An emergency plan is essential as it assists you in protecting your business from any unforeseen crisis such as a natural disaster or any other emergency. These medical emergencies, crisis events, or disasters consequently can threaten the survival chances of your small business, thereby robbing you of your means livelihood. Therefore, in this article, you will be taken through tips on how to set up and an emergency plan for your small business hence ensure all your hard work does not go to waste.
Assess the hazards
It would be best if you started your disaster planning by establishing the possible emergencies your business is susceptible to experience. By correcting forecasting the potential crises, you are in a much better position to assess the situation, identify the hazards and risks, and then move on from there. Some of the possible dangers you need to be on the lookout include;
- Medical emergencies
- Fires and explosions
- Acts of terrorism
- Chemicals releases and spills
- Regional dictators including earthquakes and flooding
- Power outages and equipment failure
- Extreme weather such as severe temperatures, hurricanes, and tornadoes
All these issues mentioned above can cause your small business significant problems, so you need to determine the likelihood of them happening as well as the steps to take to mitigate these risks.
Develop procedures
Once you establish the possible risks, you have an easier time coming up with a response procedure and mechanisms for every likely scenario. Typically, many of the workplace emergencies need either shelter-in or evacuation measures, so you need to set aside adequate time to develop a useful and practical procedure for both these situations.
When developing this plan, you will need to;
- Create evacuation routes that are easily accessible and free from any potential dangers such as combustible products.
- Establish an assembly point outside the premises where staff can meet after the evacuation.
- Determine a sheltered area within the business premises to safeguard everyone against extreme weather.
- Delegate duties to workers to help out people with medical conditions, injuries, or disabilities during an emergency.
- Putting in place a method of communicating emergencies to the business staff, for instance, an alarm system.
Include continuity and recovery
Continuity measures also need to be in place to ensure that your employees can resume operation immediately by having in place an emergency planned procedure. This is very important because following a considerable disaster, transportation, supplies, and communication are typically affected most. Subsequently, this adverse impacts your small business, and because of this, you need to come up with ways of ensuring that communication between clients and workers is maintained post-disaster.
In case of severe property damage, you need to put in place procedures for off-site operations. To do this, you should first do a comprehensive evaluation of the essential business functions and then go ahead and establish the jobs which your staff can do either through telecommunication or at home. Moreover, have the computer data backed up to a cloud-based network system with this vital in helping the overall longevity and saving the business operations. You can also have copies stored either in off-site emergency kits or in a fire safe to ensure you do lose any crucial data.
Have emergency resources
There are several critical disasters and emergency response tools that are needed to deal with a crisis effectively. These include;
- Topnotch first aid kits
- Flashlights and batteries
- Enough fire extinguishers throughout the business premises
- Weather alert radios powered by batteries
- Signage showing the selected and planned evacuation routes plus the location of the first aid kits and fire extinguishers
- Bloodborne pathogen supplies to prevent the spread of disease during a medical emergency
Train your employees
Another often overlooked tip you need to have in implement is ensuring all your employees are well-trained in emergency procedures. Regular safety drills should be conducted to make sure each staff clearly understands the emergency measures in place. Furthermore, everyone needs to know how to use fire extinguishers as well as other emergency kits, which are extremely useful during disasters.