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Posts Tagged ‘emergency’

When Businesses Encourage Family Preparedness, Community Resilience Improves

Your business continuity plan could be compromised if your employees and their families are unprepared to keep their families and pets safe after a disaster. According to a 2012 poll by Adelphi University Center for Health Innovation, almost half of all Americans have no family disaster plan or supplies, making it very likely that some of your employees are unprepared.

Preparedness Gaps

44% of Americans do not have a first-aid kit.
48% of Americans do not have emergency supplies.
42% of Americans don’t know the phone numbers of immediate family members.

Improving the Speed of Recovery

In order to return to normal as soon as possible after a disaster, communities need businesses open and employees at work. That’s why it’s vital that you work with employees, especially any that are essential for business continuity and resilience, to develop a family preparedness plan.

Most of the 48% of Americans without emergency supplies think it’s a good idea to have supplies and a plan, but they keeping putting it off. By incorporating family preparedness into the culture of preparedness you promote for the business, you provide people with information and a framework to make emergency planning a priority at home and at the office.

5 Ways to Encourage Employees to Develop a Family Emergency Plan

Hand out checklists that employees can take home to make sure they have everything needed in an emergency.
Distribute information about family preparedness as part of new employee orientation and post useful links on the company intranet.
Conduct a lunchtime training session about family preparedness, where people can ask questions and share ideas.
During your annual (or more frequent) business continuity planning review, send a reminder to employees and include the checklists and links. Remind everyone to inspect family go-kits for expired items.
Ask any employees who are essential to your business continuity plan to confirm that they have a family plan and emergency supplies.

Strengthen your business continuity planning by encouraging family preparedness for your employees. Everyone will be better off for it.

Contributing Author

Lilly Harris is the CEO of MSA, Inc., a small, economically disadvantaged, woman-owned small business that delivers expertise and knowledge in Professional Services, Systems Test Evaluation and Support, and Emergency Management to more than thirty federal and commercial clients.

Beyond Fire Dills

Turn on the news following a mass shooting and the witness describe the same scene: people barricading themselves in rooms, hiding under tables, scrambling for shelter as a shooter stalks through the building.

As unlikely as it seems, it is possible to prepare for this situation and make your workplace safer.

The Current Statistics

The FBI defines a mass shooting as an event where four or more people are killed. USA Today used that definition to analyze 146 mass shootings during the last seven years and found that over 900 people had been killed in mass shootings. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence defines a mass shooting as three or more people killed or injured in a single incident. Following their standard, they estimate more than 20 mass shootings per year in the US.

The Need for Drills

Practice makes perfect. Most of the victims or witnesses involved in a mass shooting were taught how to calmly evacuate a building in case of a fire as children, but almost none of them know how to react if they are faced with gunfire. Conducting regular drills provides your organization with the muscle memory to respond effectively to an active shooter incident.

The Importance of Planning

In addition to drills and training, your business should plan for an active shooter as it would other disasters. We recommend the following best practices.

Devote a section of your Occupant Emergency Plan (OEP) to active shooter procedures
Train your existing staff and new hires to follow the procedures in your OEP.
Exercise active shooter procedures as you would fire drills, at least twice per year.
Planning will instill confidence and a create a culture of preparedness at all levels of your organization

The Comfort of Preparedness

Active shooters are not something most people want to think about, but avoidance won’t keep you, your employees, or your business safe. Remember too that we learn to exit buildings safely during fire drills in school and at work, and we have some idea how to proceed in other buildings if a fire breaks out. If you take the time to train your employees, they’ll have that information no matter where they go. Some parameters will change, but knowing the basics of how to behave in an active shooter situation may save their lives even if they aren’t at the office.

It’s easy to avoid uncomfortable topics, and we all do it. But don’t let discomfort lead to a lack of preparation. If you need help with active shooter preparation, we’re here to guide you and your staff through the process.

Lilly Harris CEO, MSA

Lilly Harris is the President and CEO of Man-Machine Systems Assessment. MSA is an Economically Disadvantaged Woman-Owned Small Business with 23 years of government contracting experience. MSA is passionate about our Warfighters and the preparedness of our nation. MSA works diligently to evaluate defense systems, ensure continuity of operations and support mission critical programs that are aligned with our passion and mission.

Visit: www.msaincorp.com

Follow: @MSAincorp

Is Your Data Disaster-Proof?

Information Week, a leading IT industry news source, estimates $26.5 billion in revenue is lost annually due to network and system interruptions. Despite the potential for depleted earnings, angry customers, tarnished reputations, and lost data, over 50% of businesses don’t have an IT disaster recovery plan.

Build a Strong Foundation

Your IT systems support your business, making it is essential to design a solid infrastructure that aligns with your business goals, secures your data, and is resilient. Here are a few simple tips that many organizations neglect.

Schedule maintenance for off-hours. Like your car, information systems need maintenance to operate consistently and at peak efficiency.
Keep software up-to-date. You don’t need to be on the cutting edge, but falling too far behind can cause you more problems and leave you vulnerable to attacks.
Define a password policy and disable old employee accounts. These two best practices are easy to overlook, but the results of negligence can be disastrous, leaving the door open for hostile hackers and disgruntled former employees.

Secure Your Digital Borders

The 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report from Verizon found 68% of attacks required very little skill on the part of attackers. This means that most networks are vulnerable to simple hacks by opportunistic individuals. With so many boxes to check and settings to configure, it’s easy to overlook minor flaws that create big security holes.

Experts can help you close the back doors that hurried employees or loose security guidelines leave open. In the end, the cost of an attack, measured in lost data or downtime, is much higher than the cost of a secure infrastructure.

Plan for Failure

Developing an IT Disaster Recovery Plan ensures your business can get back to work as quickly as possible after a service interruption, natural disaster, hardware failure, or anything cyberspace can throw at you. Make your IT DRP part of a larger, comprehensive Business Continuity Plan and you’ll be ready for anything. To start developing an IT DRP, follow these steps.

Gather stakeholders from various departments to determine which systems, software and data they must have to operate.
Assign priority levels to the most critical systems. You may want to consider generators that can provide power during storms or utilizing an off-site, secure data center.
Estimate the amount of time it will take to restore offline systems after an outage.
Test and reassess your IT DRP yearly or quarterly, depending on your business needs, to account for changes and updates to systems.

Enjoy the Benefits

You may not find your business in the path of a hurricane or tornado tomorrow, but your systems are vulnerable to attacks in ways that your physical structures and employees are not. IT DRP prepares you to deal with data failures, hacking, connectivity outages, theft, and a host of other IT-specific threats and crises.

Avoid the high cost of IT infrastructure failures by investing in a solid plan today.

Lilly Harris
CEO
MSA, Inc.