Emergency Response and Business Continuity must be part of your new employee orientation process.
If this is not the case in your organization it would be a very very big win for you to partner with HR, Safety, Security and Learning & Development to help all new employees be better prepared.
Tip – Each employee has to be made aware of evacuation procedures and rally points. Awareness of proper evacuation procedures and the whereabouts of rally points can be the difference between life and death, for both the employee and possibly a fireman that needlessly goes into harm’s way to save an employee when he actually jumped in his car and went for a bite instead of going directly to the rally point to be accounted for. Unfortunately, no one ever communicated to him the correct procedure to follow.
Tip – Process owners (department managers) must discuss their business continuity plan with new hires and let them know their role(s) in the plan.
Tip – An online video or introductory course is a great way to provide consistent information to all new employees. If you have a Learning & Development team they can help develop this.
Tip – During every tabletop that I host I ask process owners if they provide new employees with emergency response and business continuity information. Try it. When you do your next tabletop ask attendees, ‘by a show of hands do you include emergency response and business continuity during your new employee orientation process?”
If 100% of your employees currently receive this critical information as part of their new employee orientation process you are very fortunate. So many things happen when a new employee joins an organization that emergency response and business continuity can be overlooked.