3-Step Model for Emergency Preparedness
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.
Emergency preparedness can seem confusing and even a bit intimidating at first, which is why I’ll be breaking it down into its three main pillars.
Make an Emergency Plan
Planning is perhaps the most crucial pillar of emergency preparedness. Not only are you documenting your strategy but this allows you to measure against the document, so you can determine if you are improving or becoming less resilient to an emergency. The plan also includes how your team members have different roles during a disaster or emergency.
When setting a strategy, you need to consider your risks. If you aren’t sure what potential threats and hazards your company could face, book a consult for an Organizational Resilience Assessment to get an analysis of your risks, plus a detailed report of actionable steps to address those risks.
Train Your Team for a Disaster
You must arm your team with education about their role during a disaster or emergency. Let them know how they’re expected to help, what the goals are, and how they can keep themselves safe no matter what comes their way. Cross-training is highly recommended to ensure that the organization’s critical business functions are sustained at all times or resumed as soon as possible after a disruption.
To maintain your company’s level of resilience, you must also be mindful as you have staff turnover that new employees are familiar with their roles and responsibilities and can implement them under any conditions. This is where exercising, the final pillar, comes into play.
Practice High-Stress Decision Making
Emergency preparedness is a muscle that needs to be exercised to ensure it can perform its best! Although there’s nothing fun about disasters, play-based learning helps organizations become more comfortable in high-stress decision-making situations. These no-fault environments expose team members to the realities and nuances of the decisions they’ll have to make during and after a disaster or emergency. This is critical not only to building a culture of preparedness within your organization, but it’ll also allow you to identify any gaps in the plan and opportunities for improvement.
Ready to Get Started with Emergency Preparedness?
Your team’s emotional safety, happiness, and retention depend on creating a culture of preparedness inside your organization. At Golden Hour Preparedness, your recovery from emergencies and disasters is our number one priority. We want you to feel confident in how your team will handle an impactful event and be prepared for any type of potential hazards. We’ll even help you identify those that may be specific to your organization.
If you’re ready to prioritize your Emergency Operations and Business Continuity, take the first step and get in touch with us today!