PreparednessTornado season survival tips for employers

Dozens of tornadoes have already ravaged the Midwest and more recently, Texas, indicating that the tornado season is moving into high gear. MIR3, Inc. says it employers should review their business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) plans to keep employees safe and operations running should a devastating twister strike.

Last year 1,688 tornadoes touched ground in the United States, causing 552 fatalities and making the 2011 season the deadliest season since 1925. The 2012 tornado season is starting off to be another highly destructive one, with many lives already lost and homes and businesses destroyed.

MIR3, a developer of real-time intelligent notification and response technology, says employers in tornado-prone areas should prepare for risks associated with these storms that can affect business operations, including mass power outages, property damage, and potential physical harm to employees. As well as distributing information to staff about the importance of home preparedness, businesses should include tornado preparedness in business continuity planning.

The company says that technologies like mass notification systems give businesses the ability to communicate with employees, partners, and customers during interruptions from natural disasters like tornadoes.

Notification systems can also alert company officials when IT systems fail and a backup is necessary and can assist in alert and directing response teams.

To reduce the impact of natural disasters like tornadoes in the workplace, the company is offering employers and enterprises the following tips on best practices to follow when examining BC/DR plans:

— Understand communication needs — When an emergency strikes, the company must maintain clear and effective channels of communication in order to assess damage and coordinate recovery efforts. Because essential business operations can be affected at any stage, employers should make sure to have a reliable way to communicate important messages to employees and first responders, such as a mass notification system

— Choose a system that offers a range of features — When selecting a notification system, employers should research its capabilities and look for systems that allow two-way communication over a variety of channels, including land line, fax, mobile, Short Message Service (SMS), Blackberry PIN-to-PIN, email, and more. These advanced features are important in helping you deliver urgent and important messages to those who need information in a crisis

— Employers should ensure systems are up to date – They should regularly check recipient lists to ensure that all contact information is up-to-date so when a disaster occurs, business continuity planners can be confident that notifications are being delivered to the right person on the right device

—  Employers should create escalation plans — In times of crises, the proper people must be contacted quickly. Intelligent notification systems have integrated mechanisms that support a call escalation process. If the first person contacted is not the right one for the situation, the system will automatically follow up with the next appropriate person via a previously established hierarchy

— Employers should train people and test systems — When creating BC/DR plans, it is important to properly train staff on how to use the notification system so they can send and monitor the entire alert process. This not only manages communication more effectively, but studies show that companies who educate their employees correctly get significantly greater response rates. Employers should be sure to test alert systems during normal business hours and address any glitches at that time. A rule of at least two system tests per year is a recommended industry standard to follow

— Employers should incentivize employees to sign up for notifications — When a notification system is installed, it is important that all user contact information is saved within the system’s files so that staff can be alerted on personal communication devices if need be. Some companies offer drawings, prizes and awards to ensure that all personnel are registered to receive reliable and speedy notifications

— Employers should establish steps to follow after the disaster — Once a crisis is resolved, employers should be prepared to advise staff on any measures needed to return the business to normalcy. They should take an honest look back and elicit feedback from staff to improve your process to see whether there are ways the company could react or communicate better in the future. Employers should be sure to communicate with staff and elicit their feedback as well reactive measures will enable organizations to return to normal operations as quickly as possible and will help them better prepare for future crises