18 Free Disaster Recovery Plan Templates

You can download these 18 Free Disaster Recovery Plan Templates from the links bellow.

When it comes to businesses and running companies and organizations, owners and CEOs make sure to plan each and every step so everything goes as planned and most of the time, it does go smoothly. But, there are some chances that a natural or manmade disaster is going to hit the company and it’s going to lead the organization to bankruptcy very soon. The difference between bankruptcy and surviving a difficult situation is known as disaster recovery plan.

Being a business owner, you can understand that there are certain incidents or disasters that you can just prevent. If you train your employees to be careful with fire in the kitchen, maybe they make a mistake with plumbing in the washroom and whole floor is flooded later. A more professional and better approach is to prepare for disasters so when an actual incident happens, you can just recall the training, get out the manual or recover plan and do whatever it instructs you to do.

Guidelines to create a Disaster Recovery Plan:

Enlist absolute crucial jobs:
The first thing important for the disaster recovery plan is to put yourself in situation of a disaster i.e. flood or fire and come up with the most important employees who are actually crucial for the company’s operations and their work desks should be shifted somewhere safe as soon the disaster hits the organization. A pro approach is to create a list of secondary staff members who are not as important but still important for running the business.
Necessary office equipment:
Keep in mind that even if you shift your most important staff members to a safe place, they still need their office equipment i.e. work desk, chair, computer and office printer to continue working even if the head office is hit by a disaster. This list should only include the absolute vital items that are crucial for running the business i.e. stapler or pen holder is not considered crucial here. Some of the typical items include; computer, software program, telephone, internet connectivity, electricity and comfortable enough seating arrangement.
Necessary supporting equipment:
If you walk around the office, you will notice that there are obvious office items i.e. computers and desk phones that are visibility important for running operations but there are also some hidden items that staff members rely on. For instance, your telephone exchange that connects all of the internal extensions with each other or your server room where emails of all staff members are stored safely or contact list of all clients or customers. While moving to a new location, your staff members will also need these secondary supporting items.
Find alternate workplace and make seating plan:
Depending on how many employees work in your office and how many of them are absolutely important for running the company, you can look for an affordable place where the staff members will be shifted if a disaster ever happens. For instance, if there are 50 employees working in your company, you can narrow this list down to not more than 8 people who should be enough to keep the company running from a different location and this way you can find a space that is big enough to accommodate at least 8-10 people along with their equipment and office stuff i.e. files, cabinets, drawers etc.

Budget the Expenditures:

One thing that many business owners ignore but should be mentioned in the disaster recovery plan is the estimate to buy the damaged or destroyed stuff after the disaster has hit the organization. Keep in mind that no matter how much you prepare for it, there are some natural or manmade disasters where some stuff is damaged i.e. in case of fire, computer might get damaged in an office. This means if you relocate your staff members to a new location, you also need to buy the necessary items that were damaged during the incident. Good news is that you have already made the list of absolute necessary items and you can just check the price of those items in the local market.