Disaster recovery is something that all staffing and recruiting companies extensively plan for, but when it occurs, they rarely ever see it coming. And according to The Staffing Stream, as many as 30%, or nearly 1/3, of small businesses never bounce back from a natural disaster. Your business data is everything; it’s your backbone, your insight, your strategy, and it informs all of your business decisions—past, present, and future. Your front and back office data, ranging from documentation of payroll and time and expense to client data and job orders, isn’t something that you can risk losing.
So what, exactly, are the steps that you should be taking in order to prepare for the unexpected? First things first, you need to have a plan that guarantees that your data is constantly secure, widely accessible, and habitually backed up. Whether your business data is safely stored in a data service facility, or whether it’s housed in a remote server that automatically regularly (usually daily) backs up data, some plan is better than no plan. Those who have no strategic data backup plan are at risk for losing mass amounts of data, business revenue, and pricy hardware. The Staffing Stream also points out the heaping difference between data backup and a thorough disaster recovery plan: drive backups are still quite susceptible to disaster, since many security threats can detect that the drives are connected or related.
It’s also important that you prioritize your data according to its current relevance. Cloud-based staffing efficiency software allows your business’s imperative data to be readily available and speedily recovered, meanwhile less “significant” data can recover at a more leisurely pace. This strategy enables a faster overall recovery, as opposed to trying to recover and download everything simultaneously. Software as a Service (SaaS) recruitment software gives recruiters access to business data whenever and wherever they need it, but it also performs automatic backups of this data in order to protect against disaster. Additionally, the best recruitment software is backed by around-the-clock vendor support, so you’ll never have to risk potential downtime or consequent revenue loss.
Hosting your valuable data in the cloud is undoubtedly the most secure and reliable solution, and it may also be the most economical. Many small-to-medium-sized businesses perceive disaster recovery solutions as necessary evils: inevitably crucial yet costly. But as it turns out, these very companies are likely the ones spending a great deal more than they have to. Staffing and recruiting companies deserve to go about business with the peace of mind that your data is protected against anything that may threaten it, whether natural or human-induced. When you place the fate of your data in the hands of skilled, trusted, and experienced professionals, you can be certain that, if disaster strikes (though we hope it never does—knock on wood!), you’ll be ready.
