After an Incident
How you react to an incident will have a dramatic impact on your safety, the welfare of the people around you and the survival of your business. These guidelines should help you to reduce the negative effects of an emergency situation at work.
Be prepared
Make sure you have a business continuity plan in place. If you do not have a plan, or think it might be out-of-date, work through these three steps to develop an effective continuity strategy:
Immediate response
Quick thinking straight after an emergency situation can save lives and ensure that the impact of an incident to your business is minimised:
- Call emergency services
- Evacuate the building/area
- Shutdown equipment (if you have time)
- Be prepared to use fire extinguishers
- Be prepared to use basic first aid
Short-term response
Once everyone in the business has been helped and the emergency services have declared the area safe, there are things you can do in the days following an incident to protect your work place from further harm:
- Contact your insurance company.
- Contact customers, suppliers and staff to let them know what has happened.
- Find out what free support is available (for example, The Fire Brigade has a statutory duty to advise and assist with post-fire salvage activities).
- Remove any valuable items and arrange for safe storage.
- Cover roof to minimise further rainwater damage.
- Protect floors below a fire from water leaks from above.
- Put up warning signs and barriers.
- Re-charge fire extinguishers.
- Make sure alarm systems work.
- Board up any broken windows and doors.
- Establish where the business should be located until the premises have been renovated.
If the incident is very serious, you will need experts in areas such as water or fire damage to secure your workplace and help you to make it safe to occupy again. Take a look at these useful contacts for more information.
Long-term response
When the organisation has returned to normal operation after the event it is important to do a number of things to protect the business in the future.
- Review the performance of your continuity plan.
- Update your continuity plan based on your experiences.
- Provide psychological support to traumatised staff.
Need more inspiration?
Planning works! A few years ago a terrorist bomb seriously damaged the headquarters of a large insurance company over a spring weekend. By Monday morning furniture, computers, telephones and supplies had been delivered to a relocation address and over 500 staff were at work. This could not have been done without careful planning and as a result jobs were preserved and the business continued to flourish. Take a look at more case studies.
