What are Work Area Recovery Sites (WRS)?
Alternative offices with desks, computers and phones, ready for staff to use when the main workplace cannot be used.
A ready-to-use place to work, away from the disruption.
A work area recovery site (WRS), sometimes called a workplace recovery site or recovery seats, is an alternative workplace where critical staff can carry on working if their usual building cannot be used. It is typically fitted with desks, PCs or thin clients, telephones, network connections, printers and security, and may be run by a specialist provider, by your own organisation, or by a partner.
It is one of the main strategies in business continuity planning for the loss of premises, and works together with IT disaster recovery, home working and other options.
Common work area recovery options.
Dedicated recovery seats
Seats reserved for your organisation only, set up and tested in advance. Costlier but fastest to use.
Shared (subscription) seats
A provider sells the same seats to several clients, on the basis that few will need them at once. Cheaper, with a risk of contention in a wide-area event.
Own or internal alternative sites
Another office, branch or training centre of your own, with spare capacity and the right connections.
Reciprocal arrangements
An agreement with a partner or neighbouring business to host each other. Low cost, but must be written down and tested.
Mobile recovery units
Trailers or containers fitted out as offices, delivered to a chosen location.
Serviced offices and flexible space
Short-term rented offices, with arrangements agreed in advance on terms, access and connectivity.
Working from home
Remote working for people who can do their work securely from home, with the right equipment and access.
Split teams and rotation
Dividing teams across sites or shifts, so a single event cannot stop the whole function.
How ready does the site need to be?
Recovery sites are often described as hot, warm or cold. The label says how much is already set up and how long it takes to start working. Choose the level from your recovery time objective (RTO) and the maximum tolerable period of disruption in the business impact analysis.
| Type | What is ready | Typical readiness | Cost | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot site | Fully equipped and connected: desks, configured PCs or thin clients, phones, network, current software and often live data links. | Minutes to a few hours | Highest | Critical, time-sensitive activities such as trading, payments, control rooms and contact centres. |
| Warm site | Furniture, power, network and some equipment in place. Software, data and some setup are needed on invocation. | Several hours to a day or two | Medium | Important activities that can wait a short time, such as back-office operations. |
| Cold site | An empty, fit-for-use space with power, connectivity and basic services. You bring or order equipment, furniture and data. | Days to weeks | Lowest | Less urgent activities, longer-term relocation and large rebuilds. |
Hot site: pros
Fastest start, and can be tested often with real work. Often shared across several staff teams.
Hot site: cons
Highest cost, and it needs constant maintenance of equipment and software images.
Warm site: pros
Balance of cost and speed, and a good fit for many business functions.
Warm site: cons
Needs setup time, and delays can occur if equipment or data loading is not rehearsed.
Cold site: pros
Low cost and flexible, useful for long recoveries or as an overflow option.
Cold site: cons
Slow to start, with a risk that equipment cannot be delivered or installed in time.
Mixed approach
Many organisations use a hot site for the few critical activities, warm for others, and home working or cold space for the rest.
Check the terms
Look at response time, seats, duration, shared use, and what happens in a wide-area event when many clients invoke at once.
Terms vary between providers and countries. Always check what a provider means by hot, warm or cold in the contract.
How to choose and set up a recovery site.
Who needs to be there and when
Start with the business impact analysis: which teams and activities are critical, how many seats and how quickly.
Location and shared risk
Far enough from the main site not to share the same flood, power failure or access restriction, and close enough for staff to reach.
Technology and connectivity
Network, internet, secure access to core systems, voice, printers and security tools, aligned with the IT disaster recovery plan.
People and travel
How staff will be told, how they will travel, parking and transport, care responsibilities, and accessibility.
Security and compliance
Physical access control, clean desk, confidentiality, and any regulatory requirements for your sector.
Contract and invocation
Seat numbers, response time, how long you can stay, any exclusions and costs, and how you declare an event.
Testing and maintenance
Test regularly with real users and real work. Keep seat lists, software images and instructions up to date.
Exit and return
Plan the move back to the main site or to a longer-term home, and release the recovery site when finished.
What a work area recovery site looks like.
Layouts differ by provider, but most recovery sites share the same building blocks: a controlled entrance, rows of ready-to-use seats, a room for team leaders and the crisis team, a communications and network room, and space for welfare and storage.
Controlled entrance
Security desk, visitor and staff check-in, and access control to protect information and people.
Recovery seats
Desks with PC or thin client, phone, headset and network ports, ready for logon, often with spare seats for surge.
Team leader and crisis room
A private room for managers and the crisis team, with video conferencing and screens.
Communications and network
Network, internet, secure access to systems, voice and, at some sites, satellite or mobile back-up.
Power and cooling
Backup power, UPS and cooling so the site keeps working during wider outages.
Welfare and wellbeing
Rest, food and drink, quiet areas, prayer and first aid space, and accessibility provision for long stays.
Secure storage
Lockers or cabinets for laptops, tokens, documents and personal items.
Safety
Emergency exits, assembly points, fire detection and first aid. See Emergency Planning.
How recovery sites have been used.
11 September 2001, New York
Thousands of financial and professional firms lost offices in and around the World Trade Center. Many moved critical staff and systems to pre-arranged recovery sites, including sites in New Jersey, and the event led to wider interest in separating primary and recovery locations.
7 July 2005, London
After the transport bombings, access to parts of central London was restricted, and some organisations moved teams to alternative workplaces and used home working.
December 2005, Buncefield, UK
A major fuel depot fire and explosion damaged nearby business premises, and affected companies relocated staff to temporary or alternative sites.
August 2005, Hurricane Katrina
Companies on the US Gulf Coast moved operations and staff inland, often using recovery sites arranged in advance by their providers.
March 2011, Japan earthquake and tsunami
Organisations activated alternative offices and moved critical operations away from the worst-affected areas, including to western Japan.
October 2012, Hurricane Sandy
Offices in lower Manhattan lost power and access, and firms invoked recovery sites for trading, operations and customer service.
2020 and after, COVID-19
Recovery seats were used to split teams, but the main lesson was the move to large-scale remote working, which changed many organisations’ recovery strategies.
GCC and Middle East
Regulators and standards such as SAMA, NCEMA 7000 and ISO 22301 expect firms to plan for loss of premises. Banks, government bodies and telecom companies keep alternative sites, and events in the region, including those in our 2026 GCC Incident Log, show why plans need alternative locations and remote options.
Examples are drawn from public reports and are simplified. Details and figures may differ between sources, so check the original reports for the full picture.
Work area recovery questions.
What is the difference between a WRS and a disaster recovery site?
How many recovery seats do we need?
Is working from home a replacement for a WRS?
How often should the site be tested?
Can ADVOX help?
Talk to ADVOX about workplace recovery.
We aim to reply to your enquiry within 2 hours during working hours.
Related reading: What is Business Continuity? | What are BC Strategies? | What is IT Disaster Recovery?