Office Disaster Preparedness Plans – Focus on Communication & Safety
As you’ve undoubtedly seen over the last several weeks, in times of disaster such as Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, being able to communicate with family, friends, emergency personnel, and your coworkers is vitally important. There are apps to use to help communicate, and even social media has gotten in on the support – Facebook offers the ability to “check in” so your loved ones know you are safe. Creating a plan for communication while at work, centering on ensuring the safety and support of your coworkers and staff, will benefit you and your business. Here are office organizing tips from this NYC Professional Office Organizer to help you support the people in your business during an emergency.
Involve your team in the planning. As you create a disaster preparedness plan for your office, involve your staff in the process. Allow your team to ask questions and share concerns, as they may raise important points that should be included into your plan. Encourage your staff to work together so that you are all equally prepared in the event a disaster occurs.
Practice safety drills in the office. Remember in elementary school when you’d line up outside with your classmates when you had a fire drill? Just because we are adults now does not mean that we still shouldn’t practice these basic safety drills. Schedule time for safety drills for whatever types of disasters may be prevalent in your area. If you are in NYC like this Professional Office Organizer, then you may want to include drills relevant to office fires, power outages, and hurricanes. If your office is in California, then you may want to introduce drills for earthquake preparedness. If you are in the midwest, consider tornado drills as a part of your disaster preparations.
Have regular meetings to review safety procedures. The key to disaster preparedness is to make sure that your entire team is familiar with the plan well before anything happens. This ensures they’ll be able to take action and make appropriate decisions in the heat of the moment because specific protocols have been discussed. In order to keep safety procedures top of mind for your entire team, it’s important to schedule meetings to review, and perhaps revise as necessary, your current office disaster preparedness plan and safety procedures. A team could be selected to spearhead the review and revision process, and then communicate those changes to the staff.
Take a Red Cross first aid and CPR class. Knowing what to do in case of an emergency is important. In the event of injury, knowing how to provide simple first aid could make a huge difference. Taking the course yourself is a good idea, but also look into providing these courses for your staff.
Preparing for a disaster is an important office organizing task, and your staff will be grateful that their safety in an emergency is a priority. If you need more hands-on tips and strategies for office organizing and disaster preparedness, reach out to this NYC Professional Office Organizer.