Fires, floods and other often-overlooked emergency situations are a great threat to facilitydamage across the US. In 2011 there were 85,400 nonresidential building fires. These fires resulted in 1,100 injuries, 80 deaths, and over $2.43 billion in damages. Had the proper steps been taken to plan for these emergency situations, some of these losses could have been avoided.
These emergency preparation steps include a risk assessment, business impact analysis (BIA), and an emergency response plan. Making these preparations can often seem daunting and time consuming. To make it easier, we’ve nailed down the most important steps to creating a business that will withstand any emergency situation. Here they are:
1.) Figure Out What to Prepare For
It’s not uncommon to coordinate with your family or cohabitants and create plans for all possible household emergencies (fires, floods, injuries). These plans often include what to do, who to contact, and how to respond. In the workplace, however, it’s difficult to communicate with all employees and facility inhabitants about how to react for all potential emergencies. The first step, however, is simple.
Start by determining what types of emergencies you need to prepare for before developing a plan. Workplace emergencies may include:
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Accidents
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Fires
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Explosions
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Hazardous material spills
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Utility outages
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Mechanical breakdowns
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Natural Disasters
Making this list will make it easier for you to create the risk assessment, BIA, and emergency action plan. After compiling the list, start to determine the possible losses for each potential incident and the inherent workplace risks.
2.) Determine Assets at Risk and Potential Impact
Not all emergencies are created equal. Some damages come at a higher price than others and it’s important to determine the risk and potential impact that an emergency has on all your assets. To do this, make a list of assets at risk for each emergency situation. Assets include, but are not limited to the following:
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Employees: Injuries or fatalities are your organization’s largest risk.
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Financial Loss: This could be anything from damaged inventory and material assets, to cost incurred for employee injuries, to increased insurance premiums.
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Company Reputation: Having a company emergency that is poorly dealt with could result in negative press, loss of confidence from local, state, and federal authorities and loss of customers and potential customers.
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Regulations: Regulatory penalties and lawsuits from contractors, employees, and neighbors is another potential impact of a poorly handled emergency situation.
Include your list of possible losses in your risk assessment. These risks should be followed by an assessment of weaknesses that make the business more susceptible to those damages in that particular situation. These weaknesses could be anything from poor processes to building construction.
Potential losses related to disruption of a business should go into a list for your BIA. The BIA determines potential losses for business disruption and addresses the recovery plan to follow.
In the following steps you will learn how to minimize these risks and form a recovery plan.
3.) Determine What You Can Do to Minimize Risk and its Impact
It’s important for you to develop a deep understanding of your business vulnerabilities and exposure in order to protect key revenue streams, minimize business interruption and preserve reputation. Consider what you can do proactively to minimize risk, what the best course of action should be in case of an emergency and then what the steps to recovery should be. Here are some examples of steps to include and actions to take:
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Make sure you have appropriate supplies on hand for emergencies. This includes: First aid, fire extinguishers, back-up supplies, water etc.
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Look into ways to back up your financial exposures. This means taking out necessary insurances and forming a recovery plan for your losses.
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Open communication channels within the facility and with local support: Contact local authorities, consultants, and your insurance agency to help build a site plan to prepare your facilities for any event
4.) Write a Plan and Educate
After considering the ways you can minimize risk in these emergency situations, write out a plan. You should have one plan that outlines recovery steps in case of an emergency. The other plan should include details on proactive steps being taken to minimize risks as well as steps in case of an emergency. This is the plan that should be distributed to employees.
An example of part of a plan that is well thought out: If a facility loses power what do they do? They could potentially lose assets and money if the facility shuts down for any length of time. How can this be avoided? By making sure the facility has emergency back-up power.
Your plan should contain scenarios like this but also other basic information including:
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Emergency contacts
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Emergency numbers
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Emergency exits
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Rally points
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Local officials and contact info
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Contractor and Vendor training
At Triumvirate, we offer consulting for in-depth emergency planning. Hiring an expert will assure your emergency plans are compliant. We also offer emergeny response options. If there is an emergency, we will fix the problem quickly and efficiently. Click the buttons below to learn more or speak with one of our experts.
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