The last thing your organization wants to happen is to face an emergency with no plan of action. This is why it’s critical that you do proactively form a plan, which we call an Emergency Operations Plan (EOP). An EOP is what houses the documents that outline action steps for performing critical business functions during a disaster or emergency and much more. Keep reading as we break down everything that should be included in your EOP so that you can be as prepared as possible for any threat or hazard thrown your way.

In this day and age, we’re faced with frequent and growingly severe threats and hazards. The difference between organizations who survive and those that don’t after an emergency or disaster is how well prepared they are to face these kinds of events. After assisting numerous organizations in Emergency Management, it’s become clear that many organizations aren’t prioritizing their business continuity and resiliency. To help with that, we want to outline the threats and hazards to be mindful of, as well as how you can prepare your business to sustain the disruptions caused by them.

Emergencies in the office or workplace, while hopefully rare, are inevitable. Even though you can’t prevent disasters or emergencies from occurring, you can take proactive steps to prepare your organization for an impactful event. It’s important to clarify that office-related emergencies call for different preparations than, say, home or car emergencies.

With that said, there are steps you can take and items to have handy that will greatly assist in your organization’s resilience during an impactful event.

An emergency preparedness plan is invaluable for every organization regardless of size or industry. The effects of disasters can be greatly reduced by determining and documenting a course of action before the incident occurs. However, your preparedness plan can’t be created until you’ve identified the potential threats and hazards your organization is at risk of. Most organizations can be threatened by natural disasters and global disasters, but there are also unique internal and external risks that are specific to your organization to be considered.

Unfortunately, emergency preparedness is often overlooked by many organizations. In turn, this can lead to companies running out of money, losing employees due to trauma or death, or even harm to the company’s reputation. There are a vast amount of unforeseen circumstances that can happen at any minute and cause damage beyond what you can imagine. This is where emergency preparedness comes into play – a proactive assessment of your current resiliency and a business emergency continuity plan is critical to the health of your organization.

Daily, you know, more or less, how your business is going to run. You know which employees might be a few minutes late, you know who is going to show up and give you 100% no matter what, and you know how to handle the challenges that may arise. Knowing what to do demonstrates experience and confidence. Knowing what to do or demonstrating experience can only occur in the moment by work accomplished before the disaster or emergency. An Emergency Operations Plan is the guide you follow to be most effective at stopping the damage occurring to your business (the facilities, the individuals, and the organization as a whole). An Emergency Operations Plan is the piece that turns chaos into organized and calculated activity working towards a common intentional goal of restoring the organization to its pre-emergency condition.

These days it feels like we can't go a week without another massive emergency or disaster, from shootings at grocery stores and Fourth of July parades to people getting trampled at concerts to unprecedented natural disasters across the country, week after week. More emergencies and disasters are happening, and those occurring are more severe than they used to be. If we consider our new environmental reality, the only way for businesses to thrive and consistently function in our modern age is to prepare for these new realities intentionally.