Emergency Procedures in white collar jobs are commonly taken as a joke or a hassle, fire drills are treated as an interruption to the workday and formal procedures are written and forgotten.
The truth is emergency procedures seem bothersome and inconsequential, until they aren’t. Tens of thousands of Canadians will experience a workplace emergency this year alone.
Creating an Emergency Management Plan is straightforward and easy, it comes down to what emergencies you or your employees might encounter, who needs to do what during an emergency response, and practicing/talking about your Emergency Management Plan so employees are familiar with it.
Risk Assessment
The first step in creating your Emergency Management Plan is assessing what risks are prevalent in your workplace. Examples of this would be environmental hazards, and employee medical conditions.
Environmental hazards and industry specific hazards should already have procedures in place to minimize the impact of an incident involving them. If you are unsure about if these hazards are in your workplace, or how to deal with them, reach out to your manager as soon as possible for guidance.
Employee medical conditions are a case-by-case basis, the best thing you can do when putting together your Emergency Management Plan is to talk one on one with those who have a medical condition and establish what is the best way to respond to an incident involving same. A common example of this in the workplace is those with life threatening allergies. Your Emergency Management Plan should establish a standard spot for them to store their Epi Pen. Whether it is in their bag or in a bin on their desk, having a standard storing spot will drastically simplify an emergency response and increase the likelihood of success.
Roles
Emergencies are chaotic, fast, and stressful. The easiest way to combat these factors is to assign roles in your Emergency Management Plan, so that employees know exactly what they are expected to do and can focus on that task rather than the emergency as a whole.
Ensuring that employees know what their role is and who they need to be communicating with is an essential part of your Emergency Management Plan. Due to the high stress nature of emergencies weird things happen. People panic, they forget things, and communication becomes muddled. Breaking down emergency responses into bite sized tasks for people to remember and focus on can make the real situation feel less overwhelming and intimidating.
Examples of roles should be who is responsible for coordinating communication between the other roles, who is responsible for retrieving the first aid kit, who is responsible for calling Emergency Medical Services (“EMS”), and who is waiting for “EMS” at the entrance of your building to assist in guiding them to the emergency scene.
Practice/Discussion
Creating your Emergency Management Plan is the first step to being prepared for the real deal. Now you need to practice or have a discussion with your employees about how to execute it. Practicing your Emergency Management Plan doesn’t need to be a hyper realistic simulation, having a walk through with your employees can add immense benefits by refining communication, and getting your employees familiar with their roles.
If you can’t practice having a meeting with your employees and going through the Emergency Management Plan orally is still significantly better than simply writing your plan and ensuring that your employees read it during their onboarding process.
No matter what you choose between practicing or simply discussing, ensure that your Emergency Management Plan is brought up at least annually to keep employees familiar with it.
If you do not have an Emergency Management Plan already, make it a priority on your to do list today. It’s better to have one and not use it, then to have an emergency and wish you did.
Dylan Coffey, Human Resources