There is a saying in Kannada ‘Kumbaranige Varusha, Donnege Nimisha’, which when translated means, it takes years to make a pot but a stick can vanish it in a minute. Likewise, it takes years to build an enterprise and it takes a minute to lose if you have not prepared for crisis. Crisis may come in any form – flood, earthquake, storms, and would put a break to daily life as well as the business. COVID-19 is one such crisis, testing the resilience of all entrepreneurs. Like any other industry, localisation industry has no escape from this crisis.
Organisations have to get through such disruption and disasters. An effective Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan helps them survive. Work-from-home is one such contingency which comes handy during a crisis like this. Many organisations are already practising it. A proper planning, clear policies and a higher level communication are the key elements of work from home strategy. An organization like Harivu Creations which deals with translation, dubbing, subtitling, voice over and transcription has to work on various strategies to ensure content security. Localisation tasks that Harivu does involve a lot of confidential content, that an organization cannot take any chance.
Though most of the localisation service providers rely on freelancers who majorly work from home, but Harivu has mix of in-house translators, dubbing directors, creators and a network of freelance subject matter experts. Therefore, during any critical incidence, it takes huge effort to remain operational.
Here are few things to consider while implementing remote working or working from home:
Establish clear remote working policies
Clearly establish policies and communicate the same to all the employees. The policy should define the critical incident, number of working hours, content security measures, employee safety during critical incident, physical asset safety etc. Make sure employees are aware of all the policies and trained as per the policy guidelines.
Ensure Accessibility and Data Security using tools and Technology
It is important to assess what kind of tools and technology is needed to make sure employee securely connects to office environment and collaborate with co-workers. For example, where employees are connecting remotely using an unsecured WiFi, there is a threat to any confidential content, a strong firewall and a multiple authentication would ensure safety.
Exercise
Once all policies, tools and technology are ready for remote working, have a dry run. Assume a critical incident and make all of your employees to work remotely. Note the challenges your employees face like network connectivity, power outage, VPN issue and also check that content security measures are not compromised. Rectify all the challenges and issues faced during dry run and make sure you are ready.
Remain operational
Higher level of communication, Higher productivity and safety of employees are the key elements to keep wheels spinning during disaster. Management should work to make sure teams are communicating and collaborating without any hassles, and all employees are in high spirit to deliver assigned tasks. Identify proper communication channel to update deliveries, incident status as well as company decisions to all employees.
Lack of preparation can prevent your progress. It needs lot of power to get through the disaster time. Well defined business continuity and disaster recovery plans will help you get the wheel spinning. Plan, practise and keep reviewing your contingency plans so that everything runs neatly when disaster occurs in future.