September is National Preparedness Month, and this September, we will focus on ways to prepare your business for unexpected hazards. Being fully prepared for natural or human-caused disasters helps your business mitigate property damage while potentially saving lives.
Preparedness Planning for Your Business
Businesses and their staff face a variety of hazards:
- Natural hazards like floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes.
- Health hazards such as widespread and serious illnesses like the flu.
- Human-caused hazards including accidents and acts of violence.
- Technology-related hazards like power outages and equipment failure.
Be prepared
Step 1: Assess your risk
Every business has unique vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Knowing which disasters are most likely to affect your business can help you to return to operations faster. A back-to-business self-assessment can help you to assess your risks for common hazards such as hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, or even cyberattacks.
Step 2: Create a plan
Your response plan is your roadmap to recovery, so it should be tailored to your business’s specific needs and operations. It should address immediate priorities and be easy to access. Checklists and online toolkits are effective resources to help you develop your plan.
Focus on disasters that pose a realistic risk to your small business. Consult the following resources to lessen the financial impact of disasters and reopen your business quickly.
Step 3: Execute your plan
Practice your plan with your staff so you’re ready when a disaster occurs.
Business Impact Analysis
A business impact analysis (BIA) is the process for determining the potential impacts resulting from the interruption of time sensitive or critical business processes. This process predicts the consequences of disruption of a business function and process and gathers information needed to develop recovery strategies.
Risk Assessment
A risk assessment is a process to identify potential hazards and analyze what could happen if a hazard occurs. Potential loss scenarios should be identified during a risk assessment. Operations may also be interrupted by the failure of a supplier of goods or services or delayed deliveries. There are many possible scenarios which should be considered.
Risk Mitigation
There are many ways to reduce the potential impact on life, property, business operations and the environment. Risk mitigation lets business owners and planners identify ways that they can prepare to face these disasters before they occur.
Better to Be Safe Than Sorry
This saying may be cliché; however, preparing and planning for the unexpected is exceptionally beneficial for all types of businesses. Depending on your industry, workplace environment, and other factors, how your business prepares will differ.
