Steps of emergency preparedness for your business

Many employers are very concerned about the health of their employees. They understand that how healthy their employees are will directly affect the productivity and ultimately the profitability of their business. However, many of these same business owners overlook another key component of keeping their employees healthy. This key component is keeping your employees safe. On the job accidents are a major liability for employers and can end up costing even millions of dollars (and this can be from just one accident). Employers of all sizes would do well to prepare for any type of threat to their employees from small to large. Here are the steps of emergency preparedness for your business-

- Do your research-Before you can put an emergency preparedness plan into place you will need to do some research. Not only will you need to take the needs of your employees into account but you will also need to know what is required of your business by both your state and Federal governments. Each industry has specific safety regulations that will need to be built into your emergency preparedness plan. You may need to contact the Department of Labor in the state in which you do business in order to get detailed safety information. In addition, local first responders can come to your place of business and point out potential problems with safety and make recommendations. Keep in mind that while this type of research can take a lot of time in the end it will help you to develop amore effective emergency preparedness plan for your business.
- Have a plan-It is not enough to simply commit to be safer. You will need to have a written plan that will detail the steps that you are going to take to make that happen. Does your place of business need safety signs? Do your employees need protective equipment for the jobs that they do? Should your employees be receiving CPR and First Aid training? Whatever the issues are they should be included in your plan along with goals that show how you will achieve them. Just like any other aspect of your business you need to have a written plan that you can refer to. This will not only keep you on track as far as safety but show you how you are doing.
- Train your employees-Having the best researched and well written emergency preparedness plan in your industry is not enough. You will need to make sure that your employees are receiving the very best in training. If you fail to train your employees about potential problems the result will be confusion and chaos when something does happen. Keep in mind that this training can take many different forms. You can do safety training in house, have an outside safety company come in, or send employees to learn about safety procedures and then have them come back and teach the rest of the staff. It really doesn't matter how you train your employee just that it gets done. In addition, it is important to realize that training is an ongoing process. You will need to continually be training your employees as to the best safety practices and making sure that new employees are being brought up to speed when it comes to safety.
- Periodically review the emergency preparedness plan-It is not enough to put an emergency preparedness plan into place and then forget about it. You will need to keep in mind that your business is dynamic. This means that its needs and those of your employees may change over time. The bottom line is that in order for your emergency preparedness plan to truly be effective you will need to periodically review it and make changes as needed.