Emergency preparedness, planning, and recovery for businesses aren’t just about data backup and campfire practices. Instead, it transforms the organization’s awareness and risks into actions that educate and train the workforce to provide the best protection against emergencies or disasters.
Keep in mind, not all disasters are big, and there are some small ones also. But if they are not planned, it can become worse and costly. So being well prepared for any event can make the difference between a quick recovery or prolonged suffering.
A good preparation plan can also improve a company’s image and credibility with employees, customers, and suppliers. In addition, it demonstrates the commitment of a company’s management to protecting its workforce and local community and can even help reduce insurance costs. Finally, an updated contingency plan can also make it easier to meet regulatory safety requirements.
However, no matter what size of business you operate or whether it is rented or leased-based property, this article will help in any situation.
What Is Emergency Management?
Emergency management is the dynamic process of preparing, mitigating, responding to, and recovering from an emergency. This planning is not the only component, but providing training, exercises, equipment testing, and coordination activities with the organization are other important functions.
Phases of Emergency Management
If you want to reduce the effect of crises on staff, property, and processes, businesses need to know the phases of Emergency Management. They include:
- Prevention
Preventive measures are designed to provide more permanent protection against emergencies. Keep in mind that you cannot avoid all emergencies. But can limit the risk of death and injury with environmental and evacuation plans and design standards. If you want to avoid emergencies for your staff, make sure:
- You take the appropriate measures to avoid an incident.
- Try to prevent an incident from happening first.
- Use Deterrence and surveillance operations.
Mitigation
It refers to measures that prevent an emergency, reduces the risk of loss of life and property, or lessen the damaging effects of unavoidable emergencies. Typical, it involves non-structural structural and actions to limit the effect of emergencies in the organization.
Preparedness
If you want to manage risks in your business, first recognize them, evaluate all possible situations, and create a contingency plan. However, preparedness is a constant cycle of organizing, planning, training, equipping, evaluating, and taking corrective action.
But before you develop a plan, decide:
- Who is responsible for implementing and maintaining the emergency plan?
- For whom do you want to create plans – individual departments or areas overseen by a staff team?
Whatever the scenario, teamwork and communication are vital parts to confirm a synchronized response to an emergency.
Response
This phase changes quickly, but there is advancement in response as new warning and communication technologies have arrived that provide opportunities for emergency responders to act fast. However, the biggest change in the planning and practice of interventions has been integrating new groups and disciplines. Therefore, the response phase is a reaction to the occurrence of a devastating disaster or emergency.
Recovery
The recovery phase works start directly after the vanishing of the danger to human life. This phase includes activities beyond the emergency period to restore essential community functions and manage stabilization efforts. So, the recovery action aims to bring the affected area back to a certain degree of normalcy.
Bonus Tips!
For businesses, planning for emergency preparedness can be the difference between staying in business and losing everything. However, the simplest tips can help you ensure the survival and recovery of your business.
- Focus on prevention.
- Establish an evacuation plan
- Maintain an up-to-date list of emergency telephone numbers
- Create an emergency kit
- Protect vital business records
- Create backup copies of critical data and programs
- Know your risks and be prepared
- Understanding your insurance coverage
- Keep insurance information and contact names and numbers in a safe place.
Closing Words
Today’s businesses require special measures to safeguard their infrastructure, operations, and staff from any potentially harmful effects that can cause an emergency. Emergencies can be man-made or natural events; hence depending on the type, different risks can arise at emergency places.
Therefore, it is important to establish a plan before these events to be prepared for an emergency. These plans include different stages during which business owners or managers can take action to identify potential hazards and make changes to prevent, mitigate, or control them.
If you want to have peace of mind and know that your work plans and procedures are more than sufficient, make sure you familiarize yourself with the five phases of Emergency Management during Evacuation. They are part of the everyday language of the emergency management industry and can minimize the impact of emergencies on your business.