Chapter 39. Emergency Preparedness for Businesses and Workplaces
Emergency preparedness is essential for every business, nonprofit, professional office, restaurant, retail store, school, healthcare practice, warehouse, and workplace. A disaster can threaten employees and visitors, interrupt operations, damage property, destroy records, disrupt technology, and prevent customers from receiving important services.
Businesses in Pleasanton, Dublin, Livermore, San Ramon, Danville, Sunol, and surrounding Tri-Valley and Bay Area communities may face wildfires, earthquakes, smoke, extreme heat, flooding, power outages, hazardous-material incidents, cyberattacks, and other emergencies. A written workplace emergency plan can help an organization protect people, communicate accurately, and resume essential operations.
Establish Reliable Employee Communications
A business should be able to contact employees before, during, and after an emergency. Maintain current telephone numbers, email addresses, emergency contacts, and preferred communication methods. Protect this information and limit access to authorized personnel.
Use more than one communication channel because power, internet access, cellular networks, or a particular platform may be unavailable. Possible methods include:
- Emergency text notifications
- Telephone calls
- An internal messaging platform
- A recorded information line
- A secure employee website
- Supervisory call trees
Employees should know which channels will carry official workplace instructions. Messages should be brief and specific: whether the workplace is open, closed, evacuating, sheltering in place, operating remotely, or awaiting further information.
Businesses should never require employees to travel through an evacuation zone, closed road, wildfire area, floodwater, or another dangerous condition merely to report for work.
Plan Evacuation and Shelter Procedures
Every workplace should identify primary and alternate exits, outdoor assembly areas, shelter-in-place locations, fire extinguishers, first-aid supplies, emergency shutoffs, and alarm systems. Evacuation maps should be visible and understandable.
Employees must know how to:
- Report an emergency
- Activate an alarm
- Call 911
- Evacuate without using unsafe elevators
- Assist customers and visitors
- Reach the designated assembly area
- Report missing or injured people
- Shelter in place when leaving is more dangerous
- Follow instructions from authorized responders
Conduct periodic drills that reflect the building, workforce, hours of operation, and likely hazards. A restaurant may need procedures for kitchens and dining areas, while a warehouse may need plans for forklifts, hazardous materials, and large loading areas.
No employee should reenter an evacuated building until authorized officials say it is safe.
Account for Customers and Visitors
Employees may understand the emergency plan, but customers, delivery drivers, contractors, patients, applicants, event attendees, and other visitors may not.
Assign staff members to direct visitors toward exits or shelter areas when it is safe to do so. Reception areas should have a simple method for identifying visitors present in the building, especially at larger or secured workplaces.
Emergency instructions should use plain language. Do not assume everyone speaks English, can hear an alarm, can read a posted notice, or understands the building layout.
Include Accessibility in Every Plan
Workplace preparedness must include employees and visitors with disabilities and access or functional needs. A person may require an accessible exit route, evacuation chair, visual alarm, written instruction, communication assistance, medication, mobility equipment, service animal, or additional time.
Discuss individualized needs respectfully before an emergency. Do not assume what assistance someone requires. Identify backup personnel and accessible alternatives because the usual helper, elevator, doorway, or route may be unavailable.
Emergency planning should also consider pregnant employees, older adults, people with temporary injuries, workers who do not drive, and anyone who depends on electrically powered medical equipment.
Protect Records and Essential Information
Important records should not exist in only one office, filing cabinet, computer, or employee’s possession. Identify documents necessary to protect employees, customers, finances, property, and operations, including:
- Insurance policies and contact information
- Employee and payroll records
- Customer and vendor contacts
- Licenses, permits, contracts, and leases
- Banking and tax information
- Equipment and property inventories
- Technology and software records
- Emergency procedures
- Building plans and utility information
Maintain secure backups in an appropriately protected location. Sensitive personal, financial, medical, and business information must remain confidential during emergency response and recovery.
Prepare for Remote Operations and Data Protection
Determine which essential functions can continue if the workplace becomes inaccessible. Employees may need laptops, secure remote access, collaboration tools, telephone forwarding, backup power, and alternative internet connections.
Test remote systems before an emergency. Confirm that employees understand password security, multifactor authentication, approved devices, secure document sharing, and procedures for reporting suspicious activity. Disasters often create opportunities for phishing, payment fraud, executive impersonation, and false requests to change banking information.
Back up critical data regularly and test whether it can actually be restored. A backup that has never been tested may fail when it is most needed.
Review Insurance and Physical Assets
Businesses should maintain current inventories of buildings, equipment, furniture, technology, vehicles, merchandise, supplies, and other assets. Photographs, serial numbers, receipts, purchase records, and maintenance information may assist with recovery documentation.
Review insurance coverage periodically with a qualified insurance professional. Ask about property damage, business interruption, equipment breakdown, cyber incidents, vehicles, temporary locations, and other risks relevant to the organization. Coverage varies, so businesses should not assume that every emergency-related loss or expense will be covered.
After damage occurs, document conditions when it is safe, contact the insurer through verified channels, and retain receipts for emergency expenses.
Create a Business Continuity Plan
A workplace emergency plan protects people during the incident. A business continuity plan explains how the organization will continue or restore essential services afterward.
Identify:
- The most critical products and services
- The longest acceptable interruption for each function
- Alternate workplaces and remote-operation options
- Backup suppliers and service providers
- Essential employees and substitute decision-makers
- Customer-notification procedures
- Payroll and payment responsibilities
- Data-restoration priorities
- Recovery expenses and emergency funding
- Steps for reopening safely
Businesses should prepare accurate customer messages explaining delays, closures, alternate service methods, or reopening plans. Avoid making promises that cannot be kept. Update websites, voicemail, social-media accounts, and physical signs as conditions change.
Emergency preparedness conversations shared through community platforms such as Sanj Talks can encourage local businesses, employees, customers, nonprofit leaders, and public-safety professionals to learn from one another. However, each organization must develop a plan suited to its operations, location, workforce, regulatory responsibilities, and risks.
Helpful Hint
Assign responsibilities by role, not only by one person’s name. The designated individual may be absent when an emergency occurs. Identify primary and backup personnel for communications, evacuation, accessibility assistance, records, technology, customer updates, and continuity decisions.
Important Safety Reminder
Call 911 for an immediate threat to life, fire, serious injury, or another urgent emergency. Follow official evacuation, shelter, road-closure, and reentry instructions. No business deadline, customer request, document, inventory item, or piece of equipment is more important than human safety.
Important Preparedness and Safety Notice
This chapter provides general preparedness education, not real-time emergency instructions. Conditions, evacuation zones, routes, shelters, road closures, and public-safety directions can change rapidly. During an emergency, consult current information from authorized public agencies and follow all instructions issued by emergency officials. Call 911 for an immediate threat to life, active fire, serious injury, crime in progress, or another urgent emergency.
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