The Importance Of A Backup And Disaster Recovery Plan For Remote Workers (Guest blog)

Does your organization have employees who work remotely? More than likely, the answer is yes. From 2005 to 2018, remote employees grew by more than 170% — and that was before the pandemic. Covid-19 has only served to increase the number of employees working from home. Even after the pandemic, the trend will likely continue.

Remote staff can provide more savings in the long run, as you can pay less in overhead and may be able to choose a smaller office instead of a larger one. Many professionals also appreciate this option to work remotely or at least part of the time. After all, teleworking offers flexibility with time and monetary savings. 

However, there are drawbacks to having employees working remotely. You may find it more difficult to manage remote employees. Sometimes they might feel isolated or adrift from their coworkers. An even bigger danger is that remote workers increase the risk of data loss. This could be due to a data breach; malware; or even the loss of equipment. The accompanying infographic below shares statistics about these risks and tips on creating or enhancing your backup and disaster recovery (BDR) plan for remote staff. 

There are millions of additional nodes connected to company networks from spots around the world. Having a strong BDR plan is more important than ever for your organization. This is especially evident because more than 50% of workers admit they do not password password-protection on their home networks. Also, using work devices for personal activities only further increases the risk of data loss. 

Make sure to regularly review your company’s BDR plan to confirm that your recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) are current. Consider also frequently backing up remote data from your employees’ devices. If you have G Suite or Microsoft Office 365 and are using software as a service application, your data could be backed up for just 30 days. Even then, there is no guaranteed backup for your data. This is why it is important to duplicate your backups in multiple locations. This will make sure that you have multiple places to always recover your data. Make sure to check out the infographic below for more information on the importance of backup & disaster recovery for remote workers.

Infographic Created By MXOtech