When you open a business, you are embarking on a large-scale investment. You supply money, time, and resources (not to mention blood, sweat, and tears) in the hopes that they will pay dividends. The trick is to maximize the return you want to see – whether that return is pure profit, bettering the community, or spreading an idea or service. Today I’m going to make the case for preparedness as one of the most important business investments a company, big or small, can make. We’ll discuss how to measure the return on your investment (ROI) and how to best invest in preparedness to get the maximum value from every penny spent. We’ll include real-life examples provided by the Global Disaster Preparedness Center and compare the preparation for small businesses with that of mega-corporations.

Measuring Your Return on Investment

Business planning is all about data. While new ideas can make a splash, proven processes and observed precedents are the best way to project the success of any given investment. After all, history tends to repeat itself.

So, when we study preparedness as strictly a business activity, we need to look outward, to the world and areas that have survived disaster. There will be some stories included below of business continuity from Hurricane Harvey, but we encourage you to search out stories for yourself. Look for disasters that are like what you may face or go through your area’s history to see what has occurred in the past.

Business Continuity

According to The Institute for Business and Home Safety, 25% of US businesses that close because of a disaster never reopen. The chance of continuance for a small business is even lower, with 40-60% closing shop. I could not find a parallel study in Canada, but I think it’s safe to assume our rate of perseverance is similar.

Having an emergency plan, kit, and business continuity documents in place will dramatically increase an organization’s recovery time in the event of a disaster. The faster you recover, the faster you can return to business, and the faster income begins to flow again.

Staffing

People are the most expensive components of many businesses. Companies pay for employees’ time at a minimum, with possible additional costs in training and benefits. You’ve cultivated a team of talented people with a knowledge of your systems and procedures and the skills to make it all run smoothly. Imagine the headache and expense if your team were suddenly gone – it would be difficult, if not impossible, to recover from.

While emergencies are sometimes limited to the office (fire, chemical leaks, or civil emergencies) most natural disasters will mean your staff are facing their own problems at home. They’ll need financial support to pay for damages from the emergency, and if your business isn’t operating, they may need to go elsewhere to take care of their families.

So, what can you do to avoid potential staffing problems? Encourage employees to be prepared at home with employee buying programs (we do that!) and awareness events like Emergency Preparedness Week. Or, work a support budget into your emergency plan to help employees or the community itself to get back on its feet. With these precautions, alongside your own plans and supplies, you’ll give yourself the best odds possible for business survival.

Long Shelf Lives

I really love to talk about long shelf lives, but I love it for a reason. Investing in food and water with long shelf lives now can save thousands of dollars in expenses down the line. Not only does it save on replacement items AND avoid inflating prices over time, but it also saves your purchasers and emergency managers resources they would spend sourcing, purchasing, and swapping out those replacement items!

Small Businesses Too?

Yes! Especially small businesses! As we touched on briefly above, small businesses are much less likely to survive upheaval than a large one. 40-60% Of small businesses are hit so hard that they never recover. One horrible week of natural disaster and everything you’ve worked so hard for is gone.

We hear from many small businesses that they just don’t have room in the budget for emergency preparedness. We understand completely, and we have good news: preparing doesn’t need to be expensive. Below we’ll go over all the things you can do for your business – many of which just require some forethought or elbow grease.

Alternatively, just pick one area of preparedness every week, or month, or year (whatever makes it happen) and tackle them one at a time. Even if an emergency strikes before your kit is complete, you’re better off than you would have been with nothing.

How to Invest

By now you’re likely aware of some of the ways you can prepare your business (a kit, a plan, etc). But how can you get the most bang for every buck? How can you maximize your investment? Below we’ve listed ways to prepare in approximate order of expense (low to high).

Make a Plan

Planning takes time, but can be done for the cost of a binder, paper, and some ink. We’ve discussed emergency planning for businesses at length in the past, but in case you missed it we’ll do a quick recap here.

A business emergency plan should cover everything and anything to do with your business’ preparedness. Include the risks your business faces, both internal and external, as well as what the danger and the potential costs of each. Be sure to include non-monetary costs too.

Write down emergency procedures, and what safety measures are in place to prevent or minimize damages. Describe who is in charge of what in an emergency and how you’re going to make sure your staff know what they are meant to do.

Depending how badly an emergency would effect your customer base you might want to plan for a sudden drop in business. If you run a construction or disaster recovery company, plan for the sudden increase in customers at a time when your supply chain won’t be at its strongest.

Example

Five months after hurricane Harvey businesses in Houston, Texas were still dealing with a problem they had not anticipated. During the storm many elevators flooded making it impossible for some businesses to function fully. This was especially challenging for organizations with a mobility-challenged customer base, like medical services, care facilities, and day cares.)

Strategize With Existing Infrastructure

Your business may already have some great tools in place to help with emergencies. Take some time to consider how your existing resources can be used in emergency situations. Good examples of dual-purpose infrastructure would be using security cameras to keep an eye on a facility you can’t access, or using product you carry as part of an emergency kit.

Support Employees

People are the foundation of any great business. Chances are, you even like most of the ones you hired. To help keep your people safe and working it’s important to plan some supportive measures.

At a minimum, supporting your employees should involve asking if they are prepared at home with a kit, or at least extra food and water. Additional support might involve starting an employee buying program to get great rates on supplies for your team. These programs are free through Total Prepare and are an amazing way to help your people prepare their families.

If there’s room in the budget put aside some assets to provide direct support to your workers and even your community. Check out this great example of Data Foundry going above and beyond to help their team:

Example

Data Foundry (DF) is a data center colocation provider who were there for their team when they were needed most. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Harvey DF sent boats, gas, and supplies to the homes of impacted employees. They also reserved and paid for hotel rooms for the displaced and gave time off to those who needed to make personal repairs.

DF also brought in supplies from a secondary location to help staff in mucking out their homes. Families organized clothing donations and staff raised $20,000 USD in donations to relief efforts. DF matched it.

Create a Culture that’s Ready for Anything

In my opinion creating a culture of preparedness is the most important thing anyone can do to minimize serious injury or loss of life in an emergency. It also streamlines evacuation, supply distribution, and recovery. So how do you create a culture of readiness?

Practice, practice, and more practice! Schedule and participate in regular emergency drills at least once a year. Change things up every time to simulate different emergencies, or different situations within the same emergency. For example: have someone be ‘wounded,’ make usual evacuation routes inaccessible (imaginary fires are good for that), or have key staff members be absent.

The other major way to create emergency culture is to invite professionals onsite for training days. Training staff in first aid skills, light urban search and rescue, or even just taking a workshop on general preparedness are all wonderful ways to keep preparedness top of mind.

Get a Kit

Remember: There is every chance your staff will be on site for up to 72 hours after an emergency. They will need food, water, shelter, and possibly first aid supplies at a minimum. Total Prepare carries pre-built 24 hour emergency kits that are a great place to start, but consider going above and beyond with extra supplies. Contact our team and tell us about your organization – we’ll be happy to create something custom just for you.

If your organization expects staff to remain at work in an emergency please – please – call us for a custom quote. We have turnkey solutions designed for first responders, health care professionals, and communications/logistics hubs. These solutions account for the extra calories and water intake needed to support hard work (rather than just survival).

Insurance

Pretty much anything can be insured these days: Heidi Klum’s legs, Gene Simmons’ tongue, or Keith Richards’ middle finger for example. These people have insured their livelihoods and trademarks, and so can you.

Insurance plays a critical role in the recovery of many organizations. Do some serious research and speak with experts about the options available to you. Multi-hazard policies can be especially useful. At a minimum insure against the top risks in your business plan, as well as obtaining business continuity insurance. The latter will be invaluable even if your business survives an emergency in pristine condition but loses customers and income due to disaster.

Reduce Risk With Preventative Action

This is the most expensive way to prepare your business, but also one of the most valuable. Go through the risks from your emergency plan and examine what could be done to minimize the damage from each. This might involve installing fire sprinklers, upgrading equipment, installing generators, adding flood barriers to doors, or even something as simple as changing the way a hazardous material is stored.

Example

After Hurricane Harvey the owner of Beans Café in Houston could have saved upwards of $20,000 USD in food loss and replaced equipment with the purchase of refrigerators with top motors. The commercial fridges she had on hand operated on motors at the bottom of the units and were ruined when the flooding reached them.

Summary

Emergency preparedness is a strong investment for any business. ROI can be seen in employee retention and business survival rates for comparable organizations post-emergency. There are so many things that business owners can do to strengthen their businesses in this area, without the need to blow the budget. But with a little investment, you’ll see your preparedness paying dividends after an emergency, regardless of the size of your business.

Thank you for reading.

This article was written by Zenia Platten – Author of Tethered and Emergency Preparedness Professional.

Primary Source: https://www.recoveryplatform.org/assets/publication/Publication2019/Why_small_businesses_should_invest_in_preparedness.pdf

The good news is that your company is ready to create a Strategic Emergency Management Plan (SEMP). The less-amazing news is that these plans can be daunting, especially for those new to the industry. The super news is that Total Prepare is here to help!

Businesses, especially large corporations, will often require a document or binder outlining all the aspects of the company’s plan for dealing with emergencies. If your business is growing (congratulations!) and you feel it’s time for a strategy of your own, or if you’re overhauling an old plan, we’ve got some tips, tricks, and guidance to help out.

What is a Strategic Emergency Management Plan?

A SEMP is a written and (hopefully) well thought out plan for what a business has done, is doing, and will do to maximize the resiliency of their operations and employees during an emergency situation. These plans should cover all of the most likely disaster scenarios, including man-made disasters and potential outbreaks.

The most important thing to know about a SEMP is that it is not your only emergency plan. It is a much shorter document then will likely be needed to provide a full, comprehensive risk assessment and full outline of all actions and duties. The SEMP is meant to be a complimentary document. It provides a unifying concept and strategy for all other emergency management efforts.

SEMPs can save lives, save businesses, and minimize negative impacts on the environment through good planning. The plan should outline objectives, organizational structure of the emergency management team, and processes. Remember, the SEMP doesn’t have to be long to be comprehensive.

The Emergency Management Continuum

From Public Safety Canada

There are four sides to emergency preparedness that are important to consider for any emergency plan, corporate or otherwise. Each flows into the next to create a continuum of best practices. Keep these areas in mind throughout all of your planning process:

I. Prevention and Mitigation – Reduce the risk to your organization, people, and infrastructure.

II. Preparedness – Create a plan, train your team, and have what you need on hand.

III. Response – How should you and your team react when the emergency happens?

IV. Recovery – Business Continuity Planning and Restoration.

Within these four areas there are many ways to maximize performance and ensure your operation is as emergency-proof as it can be:

•  Regular risk assessments
•  Engage your leaders
•  Regular training
•  Exercises and practice
•  Improvement processes / check ins
•  Performance evaluations

Before You Write

Assemble Your Team

The first thing to do once you’ve decided to build a SEMP is to assemble your team. Whether they’re X-Men, Avengers,  Justice League, or their very own unique mix, your team will be the heroes of the office during an emergency.

Try to gather people from all of the major areas of the business. For example, have staff from the assembly floor, warehouse, office, and management included in your team. This variety of outlooks and departments will maximize the business knowledge involved and ensure that no details fall through the cracks. A team of entirely office staff, for example, might not realize that there are chemicals that need to be secured in the warehouse.

Involving someone in a management or senior position is a great idea too, as it will help to keep the SEMP and other emergency plans in line with the organizations ‘big picture.’ High-level strategy should not be overlooked, even in an emergency. Management should also ensure that the SEMP aligns with the company’s mission and values as much as possible.

Training & Responsibilities

Once you know who’s on your team, you’ll need to know what they can do. First aid training, logistics management, or light urban search and rescue skills are all valuable assets to any emergency preparedness team.  Assess what skills you’ll need, and what skills your team already has. Identify any gaps and organize training as required.

Developing a reference for which personnel is in charge of certain responsibilities is the next step. It should be accompanied by a list of what that person will need (skills, maintenance, resources) to keep their area running smoothly.

Look to the Law

Be sure to check in with your provincial authorities to discover what the legal requirements for your organization are. Some organizations might be mandated to prepare (care homes for example) while others may have provincial recommendations in place. In BC for example, PreparedBC recommends tourism businesses prepare to provide support for their staff and their guests for at least 72 hours in an emergency.

You can also reference any existing emergency plans for your business or other locations (if you’re operation has multiple branches.) These are great places to look, not only for inspiration, but to ensure that any new initiatives operate in harmony with existing policies. Existing plans may include:

-Operational Plans

-Regional Plans

-Security Plans

-Business Continuity Plans

-Inter-agency Plans

Assess the Risks

So – you’re ready to get planning, right? Nope! We still don’t know what we’re planning for. Next we get to analyze and assess what kind of emergency the company is likely to face.

There are two types of threats when it comes to creating an emergency plan: Internal threats, and external ones. Assess your risks and how likely they are to occur and keep them in mind as you write your SEMP.

An external threat is anything coming from (you guessed it!) outside the business. This includes civil emergencies, disease outbreaks, and natural disasters. Internal threats are often related to data or operations. Things like chemical spills, computer viruses, and unstable shelving are good to consider for this category.

Think through how each of these risks might effect business, staff, customers, and infrastructure and add these to your notes. If you already have preparedness plans that address these things, look for gaps or inefficiencies. Once you have an idea of what you’re potentially facing, prioritize threats by likelihood and risk.

Develop a Plan

We’re finally ready to put pen to paper (or fingers to keys) and make your beautiful SEMP a reality. You should have an idea by now of what hazards your company may face, and what risk each of them poses, and know what resources are available for you to work with. You know what plans are already in place, and perhaps what plans you still need to implement.

There  will  be  a  link  to  a  template  further  down  that  will  help you to structure your SEMP, so we’re going to discuss the components here.

Section 1: Introduction

As with most internal documents it’s important to orient future readers to the purpose of the document. Use this section to touch on the legislative requirements mentioned earlier, as well as scope of the project.

The template below also mentions ‘background’ as one of this section’s headings. While some of this will need to be re-written to fit your unique organization, I recommend copy/pasting the four pillars of effective emergency management. It will help to put the reader in the right mindset for emergency preparedness if they haven’t done as much or as thorough research as you (good job!)

Section 2: What could possibly go wrong?

This is where the risk assessment we did earlier comes into play. Define the risks the business might face in detail and don’t hold back. Mention what likelihood each has to occur and what their consequences would be. List them in order of priority.

This is also a good place to list any vulnerabilities your organization has. They might be general, like being located near a fault line, or more specific to you, like that giant and precarious stack of cast iron in the warehouse. Safeguards that are already in place, like fire alarms, should be mentioned as well.

Once you have addressed your risks, ruminate on how they could be prevented or mitigated.

Section 3 & 4: Who’s got the power?

We’ll begin with section 3.1 of the template: Emergency Management Governance Structure. I’ve chosen this template because it was the most thorough example I could find. It was written as a guide to help Canadian government organizations to create their own SEMPs and as a result it has some sections that won’t translate perfectly to corporate preparedness.

That being said, it is still important to decide on a command structure for an emergency, though yours probably won’t involve the department Minister. Create a clear hierarchy for your organization with notes on who has decision making power in what areas. Disasters can create havoc so don’t lose time quibbling over who can and can’t make critical decisions.

Layout the duties and responsibilities held by each authority figure. Any tasks that will need doing in an emergency should be assigned to someone, with a backup listed in case of injury. Try to account for organizing evacuation, supply distribution, first aid, as well as activities like training new employees and maintaining kits and policies.

Section 5: Who doesn’t love a budget?

This section covers resource allocation and logistical support. Add annexes if things start to get complicated. Cover financial management and budgets, but also physical resources like emergency supplies and new fire sprinklers. If your organization is remote take time to think about how you’ll get your crew home safe and sound.

Section 6: Practice makes perfect

Outline how you’ll maintain this glorious plan and all its facets. Will there be annual training? Drills? Will the supplies be checked for expired product*? Is someone going through the SEMP regularly to ensure it’s up to date and reflects the current state of the business? Answering these questions will give you a solid idea of how your plan will be maintained and tested.

*Total Prepare will happily keep track of this for you and contact you when it’s time to replace. If preferred, we can contact you the year before too so the new supplies can be accounted for in the next budget year.

Seek Approval

You’re DONE! The document of your dreams lies complete before you, practically glowing with useful and life-saving information. Before you put it away however, it’s time to get it approved. Sorry – but there are budgets in it and those always need approval.

Meet with management and ensure to get their acceptance of the plan. If you ARE management, get some of your colleagues to read through it to look for short-comings, holes, and contradictions. The more eyes land on this document before it’s formally finalized, the better.

Everyone loved it? Perfect. You’re ready to implement your ideas and distribute copies of the plan to anyone who needs it. Paper copies are best – computers may be out of action in an emergency.

Emergency Management Planning Cycle / Timeline

Consider creating a timeline to help with regular quarterly maintenance of your plan. Making it a routine will help keep everyone on the same page and make sure that important maintenance actually gets done. Here’s how some branches of the Canadian government manage theirs:

From Public Safety Canada

Thank Gosh for Templates!

What would we do without templates? The one detailed above comes directly from the source page for this article. You can find it here. If you’re looking for additional information on creating a SEMP I highly recommend reading the whole article. It goes into great detail and lays things out well.

Summary

Creating a SEMP encourages cohesion between existing emergency preparedness plans and strategies. They touch on important aspects like leadership roles and decision making structures, as well as more traditional details like risk assessments and mitigation.

Thank you for reading!

This article was written by Zenia Platten – Author of Tethered and emergency preparedness professional.

Sometimes it can be overwhelming to take on the task of emergency preparedness. Total Prepare wants to alleviate as much of that uncertainty and stress as we can! If we can make your personal or corporate preparedness simple, straight forward, and efficient, we’ve done our jobs perfectly.

If you’re in Victoria or Vancouver BC, we have additional in-person services that you can take advantage of. As of March 2019 we’re offering educational workshops! These presentations are about 45 minutes long, and we suggest leaving 15 minutes to handle questions afterwards. We cover the risks in the local area, focusing on earthquakes, tsunami, and fire. During the presentation participants learn what to expect during these emergencies, as well as best practices for surviving them safely. We also discuss the different kinds of emergency kits, the eight areas of preparedness, and what major seismic events have done to our region in the past.

Education is a massive part of preparing for any major life event, including disasters. The more you know about what to expect, and how to deal with it, the better off you will be. Stay informed and spread what you learn to others. Our workshops are run by our very own Zenia Platten (me!) who has been working enthusiastically in the emergency preparedness industry since 2015. Preparedness is near and dear to her heart and she is excited to share what she knows with you and your team.

The workshop does include a powerpoint, so having a projector/screen on location is preferred. Don’t have one? No problem! Let us know and we’ll bring our own along. If  you are interested in participating in or hosting a preparedness workshop you can check out our page on them here, or contact us directly at 1-888-832-1733 or hello@totalprepare.ca. Thank you for reading and we look forward to hearing from you!

This article was written by Zenia Platten – Writer and emergency preparedness professional.