Post date: Sep 9, 2012 7:06:02 PM

• • Miles Maier

• Guardian Professional, Thursday 23 August 2012 06.30 BST

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The Olympic Games demonstrated that remote working can benefit charities. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

With an estimated additional three million journeys being made daily during the London Olympics, we at Lasa wanted to find out how London charities coped with the disruption. Happily, our quick poll of 57 charity professionals found that almost all of them (96%) felt that they had "coped well" with the Games. Nevertheless, the Olympics have tested the contingency procedures of London organisations, and in doing so offer charities all over the UK lessons in business continuity.

Main findings

1) Remote working offers benefits to charities, and 45% of respondents were offered the chance to work remotely during the Olympics. Interestingly, a recent report from the CIPD found that 73% of employers felt that remote working positively impacted their employees' motivation. So should more charities consider remote working for their staff? Phillip Anthony, director of specialist charity technology companyCo-Operative Systems, predicts: "This change in working patterns will affect all staff but it will have most effect on women who still typically do most childcare, and with the charity sector having a higher than average percentage of the workforce being female, this change could have a significant positive effect on work-life balance". Our experience of advising charities about technology has shown that cloud software can enable remote working, and increase an organisation's ability to recover from IT disasters, since cloud services are backed up.

2) Charities should consider remote working alongside other options. While 45% of respondents to Lasa's survey were offered the chance to work remotely, many were also offered alternatives that allowed them to work in the office, such as re-routing their journeys (39%), or changing working hours (51%). This suggests that charities need to consider a number of options to preserve business continuity. Chris Dew, director of finance at the National Aids Trust says of his Olympics contingency plan: "A key step we took was to increase the capacity of staff to work from home by upgrading the charity's internet connection, allowing staff working remotely to reliably connect with their office PC." But despite this, "In the event, many people chose to come in to the office, with substantial numbers opting to make their journey by bike or on foot."

While remote working is an efficient means of business continuity for charities, it may not suit all employees. Some of the charities we work with have told us anecdotally that their remote workers miss face-to-face contact with colleagues, leading to a loss of motivation. We would advise charities setting up systems for remote working to help employees to maintain colleague contact by using tools such as video-calling and instant messaging. Paulette Elliott, managing director of technology company Huduma also reminds charities that efficiency is key for successful remote working: "Business continuity is about working from home as smoothly as you would if you were in the office. Organisations need to consider how efficiently they could work from home; would they have the same telephone number as they would in the office, for example? How can they access files from home, and will they have technical support if their remote working systems break down?"

3) A disaster recovery plan is essential. The Olympics may have been disruptive but we all knew they were coming long enough in advance to prepare ourselves. But how do you prepare for an unexpected event such as your server crashing or a terrorist attack? Disaster recovery is important for every organisation, and charities face considerable risks here, such as losing highly sensitive data about beneficiaries. Worryingly, over a third (39%) of respondents didn't have a disaster recovery plan in place, with 9% admitting they were completely unprepared for a major disaster. According to research by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 90% of organisations that lose data from a disaster are forced to shut within two years. We always advise charities that planning for a disaster is essential. If your charity needs to put together a disaster recovery plan, TechSoup have a handy tool kit. Phillip Anthony offers a further tip: "Treat a disaster recovery plan like a fire drill, and make sure you rehearse it. A disaster recovery plan not practised isn't worth the paper it is written on! If there is a flaw in your contingency plan, this will make sure you identify it accordingly."

Finally, over half (53%) of respondents did not have a business continuity procedure in place for the Olympics. In our view, charities need to prepare themselves effectively for the worst. This will ensure that your charity can continue to offer the best possible service, come what may. For more information and advice on business continuity and disaster recovery see the Business Link site.

Miles Maier is an IT strategy consultant for Lasa, a charity with over 25 years' experience in advising non-profits on all aspects of technology planning. He is an experienced ICT trainer, delivers webinars on managing ICT and contributes regularly to Lasa publications. Lasa are currently running a series of Google-funded events on technology issues for the third sector.