Emergency Preparedness makes sense for everyone. But you need to Plan, Prepare and Practice to assure a successful outcome.
Thankfully, we are not all affected by hurricanes or forest fires, but there are many other issues for which we need to prepare. Besides, it would not be atypical to suddenly receive notice from OSHA asking for copies of your emergency action plans and training documentation. Could you respond positively, or would you be exposing your organization to further review?
Here are a couple of reminders in case you need to update or create an emergency action plan of your own
- Start with solid templates from a reputable source. It may provide a pretty complete plan, but review and amend it heavily to fit your organization.
- Spend time training your associates. Make adjustments to your plans based on their feedback and issues that arose during training.
- Laws vary, so be sure to include items required in your municipality. Common sense probably tells you to include evacuation maps and a headcount system, anyway.
We feel strongly about preparedness, so we have incorporated an Emergency Response Plans module into our PropertyTRAK facilities management system. Our templates can easily be adapted to account for your organizational policies. The PropertyTRAK system’s cloud storage provides an ideal place to store documents about updates and training. This might be a good time to be sure all your associates understand your plans, before an emergency disrupts or shuts down your operations.