Here’s a good example of a bad plan: wait for something to go terribly wrong, then react on the fly. For businesses, that strategy could turn out to be disastrous, and it can also create significant liability challenges in the aftermath of an emergency.
Here at Western Canada Security, we advance public safety by planning ahead with our own services and by helping clients anticipate what could go sideways for their teams. Then we can document appropriate protocols. When they are studied and followed, our emergency response plans save time, eliminate confusion, and reduce the likelihood of panic.
These critical documents are part of your emergency equipment. Emergency response plans cover topics such as escape routes and muster points; chains of communication and responsibility; shelter-in-place policies and emergency supplies. And this month’s blog comes with a free resource that lists phone numbers for critical supports in and around the CRD. We can happily customize ones specific to your industry or region.
This WCS “cheat sheet” for calling on urgent support can be added to response-plan binders or posted around your workplace; just click the link:
If you’d like magnetic versions printed for your home or office, please get in touch with that request.
What Could Go Wrong?
Emergency planning begins with this question. Businesses we work with can generally predict the major critical situations relevant to their industry, while we help them think through the types of emergencies that are likely to occur on Vancouver Island. The broad range includes extreme heat and winter storms; fire and flood; wind and lightning; chemical spills, gas leaks, and heavy-equipment injuries; power outages; as well as violent attacks by people or animals. In every case, having a well-thought-out critical incident response plan mitigates loss and damage while accelerating recovery times.
What Could Go Right?
Once situations have deteriorated to a critical degree, the effectiveness of a response plan is put to the test. Tally up your bonus points for thoughtfulness in the plan itself and for the depth of training that has developed your team’s understanding of it. Disorganized, overwritten, complex response plans are bound to fail. Action items must be easy to identify and expressed in simple language.
Evacuation plans should provide several possible routes out of the building as well as primary and secondary musterpoints. Safety leaders on the team will wear brightly identifying hats, vests, or jackets and have a set system for conducting headcounts. For Western Canada Security clients who use our CCTV services, smart security cameras can help confirm whether or not anyone is missing. Security leaders should have emergency contact information for each employee as well as up-to-date training in general First Aid and treating people in shock.
Safety plans document the protective and emergency equipment that is appropriate to the specific workplace. Those provisions range from first aid kits to emergency escape ladders, and plans specify the location for those and other supplies. Such equipment needs its own, separate plan for monitoring expiration dates and making timely replacements as needed.
Faulty communication can exacerbate risks during an emergency, so the chains of communication and responsibility must be exceedingly clear. Safety leaders need to be confident in their understanding of protocols, so that they can take charge when others panic. With adequate, continual training, they will know what to do and who to call. Many large-scale or remote businesses will provide those leaders with a dedicated device that does not rely on the grid, such as a satellite phone, so that calls for support can still go out during power outages.
If there’s one element of response plans that goes underappreciated, based on our reviews, that would be redundancies. You might have the best-prepared safety leader around. But if that person is on vacation when an earthquake strikes, then you want at least a few additional people ready to take the lead. Some workplaces will want back-up sources of power as well. If your team maintains critical information or provides essential services, disruptions are not an option. One of our clients pays two utility bills for their power; one is for day-to-day electricity, the other covers emergency-generator power only. In that case, each system draws from a different part of the grid to maintain continuity.
Lastly, plans can outline what not to do. A high percentage of workplace injuries happen post-emergency. Examples of risky behaviour include moving severely injured people and approaching debris or other hazards. Once everyone is clear of danger, employees must resist curiosity or the impulse to heroism. Best practices dictate that we simply wait for emergency services to arrive.
What Comes Next?
Once an emergency plan is defined, some meta-planning needs to happen. Set a policy for the frequency of drills and guidelines for how those should be run. Additionally, businesses should define a detailed mandate for monitoring the results of drills and a process for continual refinement. You also want to have a mechanism in place for post-disaster assessments, feedback, and improvements.
When an emergency has ended, the next phase of work begins, and that goes well beyond remediating property damage. Ideally, the employer’s group plan will have Employee and Family Assistance Program benefits, or some equivalent offering that provides access to grief and trauma counselors.
It’s also of vital importance that businesses file incident reports with police, fire departments, or other relevant government agencies. Those reports funnel into the public data that helps governments at all levels allocate resources and bolster protection against disasters.
Smart businesses don’t ask “what should we do if something goes badly?”; they ask “what will we do when things go badly?” Maybe that day never comes. There will still be ample benefits from planning: peace of mind and strong morale from a team that knows their employer is looking out for them. We are looking out for them, too. Our goal is for people in our region to see Western Canada Security as a 24/7 hub for everything related to security. That’s why we’re included in the emergency contact Cheat sheet we’ve provided. It is geared mainly toward workplaces in Victoria’s Capital Regional District. However, if you’re calling from another region, dispatchers will redirect your call accordingly.
To order a site-specific cheat sheet, please get in touch with us. We will happily customize one for your business. And we’re on standby for other types of requests: risk assessments, crime prevention through environmental design, consultations, as well as safety and security training for your team. We enjoy hosting lunch-and-learn events for businesses as well, and multiple organizations can pool resources to make that happen. Spreading awareness is at the core of what we do. Hopefully, today, you feel a little more informed about response plans than when you started reading.