As I participated in another regularly scheduled emergency drill at Logan Airport this past week, I thought of how important these drills are in the event of a real emergency.
I have worked in disaster response and emergency planning for decades and it’s clear to me that a well-practiced plan is simply the only way to coordinate an appropriate response in the event of an actual emergency, especially when multiple public and private entities are involved.
How practiced is your well-practiced plan?
Watching Massport’s drill also got me thinking of how many companies I’ve worked with that prepare elaborate emergency plans – only to never quite find the time to practice them. So often, the only time a plan actually gets used for many companies is during an actual emergency.
And that’s if anyone can even find the plan in the chaos that emergencies tend to create. But even if the plan is found, consider these points:
- How often have the emergency contact numbers changed?
- Are your contacts up to date? Perhaps they’ve taken different jobs within the company or are gone from the company altogether. Do you know?
So if you think it’s important to your business to have an emergency plan, you need to make the time at least annually to review that plan and practice it with your employees.
