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Family, Not Job, Comes First in a Crisis
How should workers respond if a civil emergency such as an earthquake or terrorist attack were to take place in your community during work hours? Hopefully, your disaster response plan addresses this question. But here's a potential blind spot: When the crisis hits, workers will leave their jobs (mentally and, in many cases, physically) to check on their families. No ifs, ands or buts about it. You need to factor workers' commitment to family into your emergency planning. Here are a few suggestions from Scott Hood, CRSP and principal consultant for the Industrial Accident Prevention Association.
Family Is the First Priority
Ensuring an orderly response by workers is the crux of any disaster preparedness plan. Workers must be counted on to keep their heads, sound the alarms, clean up spills, give first aid, etc. But workers aren't robots; if a crisis occurs, their minds will be elsewhere.
Their bodies may be elsewhere, too. On September 11, 2001, emergency responders performed many acts of heroism. But for some first responders, the first response was quite different. On 9/11, there were paramedics who parked their ambulances and left their jobs to check on their families; some FEMA and Bureau of Emergency Management workers rushed home. Many of these employees did eventually return to work. But others were so worried about terrorism that they refused to leave their families' side and return to the jobs that the public so desperately needed them to do.
When the professionals trained to respond in emergencies abandon their posts for family, how realistic is it to expect your workers to adhere to company procedures in a crisis? Don't assume compliance. Understand and anticipate that during a civil emergency, workers' chief concerns will be for their spouses, children, siblings and even their pets. (Remember that during Hurricane Katrina, some residents of New Orleans refused to leave their homes if it meant abandoning a pet.)
How to Factor Family Concerns into Response Planning
Account for the family first priorities of your workers in disaster response planning. Your plan must somehow provide a way to allay workers' concerns and ensure that everybody is mentally and physically available to help implement the disaster response plan: Hood offers three recommendations:
- Home Communications: Establish a home communication plan for workers. For example, provide an automated phone-home dialing system so that workers can check on their families.
- Reliance on Single Workers: Stack your emergency team with workers who are single or otherwise have minimal family commitments. This will allow workers who do have spouses and children to leave work and look after their loved ones.
- Home Planning: Help workers establish an effective emergency preparedness plan at home, including escape plans, communication plans, adequate supervision for children and pets and adequate supplies for survival. Knowing that the family has taken steps to plan and prepare should put workers' minds at some measure of ease during a crisis.
Conclusion
Emergency plans fail not because they aren't ready to go, but because once the crisis takes place, workers aren't mentally ready or physically present to put them into action. If you help your workers ensure their families' safety during a crisis, they are more likely to be there to help you when you need them.
DISASTER PREPAREDNESS TIP
Message in a Bottle
People who rely on prescription medication need to ensure they have quick and easy access to it in case they need to evacuate quickly or in case they are unable to communicate to emergency responders their medical needs during an emergency.
To prepare for this situation, try the "message in a bottle" approach. On a piece of paper, write down the following medical information:
- Your name, SIN and Medic Alert details
- Family contact numbers
- Physicians and their contact details
- Medication, doses and times
- Medical plan numbers
Put this page in a pill bottle and place it on a shelf in the refrigerator. Then place an orange sticker on the refrigerator door to remind yourself - and notify others - where this important information is.
JOKE OF THE WEEK
Good News/Bad News
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Good News: You performed your company's emergency evacuation drill for the year. Outside, the rally point headcount was 100%.
Bad News: You lost eight of them in the tornado that was happening outside.
Good News: After your recent hospitalization, the board of directors voted to send you a get-well card.
Bad News: The vote passed 11-10.
Good News: The management accepted your job description the way you wrote it.
Bad News: They were so inspired by it, they also formed a search committee to find somebody capable of filling the position.
Good News: The shop workers are wild about your classes.
Bad News: You realize the shop workers are also wild about the "Beavis and Butthead," onion sandwiches, and the movie "Jackass."
Good News: Safety class attendance rose dramatically the last two weeks.
Bad News: You were on vacation at the time.
Submitted by
Ralph B. White
Safety and Maintenance
Smith Industries, Midland Texas
Do you have a joke or training blooper to share? Send them to catherinej@bongarde.com.
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