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Preparing in Advance for Emergencies and Natural Disasters

Tuesday, February 11, 2014 8:55

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(Before It's News)

It’s not something any successful property manager ever wants to imagine: dealing with an emergency or natural disaster. Yet, as we’ve seen over the past few years, these occurrences are becoming much more commonplace, from floods and fires to hurricanes, blizzards and tornadoes. These types of events can be devastating to a business, destroying property and impacting the ability to work in just the blink of an eye. The best thing you can do is prepare ahead of time so that, in the event that such an emergency or disaster strikes, your office will be ready and your work won’t suffer long-term. That said, here are a few tips for how you can be ready to handle any situation that comes your way.

Identify the potential risks.

Depending on where your office is located, you may be more at risk for certain types of problems, like flooding in coastal areas and tornadoes in others. The first step in preparing an emergency/disaster preparedness plan is to identify all of the potential things that could go wrong so that you will be able to come up with an action plan for each.

Develop a detailed plan for each scenario.

Go through your list of potential problems and then create an action plan for dealing with each. For instance, should a natural disaster occur that shuts down the office, where will employees work (i.e. another location, from home, etc.). The plan should include a list of who will handle each scenario and the contact information for key professionals who may need to be enlisted to help, such as maintenance personnel.

Communicate these plans to everyone on your team.

Your plan is only as good as the people who carry it out, so be sure that all the details you’ve drawn up are communicated to each member of your team. Everyone should know ahead of time what their role is in each scenario to avoid potential confusion in the event that an unexpected emergency arises.

Leverage technology.

One of the biggest reasons businesses fail to recover following a disaster is lack of planning in the technology department. If you’ve got an old, antiquated system – or worse, no system at all – and something happens to destroy your physical office, there may be no way to recover. Utilize technological advances, such as property management software that can be accessed from anywhere. That way even if your equipment is destroyed, your critical business data will still be safe.

Reassess your plans at least twice a year.

Circumstances may have changed, or you may have forgotten to include certain potential scenarios in your original plan. It’s important to revisit your plan frequently so that any necessary changes can be made. Don’t forget to send out revised copies to your team any time changes are made.

Dealing with an emergency or natural disaster can be challenging enough, but when you’re not prepared ahead of time, it can be enough to put you right out of business. By carefully planning ahead, accounting for each possible scenario, developing a plan for each of these “what ifs”, and most importantly, leveraging technology to keep your business afloat, your organization will be in a much better position to make a full recovery.