Businesses and their employees face a variety of hazards:
- Natural hazards like floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes.
- Health hazards such as widespread and serious illnesses.
- Human-caused hazards such as accidents and acts of violence.
- Technology-related hazards like power outages and equipment failure.
Business leaders and employees can do a lot to prepare for the most likely hazards they will face in the workplace. Ready Business helps you to create a preparedness plan to get ready for what comes next.
The Ready Business Toolkit series includes hazard-specific versions for earthquake, hurricane, inland flooding, power outage, and severe wind/tornado. Toolkits offer business leaders a step-by-step guide to build preparedness within an organization.
The process for creating a business’ preparedness plans should encompass as much as possible of what a business might need during an emergency. This includes communications planning, IT support and recovery, and continuity plans. Ready.gov and FEMA have plans available that your business can use to get started.
Being prepared in advance is a critical step to responding to an emergency and keeping your business and employees safe. Training, testing and exercises are essential components of preparedness. Training ensures that everyone knows what to do when there is an emergency or business operations are disrupted.
If your business doesn’t have a plan yet, or if you’re in the middle of reviewing plans, there are steps that business leaders can take to prepare their companies for the disaster that comes down next. Many disasters and hazards can’t be prevented, but you can take steps now to get ready to plan.
A variety of resources are available to help your business be prepared for a disaster and recover stronger. Information to help you prepare and recover includes resources on incident management, resource management and hazard prevention.