Are You Prepared if Disaster Strikes?
Disasters can strike at any time, and sometimes, without warning. How quickly you get your business back up and running afterwards depends on how well you prepare before. Even though every disaster is unique, there are steps you can take to prepare for any emergency.
Here are a few simple steps to prepare your business and protect your employees if disaster strikes.
- Know what kind of emergencies could affect your company, both internally and externally
- Create procedures to quickly evacuate and shelter-in-place
- Make sure your insurance coverage is current and adequate
- Create a list of critical business contractors and others to use in an emergency
- Decide in advance what you'll do if your building is unusable
- Create a list of inventory and equipment, including computer hardware, software, and peripherals, for insurance purposes
- Talk to your service providers about potential alternatives and identify back-up options
One of the best ways to ensure your company's recovery after an emergency is to provide for your employees' well being.
- Involve employees and co-workers from every level of your company in your planning
- Communicate your emergency plans and procedures through newsletters, intranets, staff meetings, and other internal communication tools
- Set-up procedures to warn employees, and plan how you will communicate with people who are hearing-impaired, who have other disabilities, or don't speak English
- Consider setting up a telephone tree, password-protected page on your company web site, email alert, or call-in voice recording to communicate with your employees in an emergency
- Keep a record of employee emergency contact information with other important documents in your emergency kit, and at an off-site location
- Encourage your employees and their families to have personal emergency plans
Once you have a plan in place, practice it. Executing drills and practice exercises will help you prepare.
- Conduct regularly scheduled education and training seminars to provide co-workers with information, identify needs, and develop preparedness skills
- Include preparedness training in new employee orientation programs
- Meet with your emergency management team to discuss individual responsibilities and how each would react to emergency situations
- Schedule walk-through drills where the emergency management team and response team actually perform their designated duty during an emergency
- Practice evacuating and sheltering
- Evaluate and revise your procedures based on what you learn from your practice drills
- Keep training records
Taking the time to prepare for potential emergencies can help minimize your company's downtime, and help protect your employees. We have a wide selection of products to help you prepare for emergencies and deal with what happens afterwards. If you have questions about what products are best for you, give our Technical Support Reps a call at 800-631-1246. They'll give you the information you need to make the best choice.
Source: www.ready.gov