Workplace emergencies can leave business owners and their employees riddled with anxiety. The nature of an emergency is that it is unplanned, which means that it cannot be controlled. The only way you can handle them is to be as prepared as possible. That is why a workplace emergency plan needs to be implemented.
Three main types of emergencies occur in the workplace, namely natural, work-related, and external. They are so different, and they require individual and specific plans drawn up to handle each kind. Categorizing emergencies makes them easier to mitigate.
Below are five tips for effective emergency planning in your workplace:
- Establish A Chain Of Command
Some folks are better at dealing with emergencies than others. Staying calm in a crisis is a character trait as much as it is a skill. Your business must learn to recognize exactly who would be capable of dealing with others in the event of an emergency.
An established chain of command will be necessary for keeping employees as calm and collected as possible. Once you’ve established who your health & safety teams need to report to, document those protocols and procedures and display them on every team’s noticeboard.
- Demarcate Evacuation Routes
Once you’ve worked on your emergency plan, think of situations where you may need to implement it. Practice and run through those scenarios in your mind and figure out the best course of action from each side of your office building or workplace.
Draw up and demarcate evacuation routes and have these printed and put up as glow-in-the-dark signage boards around the building.
- Use Technology
Don’t waste time on this – your workplace emergency action plan can save lives, so the quicker it’s implemented – the better. There are programs and apps on the market that are beyond impressive as far as what they are capable of doing is concerned.
Cut through the panic with a simple, sleek user interface that is designed to make reporting emergencies and injuries easy and hassle-free. The emergency gets reported to the authorities, and each employee can mark themselves as safe or unsafe – with an easy-to-use injury reporting system so paramedics can triage.
- Employee Safety Training
The best emergency plan in the world will be rendered useless if the employees aren’t trained. Implement an employee training program where every team member is involved. Companies that do safety drills four times a year are far more likely to survive an emergency than those that don’t bother.
- Evaluate Regularly
Once you’ve established the correct safety procedures and protocols in your workplace, don’t stop there. Most companies have an existing emergency plan, and more often than not those plans are over a decade old. If you have to dust it off, it’s too old.
Have printed and digital versions so that every team member has free access to them at all times. By regularly evaluating the efficacy of your plan, you will be better equipped to make necessary improvements over time.
Providing a safe working environment is your responsibility, so bury your head in the sand about safety – get planning!