Small Biz Disaster PlanIs your business ready for a crisis like the recent hurricane? Get prepared with these four steps to disaster-planning.
It's going to happen some day: A key employee is badlyinjured in an accident; a power outage knocks out your computers; atornado takes out your warehouse. Unexpected emergencies canmomentarily shut down operations, or even worse, put you out ofbusiness for weeks and force your customers to go elsewhere--andstay there. Are you prepared for this? It's not as difficult asyou think. Here's how to plan for the inevitable:
Step 1: Determine what can go wrong.The first thing youshould do is complete what's commonly referred to as avulnerability or risk assessment. This assessment will identifywhat could go wrong, the effect on your business if somethingdoesgo wrong, and what priority you should take inminimizing your risk exposure. During this assessment, youshould:
- Learn the threats and risks your business faces.Threatsare anything that could happen to your people, processes,infrastructure or reputation, including natural threats (hurricanesand tornados), technological threats (machinery malfunctions), orhuman threats (stealing).
- Once you've identified the possible threats, determinehow vulnerable you are to them.How reliable is your databackup system in the event of a power outage? Are your employeesproperly trained for an earthquake? What about your securitysystem--how capable are you of preventing customer or employeetheft? Determine what your most vulnerable areas are and whatmitigation measures are needed to protect them.
- With threats and vulnerabilities identified, startprioritizing.Rank your threats in order of frequency. Now rankyour vulnerabilities to these threats by the impact they'llhave on your business; for example, inventory results show employeetheft is $5,000 per year, computer failure costs $100 per hour, andso on. Apply those numbers to the prioritized risks, and now youhave a risk exposure for each threat. The higher the risk exposure,the more it's worth your while to protect yourself from thatthreat.
Step 2: Develop a plan.An emergency action plan is awritten procedure manual for dealing with the threats you'veidentified in step one. Some of the components of your plan will beprescribed by law, regulations or good business sense. Among theseare an OSHA-directed evacuation plan, adherence to the provisionsof the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act,the Sarbanes-Oxley antifraud law, or the National Fire ProtectionAssociation's Life-Safety Code.
When there's a legal requirement to do something, you'reusually--but not always--told how to comply. There are a number ofdifferent ways to create your emergency plan; however, allemergency plans tend to have the same basic elements. According tothe National Safety Council, emergency actions plans should containthe following minimum elements:
- Clear, written policies that designate a chain of command,listing names and job titles of the people or departments who areresponsible for making decisions, monitoring response actions, andrecovering back-to-normal operations
- Names of the people responsible for assessing the degree ofrisk to life and property, and who exactly should be notified forvarious types of emergencies
- Specific instructions for shutting down equipment andproduction processes and stopping business activities
- Facility evacuation procedures, including a designated meetingsite outside the facility and a process to account for allemployees after an evacuation
- Procedures for employees who are responsible for shutting downcritical operations before they evacuate the facility
- Specific training, practice schedules and equipmentrequirements for employees who are responsible for rescueoperations, medical duties, hazardous responses, fire fighting andother responses specific to your work site
- The preferred means of reporting fires and otheremergencies
All your procedures should be documentedin writing.
Finally, ensure that you have a way of contacting your customersshould you have the need. A press release, an e-mail or a sign thatdirects them to a new location or provides them with information onwhen you'll be back in business go far in reminding folks thatyour reputation is dependent on taking care of your customers.
Step 3: Be ready to respond.Once you get the basicemergency action plan written, tell your employees! Make sure theyknow what's expected of them in an emergency--any kind ofemergency. If they haven't been involved before, give them anopportunity to "dry run" the plan and talk over howthings might go in an emergency scenario (this is called a tabletopexercise). You might find that there are changes you need to maketo some of the plan's details. That's good. No plan isperfect, and it's not even a plan until it's beentested.
Be sure to share your response protocols, especially yourevacuation procedures, with the local fire department, emergencymedical service and police department. These are likely the firsttype assistance to arrive on the scene, and they'll need toknow what actions you've taken. When they've been apprisedof your emergency action plan ahead of time, they're betterprepared to help. As well, they're experienced with these kindsof plans and can provide valuable insight that you may want toincorporate into your written plan.
一些其他领域的培训你的员工that'll helpmitigate the effects of an emergency and provide huge returns inemployee satisfaction and business reputation include:
- Emergency equipment shutdown
- Emergency notification procedures
- Building evacuation procedures
- Fire extinguisher use
- Basic first aid
- Cardio-pulmonary respiration (CPR)
Training is an important and relatively inexpensive part ofemergency preparation that may save a life. More important, propertraining can prevent an emergency from becoming a disaster and makeall the difference between closing down operations for a few hoursand being out of business indefinitely.
Step 4: Get back to business.Once you've implementedthe first three steps, take the time to think about the worst-casescenario and make some plans for how you'll recover. Somequestions to think about--and answer--include these:
- Where will you find a new location to work?
- Where can you get replacement equipment and computers?
- Who will help clean up after the storm/fire/disaster?
- How will you recover your critical data--the computers ororiginal documents damaged by water or fire?
- How will you reach your people?
- How will they reach your?
- How will they get to work?
- What if your suppliers aren't as prepared and somethinghappens to them?
- What programs are available to help your business (FederalEmergency Management Agency, SBA) or help your people (Red Cross,Salvation Army)?
There are many more questions you could ask yourself, butI'm sure you get the idea. What will it take for you to getback into business quickly? You might be very proud of getting youroperations back up in three weeks, but if your competitor does itin one, where will your customers go? How much will your reputationsuffer?
记住,一旦你没有办法保证u'rein business, you'll stay in business. It's up to you toplan ahead and be prepared by creating the most resilient businesspossible.
Charles S. Thomas is the managing director ofCACHInternational Ltd. Co., an internationally recognized firm thatprovides business continuity and crisis response consultingservices.
