Seven Steps to Employee Preparedness

Human behavior during any type of emergency is the critical factor in determining the ultimate success or failure of an emergency response.

During an actual emergency in the workplace, employees will either be part of the problem or part of the solution. A New York Academy of Medicine study titled Redefining Readiness suggests that individuals may react very differently than planners anticipate. Incorrect assumptions about emergency behaviors can seriously undermine the success of emergency response efforts.

These findings are critical for anyone involved in risk management, health and safety, or security functions. Employers can greatly influence how employees will respond during an emergency by taking several important steps before a disaster strikes.

Step 1: Make It Personal
A cornerstone of organizational preparedness is personal preparedness. Individuals who have prepared a family communication plan, put together a small emergency kit for their desk or locker (see Sidebar), and have thought through their roles and responsibilities in different crisis or disaster scenarios are more likely to remain calm, cooperate, and help others than those who are caught off guard by the situation.

Step 2: Give Employees a Voice
In the aforementioned New York Academy of Medicine Study, it was found that, “Among people who believe that they can have a lot of influence on plans and that preparing ahead of time can reduce harm a lot, strong personal interest in participating in planning is threefold greater than baseline.” The study also found that people who participate in planning are much more likely to cooperate during an actual emergency and help facilitate an effective response than those who did not have a voice in plan development. Involving employees early can play an important role in the overall preparedness/response cycle.

Step 3: Raise Awareness of Plans and Procedures
Studies suggest that people are only half as likely to cooperate and follow emergency instructions if they lack confidence in the organization’s plans. Employers should use newsletters, their intranet, staff meetings, and other communications tools to share information about emergency plans and procedures. They should implement and test systems for notifying employees about disasters and emergencies so they can see how the process works. Special plans should be made to communicate with those employees who are hearing-impaired or have other disabilities.

Step 4: Empower Employees with Knowledge and Tools
By providing the necessary resources, frontline employees can be transformed into the first line of defense during an emergency. Panic is rooted in competition. For example, if individuals feel that there is a limited opportunity for escape or to receive a dose of vaccine that is in short supply, they will stop thinking about helping others and begin to think only of their own survival. When people have a greater sense of control, they typically do not panic and can function as part of a planned response, rather than operating purely from self interest.

Information about the plan, employees’ roles, and the resources available can help suppress panic and create a sense of empowerment. Fear and anxiety result from the perception of a loss of control. Knowledge and tools that contribute to a sense of control can greatly influence disaster and emergency behaviors.

Step 5: Address the Home Front
Employees faced with conflicting obligations between the home and the workplace are less likely to cooperate during an emergency because of a pull to leave for home to care for others. Depending on the nature of the emergency, employees who leave the workplace against the advice or direction of the employer might put themselves and many others at greater risk.

Employees who have worked through issues of emergency childcare, family communications, and transportation prior to an emergency are more likely to stay the course during a disaster since they know that their loved ones, as well as their homes, are secure. Employers should actively promote personal and family preparedness as part of the organizational planning effort to help reduce the possibility that employees will feel torn between loyalties during an emergency.

Step 6: Tie Disaster Preparedness to Ongoing Safety Initiatives
One of the most common reasons employers site for not bringing frontline employees more fully into the planning process is the fear that employees will be overwhelmed. Finding the balance between too much information and not enough information is always a challenge, but as a general rule, employers should have faith in people’s ability to sort through and make sense of information that has to do with their own safety. Of course care must be used with the security-sensitive information that is usually part of the emergency preparedness mix when deciding what should be shared.

The details of a stand-alone emergency plan can become just one more thing for everyone to learn. By integrating emergency plans with other ongoing safety initiatives, such as accident reduction programs, employers can help reduce the sense that the emergency plan is too difficult to remember or recall in the heat of a real incident. The emergency plan can simply be an extension of existing safety plans and can help support the sense that the employer is making safety in the workplace the primary concern.

Step 7: Include Employees in Drills and Exercises
Practice doesn’t make perfect, only perfect practice makes perfect! If only key players participate in emergency drills and exercises, the bulk of the workforce may be missing out on important opportunities to rehearse their roles. There is a significant psychological benefit to employee participation at all levels of employment. The sense of contributing to the plan and the perception of being on the inside of the emergency planning process can greatly influence employee behavior during a real emergency.

Watching the plan unfold during drills and exercises can help build employee confidence and improve the odds that they will cooperate in a real emergency. Exercise leaders must remember to emphasize that the purpose of emergency exercises is to “test plans, not people.” By reducing any anxiety employees may have about “messing up” during an exercise, employers can get a better idea of how people will really act in a live event.

Summary
Employees who know their organization has a plan, who have had a voice in the development of the plan, and have seen the plan in action during drills and exercises will be more confident in their organization’s preparedness and more likely to cooperate during a real emergency. Those who have addressed personal needs, who can communicate with their families, and who know that their homes and families are in a reasonable state of readiness, are even more likely to work with emergency response efforts and not against them. Ultimately, those employees who have addressed these concerns and who have been empowered by the organization with the proper knowledge and tools can become part of the mechanism for prevention, response, and recovery from disasters or violent events.

About the Author
Steven M. Crimando, MA, BCETS, is the Managing Director of Extreme Behavioral Risk Management LLC ( www.xbrm.com), a consulting firm focused on the psychology of homeland security and disaster recovery. He is a Diplomate of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, a Board Certified Expert in Traumatic Stress and holds Level III Certification in Homeland Security through the American College of Forensic Examiners International. He can be reached at [email protected] or 800-280-6606.