Published on: July 18, 2022

The more prepared you are for emergencies, the better you'll be able to respond. Our recent resource will help you develop effective procedures for evacuating your business.

Emergency evacuation planning for your workplace outlines the requirements for emergency preparedness and things to consider for your evacuation plan so you'll be ready in the event of an emergency.

The unexpected happened one day in 2008, a day that seemed like any other to business owners along downtown Victoria’s View Street — until an underground electrical fire caused a 136-kilogram manhole cover to shoot skyward just outside Sapphire Day Spa.

Miraculously, the cover crashed onto the pavement, missing cars and pedestrians, before a sickly green smoke spilled out of the manhole and began to fill the street.

Spa staff quickly called the fire department, and fire officials told them to stay put until further notice. When firefighters gave the order to evacuate, employees were well-prepared, chaperoning clients out of the building through well-marked exits to safety, without panic or undue stress. They had practiced this before.

Employees’ ability to avert chaos reflected an employer with a serious commitment — both to protecting her staff through emergency planning and, by extension, protecting her business as well.

Sapphire Day Spa owner Heidi Sherwood’s approach to emergencies is commendable, but unfortunately, all too rare. Smaller businesses generally tend to put less emphasis on meeting minimum requirements for emergency preparedness, let alone planning for recovery after the fact. And that’s despite the fact that it’s their legal obligation to be prepared.

Prepare, practice, and plan

And Sherwood takes those emergency response planning duties to heart. In her business plan, in fact, she ranks earthquakes a bigger risk than market competition.

It’s no surprise, then, that she has procedures and equipment in place for emergency response and post-emergency business recovery, including the following items: communication plans; on-site, 72-hour, 10-person emergency kits; flashlights in every treatment room; well-lit and well-marked emergency exits; and off-site data storage, just in case a disaster destroys all of the spa’s computers and data.

Sapphire Day Spa also ensures new employees learn about emergency preparedness in their orientations. What’s more, they receive additional emergency response training at special City of Victoria seminars and participate in regular drills. One of the key drills they take part in is the annual province-wide ShakeOut BC, an earthquake response drill that happens every October.

Sherwood happens to be among a committed group of employers who go above and beyond the regulation to be prepared for the unexpected. But those who do, say they’re not only doing what they’re told — they’re actually thinking like smart businesspeople: preparing for the worst with a long-range view to maintaining operations after the fact.

“I invite staff and customers here and it’s my responsibility to protect them,” Sherwood says. “I worked hard for this business. I’d feel negligent if I didn’t safeguard it against all risks — including natural disasters.”

Emergency drills are paramount

Unlike Sherwood’s smaller scale spa operation, some larger employers have a built-in workplace culture around emergency preparedness. FortisBC, which is in the business of providing natural gas and electricity to customers, trains all of its employees to be comfortable with emergency drill procedures and ready to respond to crises in the short- and long-term.

Plan for business recovery

Planning for a crisis is crucial, and so is planning for the recovery afterwards. It can make the difference between an enterprise that goes under and one that survives, and even thrives.

Laurie Pearce is a faculty member in the Disaster Management Program at Royal Roads University and she teaches business continuity management at the Justice Institute: “It’s about getting back to normal as quickly as possible,” she says, “because even a short-lived crisis can ruin a business.”

Most importantly, says fellow academic Robin Cox, in planning for big emergencies, business owners should be thinking about their effects on the overall well-being of employees.

Cox, who is program head of Disaster and Emergency Management at Royal Roads, and the lead researcher in the university’s ResilienceByDesign research lab, studied the process of recovery after a devastating fire in the summer of 2003 that virtually razed Barriere, B.C., north of Kamloops. “Businesses are made up of people,” she says. “And if you want your business to continue after a disaster, you need people working. But if employees are uncertain about the safety of their families, friends, and pets, that’s where they’ll focus. An employee’s first impulse after a disaster is to go home to be with family.”

And disaster can wreak longer-term effects on employees’ mental health. “Displacement leads to a loss of routine and a disruption of support networks,” Cox says. “Often the environment is completely changed, and that can be disorienting. And there are complex, stressful decisions to make, all while catching up on mounting workloads.

“Being concerned about the well-being of employees is always important,” Cox says. “It’s even more so when in crisis.”

But that work, of course, needs to happen well before a crisis occurs. Cox recommends employers develop a business continuity plan with employee input. “Consult with them, educate and train them, and encourage them to be prepared at home and on the road as well.”

This is an excerpt from the Sept./Oct. 2015 issue of WorkSafe Magazine. To read more or to subscribe, visit WorkSafe Magazine.