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Work Group Recovery: When your facility is no longer operational following a large-scale disaster, it’s not enough to simply invoke a disaster recovery plan. Where – and how – will your employees respond and recover if your building isn’t operational? That’s where work group (or work area) recovery plans come into play. While disaster recovery plans generally focus more on the physical assets or data side of the business, a work group recovery plan focuses on having a place for people to work to get the business back up and running.“The concept of corporate work group recovery is actually much different from disaster recovery, although the terms are often mistakenly interchanged,” says Robert J. Alcorn, chief operating officer of Indianapolisbased n\Frame, Inc. “Work group emphasizes restoring employee operations and productivity, while disaster recovery typically focuses on salvaging physical assets. Companies require both efforts to fully recover from devastation.” There are many options for work group recovery, including:
“The emergence of work area recovery as a high priority DR requirement is driving demand for more comprehensive, high availability services, similar to what customers traditionally associate with hotsite programs,” says Sandy Guidera, of Recovery Point Systems. “The result is a fully integrated service delivery model in which all of the components necessary for immediate resumption of full business functionality, including the work area facilities, hotsite services, recovery connectivity, secure hosting and data storage options from replication to tape storage are provided by one vendor at all inclusive locations. Work area recovery is the centerpiece of this approach.” And so with many options, and new vendor offerings, how do you develop a work group recovery plan? We spoke to a number of industry experts to discover what you need to consider when designing your own plan. Here, we outline the strategic issues of the plan, what important elements you should include, the guidelines you should use to create your plan and some common mistakes you should avoid. Strategic Issues In other words, the time to plan for work group recovery is not after a disaster has wiped out your facility. Instead, you need to plan that recovery well ahead of time, evaluating exactly who and what needs to be where after a disaster. But where do you start? Marv Wainschel, of Eagle Rock Alliance, says the first step is to determine how many people you will need within specific time frames after the disaster. “The obvious reason for this is to limit pre-disaster expense,” Wainschel says. “The fewer resources an organization needs to allocate pre-disaster, the less the expense.” Next, once you understand which functional work groups you must recover first and the time it will take to recover them, you need to create a map of what people will work in what recovery place. Perhaps you can use a combination of facilities or alternatives until your primary facility is up and running. Would temporary facilities onsite, such as modular buildings, help restore work areas nearby employees’ homes, saving the inconvenience of commuting to an alternate facility? John A. Jackson, executive vice president of Fusion Risk Management, Inc., says there are a few other strategic issues to take into account while planning, including:
Qwest Hosting’s Laurel Burton sums it up: “At the most fundamental level, an effective response and recovery plan is comprehensive, clearly outlines each group’s critical functions and its priority in the event of a disaster and provides processes that are achievable in the event of a disaster.” Elements of the Plan What else should your plan include? According to our experts, it should take into account:
The plan should also insert a heavy dose of reality into the planning scenario, says Steve Crimando, managing director of Extreme Behavioral Risk Management LLC. “It’s difficult to model how people will actually respond during real events,” he says. “Have all members of the work group consider the emotional pulls that may accompany various scenarios. Their ability to stay, physically and mentally, on task can be critical to both response and recovery efforts.” Finally, don’t forget to test the plan. “The most important issue is making sure people know what to do,” says Vin D’Amico, founder and president of Damicon LLC. “In many cases, time is a brutal adversary. This is why the bestprepared groups are those that practice to keep response time to a minimum.” “A work group response and recovery plan is only as good as the planning and testing that goes into it,” agrees Scott Ridel, product marketing manager for LightEdge solutions Inc. “Each business unit is ultimately responsible for analyzing its critical processes and ensuring these activities are brought into the full business recovery plan.” Guidelines for Planning The following is a list of guidelines to help you choose.
If it seems complicated, try having an expert assist in the decision-making process, says Chris Alvord, CEO of COOP systems. “Vendors have a different vocabulary for the same features, and tend to obfuscate the issue to try for advantage,” he says. An expert can help you cut through the lingo and determine which option is right for you. And remember, a work group recovery plan is about just that: Recovery. “Think simple and economical,” says Jim LaRue, president and senior consultant of Dreamcatcher Disaster Resilience, LLC. “Don’t worry about glamour, since this is survival mode.” Mistakes to Avoid Business processes change, workflows are adjusted and staff come and go. But a lot of companies don’t take that into account when either writing or updating plans. For each company change, you should review and update your plans, as well as ensure everyone who acts on the plan understands the changes. It’s one thing to have a plan that allows mission-critical employees to work temporarily for the standard 72 hours. But you can’t assume your facility will be back up and running by then – and that everyone can return to work. Instead, your plan should include a scenario for the timely re-introduction of employees to the temporary work space. You can’t just be so grateful for getting connected after a disaster that you forget security issues. Your plan should have adequate security to ensure your critical information isn’t available to the world. Don’t forget physical security either. The alternative work space should be safe for employees, as well as keep out anyone you don’t want there. You can’t assume, particularly after a large-scale disaster, that every employee is going to have restoring your business as his or her top priority. By not involving them in the plan, you may be missing some key interdependencies between the functions you deem critical and the different work groups. Without employee input, you might not be able to execute the solution as planned. Unfortunately, too many companies only plan for one type of disaster, such as a small fire, a leaky roof, or even losing only the facility. But a large-scale disaster can often mean you have to deal with more than one issue. For instance, after Hurricane Katrina, companies experienced multiple layers of failures, including wind damage, flooding, power outages, phone outages, cell phone outages, fuel shortages, infrastructure damage and more. The best way to deal with these issues is with an extensive business needs analysis and a complete recovery plan you test on a regular basis. This article was published in the Disaster Resource GUIDE for Facilities (Fall 2006). Acknowledgements |