Businesses drag their feet on disaster planning, especially telecommuting

Monday, May 30, 2005

Businesses drag their feet on disaster planning, especially telecommuting
Enabling people to work remotely after crisis is a key strategy, study finds

By MARY DEIBEL
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

It doesn't take a Sept. 11-size emergency to stop business in its tracks: Natural or human-caused disasters disrupted one in five U.S. employers last year, but half of all employers didn't have plans in place to let workers telecommute to keep operations running, a new study finds.

"What if you lose your building or lose your technology, or what if it's your people who are down with half the office out from the flu or really down from a terrorist attack?" survey author June Langhoff asks.

"Letting employees telework from home or a remote site is a key part of business continuity strategy too few employers consider."

The report, released last week at the WorldatWork human-resources convention in New Orleans and sponsored by Oracle Systems and the AT&T Foundation, surveyed major financial and manufacturing firms, human-resources consultants and federal agencies.

The federal government fared well on contingency plans, the report found, because agencies operate under a legal mandate that requires them to be operational within 12 hours of any trouble.

But private employers were less prepared to deal with disruptions such as hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires -- which accounted for 188 federal disaster declarations last year -- to temporary problems ranging from sudden ice storms to traffic tie-ups and power blackouts.

The report found that:

Although 80 percent of companies with more than 500 employees have disaster continuity plans, 20 percent don't. Neither do 42 percent of firms with fewer than 500 workers.

Fortune 1,000 companies spend $78,000 an hour during disaster downtime and average 38 hours of it a year, or $3 million apiece.

Companies that let employees telework at least once a month spend $300 to $1,500 a year per employee on set-up and maintenance. Firms that suddenly must relocate workers to remote "hot sites" without advance planning can spend up to $15,000 annually for each work station.

"Many organizations take an ostrich approach toward disasters, thinking it won't happen to them, but when survey research shows 43 percent of companies hit by severe crisis never open their operations again, businesses must plan for the unexpected," said Robert Smith, head of WorldatWork's telework advisory group.

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