When natural disasters, fires, explosions, or terrorist attacks strike, your facility's physical integrity and people's safety are at risk. This is where a systems approach to prevent and respond becomes essential. Business resilience enables an entity to rapidly adapt and respond to a disruption, safeguard people and assets, and maintain continuous operations.
The Long Island region experiences a wide range of natural disasters and emergencies, including hurricanes, floods, winter storms, and power outages. These threats are often unpredictable and can greatly impact your business.
Having an emergency preparedness plan in place is a vital safety measure that will help you and your employees respond quickly and effectively in the event of an emergency or natural disaster. These plans should include a comprehensive risk assessment and a robust infrastructure to ensure that your facility is ready for any emergency.
Emergency preparedness measures can also reduce the risk of damage to your business, your property, and your tenants. Having an established response plan in place can help you and your team quickly get people out of your building safely, communicate restrictions, and bring in qualified vendors to make repairs when necessary.
Evacuation procedures are essential to protect the safety of all building occupants. They can save lives and minimize panic in an emergency situation.
Posting emergency evacuation signage in buildings and identifying assembly points helps occupants become familiar with evacuation routes as well as where to assemble if they need assistance. Establishing an alternate route in case the one you plan to take is blocked will also be helpful.
Make sure there are at least two exits from every hazardous area on every floor of your building. Exit signs and sufficient lighting help ensure everyone can safely get out of the building.
Identify an evacuation warden for each floor of your building. This person will check offices, close fire doors, and ensure everyone is able to evacuate when the building alarm sounds.
Communication is a process where two or more people exchange information, thoughts, ideas, or feelings. In the communication process, there are three essential elements: a sender, a message, and a receiver.
When sending messages, it is important to encode them correctly so that they can be read easily and understood by the receiver. Effective communicators are aware of their own communication style and understand that different channels require different forms of encoding.
For example, when transferring complex information to a radio program, you would need to encode the text so that it is easy for listeners to decipher it. In contrast, when sending a short message over text messaging, you may use abbreviated language.
Having effective communication skills is key to ensuring the safety of your employees and visitors during emergency situations. It can also help your team members feel more engaged and satisfied with their work. This increases their satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity. This can lead to higher profits for your company.
A security system that can be used to control access, notify first responders, and send a warning signal is a great way to improve your facility’s security. BSWi offers a full suite of smart security solutions that have been proven to deter the bad guys and keep your people and assets safe.
A solid security program starts with the right mix of physical and logical measures and requires a holistic approach to safety and risk management. At the heart of any good safety program is a well-trained, highly reliable workforce and robust systems and procedures.
As you might imagine, the best security systems are the most effective and efficient when it comes to protecting your people and assets from the elements, preventing theft, and detecting potential criminal activity. A solid ISS (integrated security system) is the best way to ensure your facilities are protected while you do what you do, as well as those who help you do it.