How to Manage Your Fire Safety and Emergency Plans
By Kat Anderson | Submitted On August 29, 2011
Having emergency plans for your business is not an option - they are a necessity. Simply having a fire safety or emergency action plan isn't enough either. A big red binder full of procedures is only the beginning. You need to manage your plans, keep them up-to-date and train your emergency personnel so they know what to do should an emergency occur. It may sound like a daunting task to maintain your fire safety & emergency plans on an ongoing basis, but there are ways to make it easier, such as using an online plan management software program.
Do you know how often you should review your fire safety and emergency plans? At minimum, and as required by the international fire code, you must review your building's fire safety plan annually; however, it is best to review it on a more frequent basis to ensure that it is always up-to-date. Staff turnover and changes to building life safety systems quickly outdate plans. While the fire code requires annual reviews, experience tells us that changes occur more often and plans easily become obsolete when left for an entire year. This sounds like a lot of work, and it could be, but if your plan management software program allows you to review your plans online and make changes in real-time, it becomes quick and easy.
How do you maintain emergency personnel contact lists? Chances are that you don't because it's nearly impossible to keep on-top of. If your building has multiple tenants, wouldn't it be easier to use a program that allows your tenants to maintain their own lists of emergency personnel, such as floor wardens? Having emergency personnel is paramount to your building's ability to react and succeed during an emergency situation. Knowing who these people are is therefore also of great importance. Ensure lists are always up-to-date with plan management software.
Another area that is often a challenge to keep current is ensuring that these emergency personnel are trained. Online training courses enable one to quickly and easily ensure that all personnel are trained, but they often don't keep records. With staff coming and going, how is anyone to know who has been trained? Having a plan management software program that offers training courses and keeps a record of who has completed online emergency response training enables you to easily keep track of who has been trained and when. This way you are not only able to see who needs training, you are able to prove your personnel are trained and therefore reduce your liability while increasing life safety in your building.
Managing your building's fire safety or emergency action plan does not have to be headache-inducing. In fact, it can be almost effortless and take up very little of your time if you have the right software program doing most of the work for you. Why use one program for emailing personnel, another for online training and yet another to maintain lists of who has been contacted and trained? Using one streamlined program makes sense. Features such as automatic reminders, emergency personnel contact lists, email templates, links to all building floor plans and emergency procedures, to name a few, will simplify maintaining your emergency plans. Having one program that does it all makes your life easier and minimizes not only the number of tasks you have to do, but also the number of programs it takes to do them. Emergencies and disasters happen and it pays to be prepared. Make your life easier today with a plan management software program.
WPS Disaster Management Solutions has been providing Fire Safety & Multi-Hazard Emergency Action Plans for over 30 years. Visit us online at http://www.wps-plan.com to learn more.
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