Source: Questline

Emergencies — extreme weather, fire and accidents — can happen at any time. To ensure safety and minimize business interruptions, it's best to be prepared. Use these key steps to develop an emergency response plan to fit your needs.

Perform a risk assessment

A risk assessment is a process of identifying potential hazards, evaluating what assets are at risk and analyzing potential impacts to your business from those hazards. There are numerous hazards to consider:

• Natural — severe weather events, flooding, pandemic disease
• Human-caused — workplace accidents, fire, cyberattacks
• Technological — power outages, loss of critical data, equipment failure

Multiple assets may be at risk. People are the most important. Make sure that you have appropriate emergency plans in place for hazards that may cause significant injuries. Other important assets include buildings, information technology and operational equipment. Look for vulnerabilities that would make assets more susceptible to damage from a hazard and develop appropriate mitigation strategies.

Evaluate resources

Conduct a needs assessment of the resources you'll need to mitigate potential hazards and properly respond to an emergency. Resources include:

• People — assign employees to emergency response, first aid and crisis communications teams
• Facilities — protective shelter space, alternative workspace, emergency operations center
• Equipment — alarm systems, emergency communications, backup power
• Supplies — first aid kits, flashlights and batteries, food and water
• External — updated contact information for first responders, public emergency services, and key contractors and vendors.

In addition to identifying specific resources, your needs assessment should determine the amount and cost of resources required, as well as when they will be needed.

Develop emergency procedures to protect your business

Safety is the first priority. Your emergency plan should include protective actions for life safety that include building evacuation, sheltering in place and lockdown.

Stabilizing the emergency event should be your next priority. Stabilizing actions may include firefighting, medical treatment, rescue and crisis communications. Some emergencies, such as severe weather events, may be forecast hours ahead of time. Establish plans to prepare your facility and deal with the aftermath. This can help ensure safety and minimize property damage and disruption to business operations.

Train your staff

Training is essential to ensure that everyone knows what to do in case of an emergency or disruption to business operations. Everyone should be familiar with life safety protective actions. Conduct training and drills for evacuation, sheltering and lockdown procedures.

Members of the emergency response, first aid and crisis communications teams should receive additional detailed training on the emergency response plan and their roles and responsibilities should an emergency occur. Appropriate team members should also receive training and certifications to administer first aid and CPR and maintain those certifications.

Once you have completed your emergency response plan, share it with public emergency services that may respond to your facility, as well as others responsible for building management and security.

BusinessReady.gov from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has a variety of helpful tools and resources regarding emergency preparedness, including an example emergency response plan.