Continuity Planning 101 — A Continuing Educational Series: Disaster Recovery — Don’t Forget the Human Factor

Today’s technology including VoIP, FoIP, Unified Communications (News - Alert), SaaS and other hosted services allow for a fully mobile workforce. Home offices are also a fundamental component of a modern Continuity / Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) plan and the logic of disbursing employees is obvious. What is not obvious is just how big the disbursement area should encompass and if these employees are prepared to handle an emergency in their home area.

Hurricane Katrina hit many companies very hard and employees also suffered but Katrina was an extreme example. Interruptions caused by power outages are more typical and can occur anywhere. Most affect small areas but some like The Great Northeast Blackout of November 9, 1965, left around 25 million people without electricity but for most people this was a short-term event.

Unlike SaaS (News - Alert) and UC, a company’s most valuable resource, people, cannot be rerouted over the Internet or the PSTN. Giving employees a laptop, hosted VoIP services, data access and other tools, is only part of the solution. Since people require a place to live and work, a BC/DR plan for each employee is critical. A personal experience for one of this column’s authors, Max Schroeder (News - Alert), is a good example. In October of 2008 a freak snowstorm interrupted power for thousands in Max’s home area. Fortunately for Max and his wife, he simply relocated to a hotel on his plan’s short list and was operational several hours after the power outage began.

Personal BC/DR plans tend to get overlooked all too often when developing a company-wide plan. Without power and heat, Internet access all of the other 21st century technologies are compromised. Maybe its time to review how your current plan and determine if your key staff members have a personal BC/DR plan in place. IT

Max Schroeder is the Senior Vice President of FaxCore (News - Alert), Inc. (www.faxcore.com) and Managing Director of the DPCF.

Rich Tehrani is the President and Group Editor-in-Chief at TMC (News - Alert) and is Conference Chairman of Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO.

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