With the school holidays only a couple of weeks away, many families will be heading off for a week or two during July or August, such as visiting another part of the United Kingdom, jetting off to some more exotic location, or touring around Europe. Also many employees like to take advantage of the extra daylight hours for a variety of activities, such as gardener, walking, fishing or just relaxing on the patio of an evening.
This desire to head home as quickly as possible or the distraction of your upcoming holiday can however lead to small mistakes or oversights occurring. It is all too easy to prepare an e-mail giving essential details, but forget to send it. For many companies, particularly across London, it has become traditional for Friday lunchtime to be spent in the pub, especially during the summer months. Combine the Friday pub visit with a desire to rush away for the weekend, or even a holiday and you have a recipe for mistakes to occur.
Nobody would advocate banning the pub lunch, but it is important that this activity should not be a cause of a mistake, such as forgetting that e-mail, not ensuring data is backed up that needs to be. While disasters are rare, a mistake could lead to one, or an oversight in the business continuity plan could see complications.
An extremely important aspect of a good business continuity plan is knowing who the key employees are and which ones hold important information which could be essential in the event of a disaster. When these key employees go on holiday, it is important to know who else has the same information, or where it may be stored. This would save any problems which could be caused when attempting to contact a member of staff who is on holiday, as mobile and internet connections are not always available.