May 4-10 is Emergency Preparedness Week. As Canadians think about how to prepare themselves for emergencies at home, it is important that businesses also reflect upon and update their emergency plans. Companies need to ensure their emergency plans address both their employees and their infrastructure.
 

Employee Preparedness

Most emergencies strike while employees are at work so it is essential that companies take the proper steps to protect the team. Employers need to consider everything from emergency kits (food, water, flash lights and first aid kits), to evacuation plans, to plans that ensure business operations can continue at a secondary location.
 

Infrastructure Preparedness

Emergencies are often accompanied by power outages or equipment failure. During a power outage businesses can lose thousands of dollars due to down time costs. Air conditioning and heating units are impacted, servers and computer networks are left unusable and all business actives may come to a complete halt. If lives are depending on heating and cooling infrastructures, the cost of a power outage can increase dramatically. Implementing an emergency preparedness plan before a problem strikes can save your company 30 to 50 percent to resolve the situation.

You can view some basic emergency preparedness tips in our May newsletter, or call us to talk about how GAL Power Systems can help you implement plan to protect your company from emergencies.