If you needed to use the loo when visiting the offices of Family Emergency Shelter Coalition, where I used to serve as Executive Director, you would encounter something a little odd and a little fun. On the inside of the stall door would be an 8 ½” x 11” sheet with an eye-catching graphic and some brief instructions that comprised a micro-lesson on emergency preparedness.
These “potty posters” were the brainchild of the renowned Ana-Marie Jones, then the leader of Community Agencies Responding to Disasters (CARD). In addition to being a preparedness guru, Ana-Marie is a master of marketing. Her genius is in creating positive preparedness messaging and embedding it in every nook and cranny of an organization.
How Do You Create a Culture?
Ana-Marie and I agree that emergency readiness cannot live in a binder on the shelf. It has to be woven into the organization’s culture.
I loved one recent example she gave: incorporate safety landmarks into wayfinding directions. When a visitor asks where the bathroom is, say something like “Turn left at the fire extinguisher. If you get to the emergency exit door, you’ve gone too far.”
When I was an Executive Director, I began staff meetings by asking things like, “Where’s the nearest fire extinguisher to where we are now?” or “If the stairway nearest us were blocked, what would be two other ways to get out of the building?” I was aiming not only to bring preparedness to mind but to develop situational awareness and flexibility in employees’ thinking. At a minimum, we recommend that every meeting in your business begin with identifying the nearest emergency exit and assembly point. This is especially important when the meeting includes guests who do not work in that building.
Many businesses sponsor volunteer days, where employees go to a community organization to work together on a service project. Consider putting an emergency preparedness organization, such as a local organization or the Red Cross, into the rotation.
Offer incentives for employees to raise their level of preparedness expertise. Cover their costs to participate in training programs such as CERT or NERT (Community/Neighborhood Emergency Response Teams) and celebrate their graduation from the program. Offer perks to employees who take on floor warden responsibilities. Perks could include an extra annual vacation day, gift cards, a special parking space, whatever is valued in your company culture.
Part of creating a positive preparedness culture is ensuring that those who raise concerns about preparedness or other safety issues receive only positive feedback for doing so. Employees will not raise important preparedness issues if the company is known for shooting the messenger. When employees raise concerns, listen carefully to ensure you understand the issue and the outcome the employee hopes to see. Thank them for raising the issue. Follow up to let the employee know what’s being done or why the company has decided to take a different approach to the issue. When you take risk reduction steps based on an employee’s expressed concern, give the employee credit when announcing the change.
Family Emergency Plans
Encouraging employees to develop a family emergency plan is vital from both a human and a financial perspective. It shows employees that you care about them and their families, which can improve employee retention. From the financial perspective, businesses need to reopen fast after an emergency in order to survive. In an emergency, employees will always take care of their families first. If they have planned in advance, they will be able to get their families squared away quickly and return to work to help get the business reopened.
Family emergency plans work best when every family member has a copy. Some of your employees may not have easy access to a copy machine. Announce dates from time to time when employees can use the company copy machines to make copies of their family emergency plans and any other documents needed for their emergency binders. Certainly everyone should have a copy of the plan on their phone. But downed power lines or cell towers could eliminate access to phones during an emergency, so hard copies are a necessity.
Train and Practice
A common theme in many mass-casualty events is untrained employees who had no idea how to get people to safety in an emergency. They are tragedies not only for the people whose lives are lost but also for the surviving employees who must live with the consequences of their ineffectual actions or lack of action.
Businesses have a duty of care to keep their employees and customers safe. The most effective way to meet that duty of care is to provide high-quality preparedness training, drills, and exercises for all employees on a regular basis.
When you provide preparedness training, hire someone who is an expert in adult learning, who knows how to keep participants engaged and make the material memorable. Aim for competence, not just compliance. Be sure that preparedness training is something employees look forward to, not something they dread and avoid.
Keep a record of the content of and participants in all training, drills, and exercises. This will help show your insurance carrier, OSHA, and, in the worst scenario, a jury that you took steps to meet your duty of care to your employees and customers.
Keep It Up
Above all, make time for drills and tabletop exercises. Retention develops through practice.
Remember that you cannot buy preparedness; you can only rent it. Preparedness is not a one-and-done thing. Supplies and systems need to be regularly replenished and improved. Skills need to be constantly refreshed.
For example, I was impressed when I saw that one of my clients had at least one emergency backpack at every site. I took a look to see what they kept in the backpacks. I was further impressed that they stored their batteries separate from their flashlights. This helps prevent the batteries from corroding and leaking, damaging the flashlight. Then I noticed that the batteries in the backpack had expired 16 years ago.
To maintain preparedness, a company must create and keep an ongoing preparedness schedule and budget. Whether you put it in risk management, human resources, or facilities management, preparedness needs to be a line item in your budget and an action item in your annual plan.
Make It Happen
There is a lot that goes into effective emergency preparedness. You don’t need to figure it all out by yourself. We can help you create a powerful preparedness program. Schedule a complimentary strategy session now.
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