Employee Safety In Times of Civil Unrest
When civil unrest threatens your company and your employees, how can you protect them? OSHA's directive to employers is to "provide a safe and healthful workplace free from recognized hazards that could cause death or serious physical harm to employees." Given today's social climate, that is a daunting task to say the least.
Here's some must-dos:
- Develop a comprehensive emergency plan. Think everything through- the contingencies, the restrictions, the day-to-day threats to personal safety.
- Engage your people. Be realistic with them. Like physical disasters, we don’t know when or where civil unrest may develop. So ask them. “What are you seeing out there?”
- Utilize credible news services for facts about the situation. Avoid rumors and conspiracy theories. And, be careful what you glean from social media.
- Train your employees in best safe practices. Safety training is the key to effective implementation of an emergency plan. Then, implement Practice Drills to walk through the plan. Preplay so they can replay when they really need to, making an appropriate response reflexive. That is, they will not wonder what to do- it will be automatic on signal.
- Urge employees to follow the directions of the authorities to either remain safe or get to safety. If they know of a dangerous situation, they should steer clear of it.
- Know what to do if employee safety requires sheltering in place – how to barricade doors, seek emergency shelter, or if and where there are safe exits out of the area.
- There are many elements to a good emergency plan. Getting traction to get it done can be a challenge. Please call us here at SafetyMetix to get assistance if needed. There’s a sense of urgency here so to put off is to write off, which could mean loss of life or severe injury. That’s what needs to be avoided.
- Did we mention training? SafetyMetix is the premier safety training source. Call us at (503) 893-2279.