Plan for Workplace Disasters: Part 2

Implementation means more than simply exercising the plan during an emergency. It also means:

• Acting on recommendations made during the vulnerability analysis
• Training employees
• Integrating the plan into company operations
• Evaluating and revising the document over time.

Look for opportunities to make emergency planning part of the corporate or plant culture. One way to test how well the plan has been integrated is to ask questions like these:

• How well does senior management support the responsibilities outlined in the plan?
• Have emergency planning concepts been fully incorporated into the facility’s accounting, personnel, and financial procedures?
• Do all personnel know what they should do in an emergency?
• Does management take advantage of opportunities for distributing emergency preparedness information through newsletters, employee manuals, or mailings?

Training

Your disaster plan is only as good as the employees who carry it out. And that means training. Everyone must know his or her role and how to perform it under difficult and often dangerous conditions.

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Training can take a variety of forms—from explanations of the process during orientation sessions, through a full-scale exercise in which a real-life emergency situation is simulated as closely as possible.

General employee training should cover:

• Individual roles and responsibilities
• Information about threats and hazards
• Notification and warning procedures
• Emergency response and evacuation
• Location and use of common emergency equipment
• Emergency shutdown procedures

At least once a year, a formal audit of the plan should be undertaken. The goal is to determine problem areas, identify lessons learned from drills and actual events, and make sure the plan reflects changes in the physical layout of the facility and any new processes.

Be Prepared

To assist you in planning and implementing an effective workplace disaster response and recovery plan, BLR has compiled resources that businesses can use to prepare for large-scale emergencies and recover from disasters. Even when companies are not in the direct zone of impact, they are often affected in ways that can severely disrupt their operations, including supply disruptions, temporary or partial closings, employee anxiety, communications disruptions, loss of data, and human resource problems related to leave and pay.

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