regularly if and when an alert is issued.
The type of business you’re in will determine what else you need to think about in advance. Having a plan in place will help ease their worries as well as yours. No one wants to dwell on all of things that could go wrong, but it’s always better to be prepared.
