National Preparedness Month: Protect Your Workplace

National Preparedness Month (September) is often used to promote disaster and emergency preparedness planning for households. But businesses and their employees encounter a wide range of natural and man-made hazards, from active violence situations to earthquakes and tornadoes to widespread illnesses and medical emergencies.

Here’s how business leaders can prepare their organization to plan for, respond to and mitigate emergencies.

Invest in preparedness resources and training

Just like for individuals and families, businesses should have a clear emergency response plan in place and provide hands-on training for common emergencies.

“The actions taken in the initial minutes of an emergency are critical. A prompt warning to employees to evacuate, shelter or lockdown can save lives. A call for help to public emergency services that provides full and accurate information will help the dispatcher send the right responders and equipment. An employee trained to administer first aid or perform CPR can be lifesaving. Action by employees with knowledge of building and process systems can help control a leak and minimize damage to the facility and the environment.” – Ready.gov

Therefore, every business should commit the time and money to properly prepare its workers for a variety of situations.

Ready.gov is a great place to start when exploring preparedness resources for your workplace. It has preparedness planning toolkits for businesses that serve as a step-by-step guide for a variety of hazards. Here’s just a few toolkits to explore:

Each toolkit breaks down how to identify risk, develop a plan and take action to build preparedness within your workplace.

Additionally, employees will benefit greatly from hands-on training that gives them the knowledge and confidence to respond during an emergency.

For example, CPR, AED and First Aid training allows students to create muscle memory as they practice their CPR technique in real life scenarios. Whereas AVERT (short for Active Violence Emergency Response Training) classes will train your staff to anticipate potential danger and react quickly if active violence occurs.

Options for employee training

Need CPR, AED, First Aid or active shooter training for your business? HSI makes it easy with multiple training solutions.

Use HSI’s National Training Solution (NTS) network to receive CPR, AED and First Aid training at your own location or request on-site AVERT training from a qualified Instructor.

You also have the option to develop an in-house training center led by your own team. Becoming an instructor is a simple, but thorough process that will then allow for consistent in-house training for all your employees.

Connect with our team to start preparing your workplace for a range of emergencies!

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