In today’s guest post, Emergency Management Chief of Sarasota County Ed McCrane, gives 5 tips on how you can be better business prepared in 2012.
With the New Year underway, FEMA has been talking a lot recently about how families, businesses, and communities can make a New Year’s resolution that’s easy to keep: resolving to be ready for disasters in 2012. I would like to take this opportunity time to share some tips on how to get your business prepared by following the 5 simple steps outlined on the www.ready.gov/business website.
Businesses can do much to prepare for the impact of the many hazards they face in today’s world including natural hazards like floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and widespread serious illness such as the H1N1 flu virus pandemic. Human-caused hazards include accidents, acts of violence by people and acts of terrorism. Examples of technology-related hazards are the failure or malfunction of systems, equipment or software.
Ready Business can assist you in developing a business preparedness program by providing you tools to create a plan that addresses the impact of many hazards. The www.ready.gov/business website and its tools use an “All Hazards” approach and follow the guidelines contained in many fire safety and homeland security programs on disaster management and business continuity
The five steps in developing a preparedness program for your business are:
1. Program Management
* Organize, develop and administer your preparedness program
* Identify regulations that establish the minimum requirements
2. Planning
* Gather information about hazards and assess your risk
* Conduct a business impact analysis (BIA)
* Examine ways to prevent hazards and reduce your risks
3. Implementation: Write a preparedness plan that covers:
* Resource management
* Emergency response
* Crisis communications
* Business continuity
* Information technology
* Employee assistance
* Incident management
* Training
4. Testing and Exercises
* Test and evaluate your plan
* Define different types of exercises
* Learn how to conduct exercises
* Use exercise results to evaluate the effectiveness of your plan
5. Program Improvement
* Identify when the preparedness program needs to be reviewed
* Discover methods to evaluate the preparedness program
* Utilize the review to make necessary changes and plan improvements
Remember you can find more detailed information on each of these five steps by visiting www.ready.gov/business and selecting each step individually.
“Resolve to be business prepared in 2012”. This could be the most important resolution you have ever made.
Stay safe & be prepared,
Ed
