Emergency Response for Your Business

It’s important to have an emergency response plan before an incident occurs. You’ll want to be prepared by having evacuation routes and assembly points that your employees can use.

You’ll also need to know what to do if someone is injured. Be sure to gently check for breathing and circulation – if they’re not breathing, it could be a life-threatening situation.

Identifying the Incident

An emergency incident is any event that could lead to loss of or disruption to your business’s operations, services or functions. This could be a fire, chemical spill or other natural disaster, terrorist attack, cyber attack, train derailment or any number of other events that you cannot control. In some cases, it may be necessary to notify staff and customers of the incident and the expected impact.

Your first task in any emergency is to identify the type of incident and determine if it is a threat to human life, property or the environment. If it is, you should contact 911 as soon as possible and give them as much detail as you can about the situation. They will then send rescue personnel and vehicles to the location. You will also need to notify hospitals of what has occurred so they can prepare for any patients.

In general, law enforcement and emergency response agencies will use radio dispatching codes to classify the severity of an incident. These code words will let them know what type of equipment they will need to send and what the potential for loss of life is. This information helps them determine what resources they will need to respond effectively to the situation.

Data from eight reports showed that effective triage and the use of volunteers for transport were notable successes in major incident responses. However, other issues such as slow response times, ineffective communication and command and control and a lack of transportation were common failures in many of the reported incidents.

Employers should develop a workplace incident response plan. This should include identifying what steps need to be taken to protect workers during an emergency incident, how to notify employees and customers about the incident and how they will be kept updated about its status. They should also review and practice their response procedures regularly so they are familiar with them in the event of an actual incident.

During high-hazard incidents, employers should work with the incident commander* and the unified command staff* to limit worker exposure by using engineering and administrative controls, along with safe work practices and PPE. They should also provide safety and health training to help workers understand the hazards and how to minimize them.

Organizing the Response

A key aspect of emergency response is the organization of resources for deployment. This involves determining the initial strategy and tactics, mobilizing resources, and creating a smoothly functioning response organization. These processes are critical for effective response, but research demonstrates that they require a great deal of flexibility and decentralization.

The complexity of the work and the uncertainty of the situation create a challenging environment for organizing an emergency response. These challenges include juggling response plans, site investigations, addressing regulatory affairs and documentation requests, engaging stakeholders and not to mention the cost of business. Additionally, the nature of the work requires the need for regular course corrections and adjustments, often in real-time. This need for course corrections is further complicated by the need to balance the demands of an ongoing operation against the limited availability of responders.

To make this work as productive as possible, a clear structure is required. This includes a set of rules that govern the allocation and management of resources, as well as clear lines of accountability and communication between the various levels of leadership and staff. It is also important to develop a system for tracking worker health and safety data during the pre-deployment, deployment and post-deployment phases of an incident. This allows organizations to monitor the impact of an incident on their employees and identify opportunities for improvement.

It is necessary to provide training to workers regarding the types of emergencies that may occur at a facility. This includes training on alarm systems and evacuation plans, as well as how to handle hazardous materials. Training should be updated as situations change to ensure that workers are aware of any changes in the workplace.

Ideally, leaders should be designated for each facility to provide leadership in the event of an emergency. This will ensure that the proper personnel are in place to respond and keep everyone safe. In addition, supervisors should be available to listen to concerns, support employees, and help them navigate the stress of responding to a crisis. It is also a good idea to have designated backups for each facility to be sure that someone is always in charge when needed.

Communicating with the Public

In the event of a crisis, it is important that people receive accurate and clear information about what is happening. This can prevent them from jumping to conclusions about the dangers of a situation and encourage them to take action. It can also help them to feel safe and reassured that they are being cared for and that help is on its way.

Communicating with the public during emergencies should be conducted in a way that is respectful and inclusive. It is especially important to provide a channel for limited English proficient (LEP) populations to access alerts and other emergency-related information and programs. This can be done by translation, sign language interpretation or making the information available in written form.

Providing accurate information about hazards and risks is crucial in an emergency, but it is equally important to communicate in ways that are sensitive to the fears and concerns of affected individuals. This can be done by establishing a set of protocols for radio communication, including specific terminology and standardized reporting formats. It is also helpful to designate a team leader for each EMT team, which can help to streamline communication and decision-making.

A major concern during an emergency is the risk of exposure to chemical, biological and radiological agents that could be released during the response. This can lead to serious injury or death and should be a key consideration in any emergency preparedness plan. lone worker safety devices australia These plans should include the identification of key work practices, control objectives and appropriate PPE to protect workers.

To mitigate the risks of these agents, it is advisable to use real-time data from sensors in the workplace to identify potential areas of danger and to alert employees to these hazards. In addition, this can also be used to monitor the progress of a recovery effort, such as clearing roads or reopening businesses.

Non-voice communications such as text messaging and email can be useful during an emergency, as they do not require a network connection and can often be used when phone service has been disrupted. It is also advisable to keep calls short and to only convey essential information, as this can help to reduce network congestion and conserve battery life.

Managing the Incident

As the incident progresses it’s important to communicate status updates. Regularly updating stakeholders and customers reduces confusion and frustration and helps them feel reassured that the issue is being addressed.

Managing an incident requires both technical and managerial skills. It’s important to train your team on how to use an ICS-derived framework and to provide them with the tools they need to respond to incidents. This includes a unified command structure, a communications plan and processes, and a way to track the health and safety of staff and volunteers.

It’s also important to be able to distinguish between hazard-generated demands and response-generated demands. For example, during a public health event, the hazard-generated demands include the need to evaluate and treat victims and control the spread of disease. The response-generated demands are the need to communicate with stakeholders, process widely dispersed information into accurate epidemiological data, and protect healthcare workers. Many times, the response community focuses only on addressing the hazard-generated demands and ignores the response-generated ones until they overwhelm the hazard response capabilities.

One of the biggest mistakes a team can make during an incident is not declaring it early on. A misunderstanding of the severity of an issue can leave the team without all the resources it needs to mitigate and resolve the problem, or worse, cause more harm than necessary.

Once an incident has been declared, the Incident Commander (IC) can start delegating responsibilities and establishing a chain of command. The IC can hand off their role to the Communications Lead (CL) or to an Operations or Ops Lead (OL). The OL works to apply operational tools to mitigate and resolve the incident, while the CL provides public face to the incident, and manages inquiries from staff, stakeholders, and media.

Managing an incident requires clear guidelines for how to handle an emergency situation, and practice makes perfect. Taking the time to work through an incident response framework on a regular basis, even when the threat isn’t real, builds “muscle memory” for responding in an emergency and will help your team avoid common mistakes that can compromise response effectiveness.