Aside from burglary and criminal activities, another destructive element that can severely affect your business assets and operations is natural disasters. This is why it’s critical for entrepreneurs and CEOs to establish a contingency plan to protect office space from such unfortunate scenarios. Your office space can be damaged, and all the broken tools, equipment, data loss, and even the health and safety of your employees will all lead to business loss.
Ever since the global warming issue is getting more precise, a more significant number of calamities have hit various countries in the world. Your city isn’t exempted from these mishaps. The weather is unpredictable, and floods, earthquakes, and storms could happen anytime. While the government is doing its fair share to alert and prepare people, it’s your sole responsibility as the company owner to create strategies for minimizing the worst outcomes after disasters.
Having said that, consider applying the following options and investing in Calamity Security System Monitoring to protect your office space in case of a natural disaster:
Inspect Your Office Space
To ensure your building is protected from natural disasters, you need to examine it well. Whether you own the commercial building yourself or are leasing from the landlord, it’s best to know how it is constructed. Water can seep into basements and lower levels of buildings when the ground surrounding your property becomes saturated, as it can flow in and through the walls. Check the specific location of your office and see if there are enough facilities and systems that can prevent water from seeping through your perimeters.
Check the downspouts, entry points; interior walls cracks and caulks, basement water entry, and landscape. Ensure proper drainage and ask your landlord about the waterproofing features of the entire building’s floors, foundation, and walls. You can also take the initiative by moving your equipment and tools away from vulnerable areas of the office like those near the windows, interior walls, and entry paths. Despite the small office space, you can make the best out of it by planning the layout effectively.
Consider investing in a generator in case of power outages and solar emergency lights, and other devices needed for calamities situations. One of the biggest challenges small businesses face is flooding. If you get flood insurance before a natural disaster, you can mitigate flood damage and ensure your small business survives.
Develop A Response Plan
An emergency response plan is one of the most integral elements to ensure the safety of your employees. There could be an accidental turnout of events caused by floods, storms, pandemics, or earthquakes. And you need to protect your employees, data, and other business assets. Ensure that your office space comes with accessible and convenient emergency stairs and exits. Prepare your employees to learn how to use them in case of emergencies.
Provide an employee with the complete list of employees and their work areas, and give that employee responsible for the evacuation team. A team leader will direct workers to a meeting area set aside for emergencies and assist with identifying who is present, injured, or missing on the employee roster. When one team is in charge of the response plan, everything gets easier to organize and resolve.
Prepare a detailed list of your vehicles and equipment before a disaster so that you can easily report them to your insurance company. Getting feedback from your team members is also essential when creating an emergency operations plan. Ask your employees for their input. You should ensure that everyone has a solid understanding of the plan, feels comfortable with the procedures outlined, and is ready to implement it when it’s needed. It can also be beneficial to hold drills to imagine the scenario and practice how to go through with the emergency plan.
Secure Records Offsite
When a business is down, accessing vital information is critical to getting back to normal as quickly as possible. Data is one of the most vital assets of your company, so, understandably, you protect them at all costs. Businesses should back up their computer data and keep offsite backups of important information.
These include information about insurance policies, vendor contracts, bank accounts, customer information, employees’ profile, and so on. You can have them backed up in the cloud and keep the printed information in another place like your home, for example.
Keep a list of all your company’s equipment, goods, and vehicles. Backups of important business data should be performed every other week. You can store your information in a virtual location such as cloud-based backup if you don’t find storing your data in a physical place comfortable. You can assign the IT department or the administration department to do these tasks.
Seek Advice From An Insurer
Once you have insurance coverage for your business, it’s best to review your policy and seek advice from your insurer regurally. A review of your company’s current insurance policy should also be discussed with your insurance advisor. In case you’re anticipating any disaster beforehand, or if you have experienced frequent storms in the past few years, you may feel like it’s best to broaden your insurance coverage.
Look into the limits of your current policy to ensure they are high enough to cover a total replacement if your property is damaged. Depending on your business’s region, you may need additional insurance coverage. For instance, old dominion business owners who take out flood insurance in Virginia should ensure that they also have policies in place for wind damage. Your insurance advisor can discuss further policy upgrades to increase your ease and peace of mind.
Prepare An Emergency Kit
Another critical strategy for a disaster response plan is to prepare an emergency kit intended for all the employees in your office. It is best to store your kit in sealed plastic bags and place it in a container that is easy to carry. Whether you are at your business or home, if you are told by local authorities to shelter in place, you must have an emergency kit that contains all the bare essentials you need.
Ensure that each kit comes with tools and items you need to prep for emergencies. This should include drinking water, non-perishable food and snacks, batteries, medicines, flashlights, whistles, and masks. You can also freely customize other contents that should be useful in case of storms and flooding.
Assess Risks
Start by conducting a thorough risk assessment for your small business to protect itself from flooding and other disasters. This will help you plan your response better. Prepare for the worst by ensuring your business has adequate insurance for the event of a natural disaster.
During a risk assessment, you must identify all threats to your business, office, and employees. Proceed in strategizing ways to handle such risks and how to support them. You can create procedures for distributing emergency kits and communicating during disasters. Don’t overlook the importance of employee training. Ensure that your employees are prepared to execute your emergency plan. Take steps to reduce the severity and impact of a flood. You can perform risk assessment procedures regularly to see if there should be any modifications to your response plan.
You can plan how to protect your assets once you know which processes and tools are necessary to run your company and which staff and systems you need. Think about how you would file a flood insurance claim in case of a flood to prepare for how you would respond.
Conclusion
Disasters can happen anytime in the city where your office is located. What’s essential is always to be ready and anticipate these emergencies to reduce risks and business loss. With the pointers in this article, you can establish an efficient and effective disaster response plan to protect office space.
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