Defining Roles in the Event of an Emergency

We wrote recently about the need for business owners to formulate an Emergency Action Plan (EAP) that dictates how to respond to varying disasters, catastrophes and accidents. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires all private businesses to come up with an EAP and share the information with workers in both orally and in writing. Along with commercial fire alarm systems, this is an important part of any company’s effort to hedge against employee injury and illness in the event of a dangerous incident.

One of the most important factors in coming up with an EAP is assigning roles to employees, who must carry out those tasks to ensure the safety of everyone on site. Workers must also be made aware of these responsibilities and be confident in their ability to perform them.

There are many ways to go about doing this, but these are some of the most significant jobs that should be delegated:

• Alerting the authorities: In the event of a fire or accident involving toxic chemicals and substances, at least one person should be assigned the role of notifying the fire department of what has occurred. All of your employees should know how to do this, in the event that the person assigned this task is absent or incapacitated.
• Operating fire extinguishers: Although it would be a good idea to train all workers how to use these devices, this task should be designated to specific people.
• Shutting down gas, electrical and water systems: Again, it is important that all employees have knowledge of this procedure, but one person should be given this job so as not to cause confusion.

Whether workers are injured in the event of a fire depends largely on how quickly they can respond to the incident, and they can be alerted faster if your company has a well-maintained fire alarm monitoring system installed by and Atlanta alarm company. For more information, contact American Alarm at (770) 645-0061.