Business Continuity For Dummies

Premises and Assets: Preparing and Taking Precautions

This section contains some easy measures to take to protect your business buildings (and the people inside them) and keep your assets safe:

Plan the evacuation of your building. Consider how you’re going to evacuate the building and how you can ensure that everyone gets out safely, taking into consideration those with less mobility. Plan where you’re going to evacuate to and assemble.

Now, imagine that the exit you intend to use is blocked and the congregation area you select is cordoned off. Plan your contingency arrangements to deal with these problems. Also consider:

• Your way of alerting people to an evacuation. Shouting or blowing a whistle may be the quickest and easiest method. But make sure that staff are aware of the plans in advance and that you test them . . . while you have the chance. An evacuation situation is not one where you want to be relying on lessons learned for the next time during a real event. You need an effective way of communicating to people.

• Your routes of escape. Even if you or staff members are working from home, ensure that you can open an upstairs window and throw a mattress out to soften your landing, in case you have to climb out, hang from the window ledge and drop onto the mattress. In ...