Preparing your Business for an Emergency
Is your business prepared for an emergency? While they are unlikely, chemical spills, fires, medical emergencies, power outages, and terrorist attacks are just some situations that can happen in many workplaces. A business preparedness program or plan may help your business prevent or reduce the loss of life, injury, or damage to property.
The Department of Homeland Security has published a set of guidelines to help you prepare your business for an emergency situation by creating a business preparedness program, as outlined below.
There are five steps toward creating a business preparedness program:
- Program Management
- Organize, develop and administer your preparedness program
- Identify regulations that establish minimum requirements for your program
- Planning
- Gather information about hazards and assess risks
- Conduct a business impact analysis (BIA)
- Examine ways to prevent hazards and reduce risks
- Implementation
Write a preparedness plan addressing:
- Resource management
- Emergency response
- Crisis communications
- Business continuity
- Information technology
- Employee assistance
- Incident management
- Training
- Testing and Exercises
- Test and evaluate your plan
- Define different types of exercises
- Learn how to conduct exercises
- Use exercise results to evaluate the effectiveness of the plan
- Program Improvement
- Identify when the preparedness program needs to be reviewed
- Discover methods to evaluate the preparedness program
- Utilize the review to make necessary changes and plan improvements
Taino Consulting Group can identify your business’ physical security weaknesses, help you determine your critical assets, assess the likelihood of known threats, evaluate existing countermeasures, and develop a prioritized plan to reduce your risk. Get connected with Taino Consulting Group at info@tainocg.com.
Read more at: https://www.dhs.gov/how-do-i/prepare-my-business-emergency
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