As a business owner, you’ll likely have to face many situations that have the potential to significantly impact your business. Whether or not your business survives often comes down to whether or not you’re prepared for these situations. Although disaster preparedness isn’t the most exciting part of running a business, it’s certainly one of the most important. To ensure you don’t get caught off-guard, here are a few disasters that you should be prepared to respond to.
Break-In
Whether or not your business stocks physical merchandise, a break-in can have devastating effects. A burglar can cause thousands of dollars in property damage and steal intellectual or tangible assets that can be difficult to replace. When you can, try to use shatter-proof glass on any windows around your facility. You’ll also want to make sure to have an alarm system to ensure that the proper authorities are notified immediately so that they can respond to the break-in.
Fire
A serious fire at your business’s location can take a disastrous toll on your facility and your employees. Plus, even when the fire is out, your business operations will likely be interrupted for quite some time. To help reduce the severity of a potential fire, it’s a good idea to have fire protection engineers survey your building to look for ways to improve the architecture in a way that helps prevent the spread of fire. Of course, a reliable sprinkler system is also a must for any commercial building.
Natural Disaster
Floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, and other types of natural disasters are not something to take lightly. To ensure that you can recover quickly from a natural disaster, one of the best things you can do is make sure that you have good insurance on your facility and ensure that the insurance covers every possible local disaster. If you’re building a new facility, it’s important to select a site and building materials that can stand up to punishing conditions.
Active Shooter
In today’s world, the risk of an active shooter is just as high as any other disaster. It’s important to equip each of your employees with the tools they’ll need to respond appropriately if this situation should occur. An important mantra to teach every employee is “run, hide, fight.” Employees should try to escape first, hide if they can’t escape, and fight if they have no other options.
Thinking through every potential disaster is an important part of normal business operations. Imagining all of the “what-if” situations doesn’t make you paranoid. Instead, taking the time to
protect your facility and your employees makes you prepared. Making the most of the time you have prior to a disaster will help you respond quickly so that you minimize your losses.
