Company preparednessSteps organizations should take to prepare for disasters

Even if your company has not been affected by tornados, tsunami waves, or wildfires, all employers need to be prepared for the mayhem that natural disasters cause. In a new report, “Eight Steps Employers Should Take to Prepare Their Workplace for a Natural Disaster,” Waukesha, Wisconsin-based Empathia offers specific tips to improve workplace disaster recovery and readiness plans.

“It’s a mistake to think natural disasters can’t happen to you,” says Joseph J. DesPlaines, an enterprise risk management expert at Empathia and author of the paper. “The end result of natural disasters can be devastating, both in terms of how a blackout or unsafe building can impact the workplace, as well as the emotional toll of the disaster on employees. Don’t wait until a disaster strikes to start preparing your emergency response.”

Empathia notes that over the past ten years, in the wake of several large-scale man-made and natural disasters, many organizations have vastly improved their disaster recovery and readiness plans. Recent incidents, such as the East Coast earthquake and hurricane, have provided lessons for risk management professionals that improvement of disaster recovery and readiness plans is needed.

The new Empathia white paper recommends:

• Companies involve all employees, not just leaders, in the development, testing, and improvement of emergency response plans.
• Companies prepare for simultaneous disasters, devising multiple routes of escape and identifying multiple layers of people in emergency response positions.
• Determining how to disseminate crisis notification to the entire workforce and identifying multiple communication methods.
• Putting a “check-in” system in place to ensure a coordinated evacuation, assembly and accounting process.
• Communicating and coordinating with other local businesses to make sure plans do not clash but are complementary.
• Recognizing that employees will view family as their top priority in a crisis. Therefore, employers should ensure that disaster recovery/business continuity plans include modified work schedules, flexible leave, and crisis counseling. Counseling should be extending to employees’ families as well.
• A crisis debriefing to inform employees about where and how to get help. A quality employee assistance program can provide this service.
• Conducting a post-even analysis to solicit employees’ assessments about the emergency response plan.

“The emotional toll on employees after a natural disaster cannot be overestimated,” explains DesPlaines. “Even employees not directly affected by a disaster can experience unexpected mental health consequences and difficultly adjusting to the ‘new normal’ that follows a crisis.”