Disaster Preparedness For Your Small Business: How To "Weather" Any Storm

In the event of a potential disaster, do you have a business continuity plan for your employees and your business?

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Disaster Preparedness For Your Small Business: How To "Weather" Any Storm

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In the event of a potential disaster, do you have a business continuity plan for your employees and your business? Are you backing up files on a routine basis, and could you recover them in an emergency?

On average, nearly 60 percent of businesses damaged in a disaster close after a year, according to the Association of Small Business Development Centers.

Last year's devastating hurricanes heightened awareness of the importance of disaster planning for businesses, large and small. But destruction of your company's infrastructure is not limited to natural disasters-it can happen anytime. Daily misfortunes like computer crashes, network breakdowns, and power outages threaten your business each and every day.

Having weathered four major hurricanes last year alone at its corporate headquarters in South Florida and across nearly 100 stores in the Gulf region, Office Depot has real-world experience in disaster planning and recovery. To help businesses be more prepared, the retailer has compiled "Disaster Preparedness: Advice You Can Depend on to Weather Any Storm."

"A sound contingency plan can enable your small business to respond effectively to a crisis, and prevent that crisis from becoming a full-fledged disaster," said Tom Serio, Director of Business Continuity Management for Office Depot.

According to Serio, the overarching principle in disaster planning and recovery is to protect your most valuable and irreplaceable assets: your people and your data. Among the guide's other recommendations:

• Keep contact information for employees and local emergency services, as well as key vendor and supplier information, updated and easily accessible. Establish a clear process for communications and plan how you will contact one another in different scenarios.

• Protect your business from faltering after a disaster by backing up key data at least once a week. Copy data to removable media, including DVD-R or CD-R discs, or to removable drives such as the Ativa McAfee Flash Memory Drive with anti-virus software.

• Move back-up software to a secure off-site location. Store copies and documents you use in day-to-day operations in a secure and fire-proof location like the Sentry Fire-Safe Electronic safe.

• Periodically review the data being stored on any back-up systems to ensure that the right data is being copied and that it can be restored.

Cool Uniforms Are Suited For Hot Weather

No matter how hot and humid it may get, workers can keep their cool by wearing work clothing made with the latest scientifically treated fabrics designed to more evenly regulate their body temperatures on a year-round basis.

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Cool Uniforms Are Suited For Hot Weather

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No matter how hot and humid it may get, workers can keep their cool by wearing work clothing made with the latest scientifically treated fabrics designed to more evenly regulate their body temperatures on a year-round basis.

"These uniforms are made with fabrics that literally wick perspiration away from the skin so moisture evaporates quickly," says Robert Isaacson, Director of Marketing for UniFirst Corporation, a leading supplier of uniforms and work apparel throughout the U.S. and Canada. "And that's a critical factor when it comes to feeling cooler in hotter weather, as perspiration trapped on the skin suppresses its ability to 'breathe,' making workers feel hotter."

Isaacson points out that those same comfort features continue even when outside thermometers dip. "When these same fabrics are worn during colder weather, they also wick 'chilly' moisture away, which helps their wearers remain warm."

Major uniform suppliers and manufacturers, such as UniFirst, have countless options when choosing fabrics to meet the garment needs of today's workforce. But specially treated polyesters, used in combination with cotton, have become the preferred choice for tens of millions of uniform wearers because of the overall comfort features and the on-the-job durability they provide.

"Many polyesters are now made from microfibers that are 'spun' for a softer touch," Isaacson says. "So when you combine spun polyester with cotton, you take clothing's softness level up a notch. Add in the special wicking treatments and polyester's ability to resist wrinkling, soiling and abrasions, and you truly have one of the 'coolest' summertime uniforms or, for that matter, one of the 'hottest' ones you can find during colder weather."