by Joy Dike, PhD Is your place of business located in a multi-tenant building? It’s important that you take this fact in to account when creating your Emergency Management Plan. Consider the following situation: You’re on the 15th floor of your building. A tenant on the 4th floor has a deadly workplace violence incident. Police, fire, and other law enforcement and first responders are on the scene. There is chaos. There is fear. Your own employees are panicked. It would be great if the building as a whole had an Emergency Action Plan that covers incidents in the building. It would be doubly great if building management has shared that plan with you, one of the tenants. But let’s face it – this probably isn’t the situation in your multi-tenant office building. You need to have a plan of your own for your own emergencies and also for building-wide emergencies. But don’t forget to share your Emergency Action Plan with building management, local law enforcement, first responders, and other authorities. You don’t want to have an Emergency Action Plan that conflicts with one written by building management – that would cause even more chaos and fear. There needs to be communication in a multi-tenant office building. Continue to follow along with us as we talk more about Emergency Action Plans and things to consider while writing yours. by Joy Dike, PhD I’m sure you have a fire evacuation plan at your place of business. In fact, you probably drill the evacuation procedures occasionally. That's great, considering it’s a federal regulation. So it’s good that you have a plan to keep employees safe in the eventuality of a fire. But did you know that the regulation saying you need to have a fire evacuation plan also regulates that you have an emergency action plan? Do you understand the difference between them? Consider, for a moment, this scenario: An armed gunman comes into your lobby threatening to shoot people. Your emergency plan dictates that someone gets on the intercom system to announce, “There’s a shooter in the building. Everyone follow the fire evacuation plan.” Think about how absurd this situation is. You are announcing to the shooter that everyone is about to come to the lobby! How convenient - he can just stay put and shoot at hundreds of people in just a few moments. Hopefully you can see how irrational this plan is. The sad fact is that most emergency action plans are written exactly like this. You NEED a plan for emergencies that goes above and beyond fire. This plan needs to be drawn up by professionals who understand your building layout, your company policies and procedures, and your security system. Without a plan, chaos will ensue. Continue to follow us over the next few days and we think about what factors to include in a good Emergency Action Plan. by Joy Dike, PhD If you’ve been following along with us over the course of the past few weeks, you’ve thought about some of the stranger (and less likely) situations that may arise in an emergency situation. To review, we’ve talked about:
Hopefully your business will never encounter these problems. Hopefully your business will be successful and carry on thriving for many years to come. But you need to do a Business Impact Analysis and you need to create a Business Continuity Plan. It’s just good business sense. Please, when you create, write, review, or update your business impact analysis and your business continuity plan, don’t forget about these unusual situations. You can’t answer questions like these by sitting down for 20 minutes and brainstorming what you’d do. You can’t just “wing it” and hope everything works out. You need to have professionals who are experts in business continuity planning help you write a business impact analysis and create a business continuity plan. You also need to write an Emergency Action Plan so that your business is prepared for what to do during an emergency. In light of recent national and world events, this is more important than ever before to have a risk assessment done and create an Emergency Action Plan. Continue following us as we move on to discussing Emergency Management Plans and why you also probably suck at writing one of those. by Joy Dike, PhD But what if your employees need to evacuate the building or can’t get to work because of a natural disaster. They leave their laptops there. Their desktop computers are left too. They leave their paper files on their desks. Maybe you’ve even been diligent enough to send your paper files to a records management or document storage company. That’s great. But people have current papers on their desks. Current files on their computers.
If you can’t get back in to your building for an extended period of time, even if it’s just a week or two, what is your plan for your data and papers that have been left in the office? Papers and laptops and desktops and phones are all safe and will be there when you’re able to get back in the building, but what do you do for the week or two or more when no one is allowed to access the building? What if you’re out of the building for 6 months? You have to buy your employees new laptops, desktops, phone lines. Maybe your business impact analysis and/or business continuity plan covers these types of costs. It should. And if it does, good for you. But also make sure that you’ve got some plan for how you will deal with people having to set up new computers, retrieve files, emails, client contacts, current contracts, projects, and documents. You get the point. This is the type of situation where, unless you’ve lived through it, you don’t even think to include something like this in a business impact analysis and/or business continuity plan. Continue to follow us to reflect on other issues you’ve probably never considered for your business impact analysis and business continuity plan. Scenarios Your Business Continuity Plan and Business Impact Analysis Probably Don’t Cover: Spoilage11/9/2015 by Joy Dike, PhD Major remediation needs to be completed in the building, and your company is actually running quite smoothly in remote locations (because you had a solid business continuity plan in place before the disaster). Great!
Four weeks later the building is back in working order and people start to move back in. What is that smell?! Have you ever thought about what happens to foodstuff during a month-long period without electricity? Yup, all those apples on people’s desks are rotten. All those sandwiches in the refrigerator (that hasn’t had power for a month) are now beyond recognition. All those cookies and cakes that people brought in for the holiday season? Homes for ants now. This scenario may seem absurd, but believe us, we have seen this first hand, and it is something you would never think of until you step back in to that office, open your desk drawer, and cringe at the rotten banana that’s been there for 28 days. When you write and review your business impact analysis and your business continuity plan, you need to think about the process for moving back in to your building after an extended period. Over the next few days we’ll look at some other issues that result when you don’t plan ahead for moving back in to your building. Continue to follow us as we talk more about making sure your business impact analysis and your business continuity plan are rock solid. by Joy Dike, PhD You might think: How does this scenario fit in with my business continuity plan or my business impact analysis? It might not if the lockdown lasts for an hour or so. But what if your employees can’t get to work that day because transit and streets are closed? You might lose an entire day of business because of this. If your business is small, maybe one lost day isn’t a big deal to you. More likely though, an entire day of lost business will deal a blow to your company.
What if the explosion was terrorism related? What if city officials tell you that you can’t move back in to your building for a few days or a few weeks? A scenario involving city lockdown (or even major disruption on public transport) is something you might want to consider for your business impact analysis or business continuity plan. If employees can’t get to work because the city is on lockdown, it probably doesn’t mean that they can’t work from home. Don’t simply give everyone a free pass because of something beyond your control that doesn’t even directly affect your building or company. If you have contingencies in place in your business continuity plan and your business impact analysis for events like this, you won’t be scrambling trying to keep your business going in a situation like this. Continue to follow us for more scenarios you’ve probably never thought of when writing or reviewing your business continuity plan and your business impact analysis. Scenarios Your Business Continuity Plan and Business Impact Analysis Don’t Cover: Active Shooter11/3/2015 by Joy Dike, PhD
An Emergency Management Plan that includes a contingency for active shooter is a good idea. Actually, it’s a great idea. But what about the time period after an event like an active shooter? What is your plan for media relations? How do you communicate with your employees? Your customers and clients? Hospitals? News stations? Who talks to the dozens of reporters who show up onsite? Who talks to the dozens of people calling looking for their loved ones? What is your plan for employee mental health and wellbeing after a traumatic event? Employees may understandably need some time off work; they may need to talk to mental health professionals; they may need reassurances that they are, in fact, safe while at work.
What is your plan? How do you deal with the loss of business that happens in the hours and days after a tragedy like an active shooter? Your Emergency Management Plan should have policies and procedures in place for the time during a potential active shooter, but your business continuity plan should have policies and procedures in place for the hours, days, and even weeks following an active shooter event. Continue to follow us for more scenarios your business continuity plan and business impact analysis probably don’t (but should) include. Who like lunch? Everyone. Who likes learning? We do. Come with us and combine the two! We are putting on a lunch and learn regarding Work/School Place Violence and Emergency Action Plans. Sounds fun right? Well it will definitely be very informative and instructional into how to protect your organization, people, and image. Come join us June 10th at the DoubleTree Hotel in Roswell from 12 pm - 2 pm. The information flyer is below. If interested in registering then click: REGISTER FOR LUNCH
Why do you need to hire a consultant? Here I will discuss the two main reasons we run into. First, could you perform in house all the tasks that hiring one of our consultants will provide? Probably, yes. Often we find that most people tasked with this subject are very knowledgeable, able and capable. The problem is they do not have the time and resources to devote solely to the task. Some have even started the project on a couple of occasions only to be distracted by other pressing daily tasks of their position. In addition, organizations do not have the money to hire a full time person to complete this task as the project is not long term in nature. Especially a full time person with the experience we have. The second main reason as to why you need to hire a consultant for your risk management needs is that the only way to have the most thorough and complete plan is to have a third party set of experienced eyes look into the problem. It is easy to get distracted in an organization and not be able to “see the forest for the trees.” Our fresh perspective will bring new light to issues and resolutions. Enter the consultant. We specialize in focusing on the problem and working out solutions that you, the client, can take action on. Upon meeting with you, we determine an acceptable timeline and deliver a final action plan. We make it quick, easy, and complete. Contact us and let Invictus Consulting LLC know how we can help you. |
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