Tips for Developing an Emergency Action Plan for Your Business
Photo: iStockPhoto – Tomsmith585
Developing an emergency action plan for your business, whether large or small, is a task that is often overlooked. Unfortunately, for many companies, if a natural or man-made disaster was to occur, it could destroy an entire business. In fact, when a disaster strikes, at least one in every four businesses do not reopen. As you begin to develop an emergency plan for your company, here are a few things you must include to keep your employees safe and your business running.
Emergency Action Plans that Focus on Employee’s Safety
The first thing you must think about is the safety of your employees. You need to create an emergency plan for a variety of situations and determine how you will get your staff out of the building and away from danger. Additionally, create procedures for how employees should evacuate the building and set up safety teams with individuals given specific responsibilities such as calling emergency personnel, doing a sweep of the building to ensure everyone has left, administering first aid, turning off building utilities, and so on. It is also wise to ensure several individuals know where emergency supplies are kept and make sure they have quick access to them at all times.
In addition, you must also determine how you will communicate with your employees during an emergency. Text messaging is one of the best forms of communication during an emergency and by having a plan intact ahead of time, you can easily send out mass text messages to alert employees of severe weather or other disasters immediately. Other forms of communication you may consider include social media or email. However, these channels are not as timely and often go unseen.
Photo: iStockPhoto -= Richard-P-Long
Analysis of Threats and Team Members Duties
Once plans for the physical safety of all employees is developed, it is time to focus on your company’s business continuity plan. This detailed plan should include specific instructions on how the company should function and the steps it must take until it is running properly once again.
One of the first things discussed within this section of your company’s business plan is to determine realistic threats that could occur within your company as well as team member’s responsibilities on how to fix those threats. For example, a cyber attack could destroy your company’s network or an earthquake or fire could destroy the physical items of your company.
How to Restore the Company’s Information
Once possible threats are analyzed and team members’ roles are established, you can begin to develop the proper steps to help your company get up and running. Your business continuity plan should provide detailed information on where information is backed up and how to access and restore it. You should also make sure that all company data is not stored in one location. A physical disaster, such as severe weather or a fire, could destroy all your company data at once.
To create a detailed emergency action plan, it will take much time and research and your plan will not look the same as another company. Emergency preparedness for your business can be a large project but it can make all the difference when keeping your employees safe. Make sure you have the plans and the resources to reopen your business following a tragic event.
Interested in learning more about including emergency text message alerts to your employees as part of your action plan? Call us at 800-696-1393 or email tmsales@textmarks.com.
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