Lofton Staffing Services Disaster Recovery and Web Strategy

Since 1979, Lofton has built a reputation on providing staffing solutions that companies can rely on to make their business more efficient, cost-effective and profitable.

Founder Thomas Lofton utilized his 15 years of Human Resource Management experience to grow a small, two-room office into the largest locally owned, independent staffing and security company in Louisiana. Lofton currently operates ten total offices – seven offices in Louisiana, including its corporate office in Baton Rouge and three offices in Texas. The family-owned business is now in its second generation of ownership, lead by Bart and Bret Lofton.

Lofton Staffing Services credits its success to a focus on developing strong client relationships that are built on trust and sustained with quality staffing solutions. Its employment offerings are diverse, with opportunities for long and short-term temporary assignments, temp-to-hire and direct hire placements.

Lofton specializes in the fields of General Office, Office Technology, Accounting, Finance, Industrial, Security, Legal Support, Professional, Customer Service and Technical. Over 115 internal staff members for Lofton support approximately 1,600 employees on assignment at any given time.

Lofton’s commitment to its service area is confirmed through its membership with over 45 trade and civic organizations. Its leadership stays connected to these groups through active involvement.

Lofton Staffing Services received a rude awakening following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as did most businesses affected by these natural disasters. It became painfully clear how vulnerable and insufficient Lofton’s current business continuity plans were, and how severe the consequences from the absence of a quality disaster recovery solution could be.

All databases and servers required for daily business functions are located in the corporate Baton Rouge office, so even though Katrina and Rita only affected some of the Lofton offices, the main office was down, and that meant that all of their other locations were on stand-by, too. Connections were lost for over a full week, and heavy manual work was needed.

Clients and employees in the same area as your shut-down office are likely experiencing similar difficulties and will understand the delay in business processing. But, what about your customers and employees who are expecting “business as usual”?

Lofton’s leadership also knew that their worries weren’t limited to severe hurricanes. Louisiana’s commonly unstable weather and the potential for other disasters, such as fires, means that there are plenty more opportunities for disrupted business.

While it didn’t want repeat results, Lofton also realized that the aftermath could be even worse next time. It was time to take action in implementing a disaster recovery plan.

In a meeting called by the Lofton brothers, the company assessed its current measures, and they didn’t account for much. A daily back-up of the data and other system information would occur at the corporate Baton Rouge office.

Then, managers alternated bringing home the backup tapes containing the data. This left too many opportunities open for human error or forgetfulness. Plus, in the event that office equipment was destroyed, their TempWorks software solution would now need to be completely rebuilt and restored, a process that would take at a minimum a couple of days to setup.

Lofton’s lack of risk protection also developed into a competitive disadvantage. Its larger, national competitors have the “big company” benefit of corporate offices that will be able to provide them with recovery support if disaster strikes.

The decision was made to implement a true disaster recovery solution to protect Lofton from risk and level the competitive playing field. Specifically, it needed a solution that could get it back online in the quickest time possible and with the least business disruption.

With any downtime that was experienced, Lofton wanted to be able to run main office processes from any branch office that had not been affected by the disaster, ensuring that employees would not need to wait weeks to receive their paychecks.

Lofton started its search where many other firms do, with third party vendors. Then it learned that TempWorks Software, its long-time staffing technology provider, offered a disaster recovery solution.

Following a thorough comparison, Lofton found that TempWorks could get the main office, with a specific number of “disaster users”, back up faster than they ever thought possible (in less than half a day), considering most other providers could only promise within several days to a week.

In addition, Lofton heavily relies on its TempWorks system to complete all of the tasks that keep the business running. It was comforted by the prospect of using an already trusted partner for disaster recovery, too.

“After witnessing the disaster of Hurricane Katrina firsthand, we realize how important it is to secure our data. TempWorks has increased our confidence in the ability to continue delivering high level service to our customers and employees, and should we encounter disaster, our business and data will be safe,” said Leah Viator of Lofton Staffing Services.

While the physical and emotional damage left in the wake of disasters can never be completely eliminated, Lofton will have the benefit of being worry-free when it comes to system recovery and delivering a solid stream of business service.

Further, with the TempWorks Disaster Recovery Solution, Lofton’s staff can login to their main office’s database from any location and computer – that could be from a staff member’s home or a branch office that wasn’t affected by the disaster.

At the end of its evaluation, Lofton selected the TempWorks Disaster Recovery Solution as the superior choice.

Lofton solidified their business continuity plans by installing a natural gas generator that only takes ten seconds to return power to their Baton Rouge headquarters following an outage.

For more information on Lofton Staffing Services, please visit www.loftonstaffing.com.