After spending a couple of years working in an IT department and part of the Disaster Recovery business resilience is always high on my agenda. And having been being responsible for the IT department preparing an engineering company for any potential Y2K (Year 2000) crises means that I am quite used to risk assessing businesses.
But these days I run 3 small businesses without anything like the level of resource available to me back then. We are small but strong because we use a lot of technology and employ a brilliant core team. We are therefore hugely dependent on both the technology and the people.
Which is what prompted this post.
I was just about to set off on a two week holiday followed by 3 days at Xerocon when my Business Manager, the ever efficient Kate, notified me that she would be off for a major operation. While I was away! And while our newest team member has only been with us for a month!
When I finally uncurled from my foetal position I assessed the situation and realised that we were actually in quite a strong position because of all our ‘usual’ preparations and processes.
So here are the things that we do right:
- We keep documented procedures on our shared drive. They’re not as up to date as we’d like but they’re a good start and Kate has a few days to refresh anything. This means that we’re not too dependent on any single individual.
- We always try to stay well ahead of deadlines. As at today (22 June) we only have one year end due 31 July and two for 30 Sept. We’ve chased these clients enough times that it is now entirely their responsibility. Confirmation statement information is chased early so we have a few weeks in hand. Bookkeeping is updated monthly, if not weekly. As part of my holiday I had even written 3 of these blogs in advance so this makes the fourth one.
- We all work fully remotely so, if I need to log in while abroad, everything is set up.
- We operate a shared Inbox so everybody can see client messages
- We have a fabulous answering service (I highly recommend Emma Fryer and the Answer It team) who will answer and pass on messages to us and also call back our clients if required
- We have VOIP phones so we can call from our business line anywhere in the world.
- Our practice management system holds all client info and emails so that any member of the team can see what has been going on. We encourage the team to add permanent notes and current reminders too. These can always be improved.
- Our practice management system tracks all client deadlines and send automatic reminders so nothing is missed.
So, I think we’re going to be all right, and our small team will be able to run without one of our key people and with just the lightest of touches from me. So I’m going to enjoy my holiday.
(TLDR we survived Y2K and the National Grid continued to provide power to all UK homes during my employment)