Are You Prepared For Business Disaster?

When you are considering setting up a business, you have to have a plan for health and safety. A big part of that plan will be in disaster recovery, but contrary to popular belief, it’s not all about IT and data recovery. Disasters happen when you least expect them, but as a business leader, you need to be as prepared as possible for them to occur. We’re talking everything from fires and floods to terrorist attacks and earthquakes. You have to protect yourself, your property and your staff, and this will mean that you have to look at where you can ensure that everyone is as safe as possible.

Are you currently prepared for a business disaster, or do you have more to work on? Is your office building safe and secure, or are you in need of replacing the roof and drains with an NDS Dura slope trench drain to ensure that you’re not risking leaks and flood while you work? Do you have insurance that protects you in the event of a flood? These are all things that you have to ask yourself if you want to be successful in protecting your business and your employees. There is a lot to consider, and you need everything to be in place so that your staff are safe and your equipment is in full working order. With this in mind, we’ve got some excellent tips for business disaster preparedness below, so that you can make better choices going forward.

• Invest In Insurance

As a business owner, you have to make sure that you are insured to the hilt. Every single insurance out there needs to be looked into and thoroughly vetted; if you think you need it, invest in it. Disaster preparedness includes being able to protect your staff and your business if a flood or fire wipes out your resources. Being underinsured and even having the wrong kind of insurance can see your business collapsing and unable to recover after a disaster happens. The right insurance can mean that you can mitigate your losses in the event of a disaster. You have to protect yourselves the best way that you can, and insurance will help you to do that. If you sit down and speak to a professional insurance broker, you can make sure that you are not underinsured with your business. You can also get through the legal fine print and know that you have the right insurance for disaster coverage – both physical and digital! The right insurance broker will be able to tell you whether you are covered for the disaster as well as for things like loss of earnings for your staff who need time off work as a result.

• Look At Your Current IT Strategy

 Data protection is so important in the current digital landscape, and backing up your systems is an absolute must. If you don’t prioritize your internal data recovery and protection, you can find yourself liable for hackers who steal your information. Not only would you end up having to invest more money in the right systems for your customers’ lost or stolen data, you would have no way of recovering from your business if someone were to get into your system and wipe everything out. Essentially, without protection for your data, you could have your whole business wiped in one go and you wouldn’t be able to recover properly. A data disruption can really affect your business, so a full on cybersecurity attack could end with you losing it completely. You can always find local data recovery options, but you need to have backup measures available at all times. It could help your business to have a managed service provider here, as you can then keep your data managed at all times. The right IT team will ensure that you are protected and if anyone does try to hack into your business systems, you will be alerted about it straight away. With the right data disaster recovery support in place, you can pull back from a disaster in time and thwart others.

• Invest In Staff Training

You know that you need to train the people who work for you, but more than that, you need to train your staff in how to handle disasters. Fire training, health and safety seminars and even training in how to recognize and handle a flood will also work for your staff. Not only will you be better equipped to ensure that they are safe should a disaster strike, but you will be able to keep the whole office vigilant. You have legal obligations toward the people who are working for you, and if there is a pandemic or a natural disaster, you need to protect them as much as possible. If you dismiss anyone working for you unfairly, you could open yourself to a lawsuit and that will cause a disaster for your business. Instead of worrying about lawsuits, focus on supporting your staff and putting measures in place to protect them in the wake of a problem with your business. No one likes to find themselves out of a job, but it doesn’t have to be the case for your people if you are prepared in advance.

• Have A Risk Management Plan In Place

Every single business has to have a plan to mitigate risk and manage them when they crop up. A risk management plan involves you picturing every single possible scenario that could affect your business. For example, if you are living and working in an area prone to flooding, you may want to ensure that you cover leaks and flooding in your business when you are writing your risk management plan. You should bring in an expert to manage the scenarios with you, help you to review the premises expertly, your financial processes in place and any equipment your staff use while they are working. If you have an outsider come in and look at the way you are doing things, they can make suggestions for how you can do better and respond better when there is a problem occurring. 

When you identify the risks, the risky behaviour and the possibilities, you can learn how to put up the right protections. Risks come in two forms, and those include the ones that apply to every workplace, and the risks that apply specifically to your business. You need to look beyond the financial risks to your business and prepare yourself for the fall out in all areas. It may sound scary when you go through the risks, but reputational risk and information security risks are one thing, physical risks to the business premises are quite another. If you look for where a fire could start, you’ll be prepared in the event one does. You should include risks to people and property that are caused by disasters in your risk management planning. You should also consider that you need to cover yourself as a business in the event of a death.

• Secure The Premises

Whether you are running an office building or a giant warehouse, you are still susceptible to disaster in your business. If there is a natural disaster, your business is at risk of being looted, especially when they are left unattended overnight or as standard throughout the week. A part of preparing for a business disaster is in being ready for outside things that will affect your ability to continue. If you operate a retail business, for example, looting in a riot could be devastating for your business. You need to up your game with protecting your business premises, and it starts with adding cameras to the front and back doors. You should consider CCTV in the inside of the business, too, to protect your staff while they are working. 

Displaying the company logo for your security company is a must, and you should consider that this will be a deterrent for criminals near your business. Looters would find it much harder to break in if there are security lights alongside your cameras, too. If you can get quotes for security gates, you will be better off then, too. Security doors with swipe cards, locks on the windows and a sprinkler system in place for fires are all there to back you up, too.
Disasters come in many different forms, and if you are using the right disaster management systems, data security systems and you are prepared for natural disasters, you will be ready for anything. As a company, you have to guarantee your employees are safe, and you should work on this as early as when you write your business plan. It may seem far-fetched that your business could be dealing with terrorism, fires and floods, but if you prepare yourself, you’ll find that prevention is better than dealing with the aftermath. The rains may come but with the right drains you’ll avoid leks, prevent flooding and keep your business as safe as possible.