Having a Disaster Plan in Place Could Save Your Business

No one wants to spend too much time thinking about worst-case scenarios. Running a business is hard enough on its own. Why give yourself a tough time thinking about all the things that could go wrong?

While you shouldn’t work yourself into a tizzy thinking about disaster plans, you should develop a pragmatic approach to securing your business, and the people associated with it. In this article, we break down the benefits of having a disaster plan.  

Disasters Come in Many Shapes and Sizes

Florida folks are all too acquainted with disasters. Any business that has operated on the coast for long enough has at least lived with the fear of encountering a hurricane before, and more still have had to face them head-on.

Hurricanes are certainly destructive, both for businesses and homes, but they are far from all there is to worry about. Business owners should have plans for a variety of different disaster scenarios. How should you evacuate? How can you get adequate healthcare? How can you tune your insurance policy to make sure you are covered in the event of the disasters most likely to affect you?

These are serious questions without easy answers. Having a plan in place is key to saving your business and helping your community.

You Know What to Do Before the Disaster

Having a plan in place allows you to pivot immediately into mitigation efforts before the storm even hits. Knowing what to do early on, it’s possible to shudder your business in a way that reduces the probability of total loss.

Granted, if you run a beachfront bar and grill that’s smack dab in the middle of a hurricane zone, there’s only so much good planning can do. Even then, however, you can plan to keep your losses at a minimum.

This could involve small things, like inventory management — how much of X should you keep on hand during hurricane season? What sort of ordering habits are sustainable during times of the year when shutdowns might be regular and indefinite?

Having a plan in place may also allow you to better protect higher ticket items, or even the building itself. Are there risk-reducing architectural features you haven’t considered? With a plan already in place, questions like these at least have answers. They won’t always be the answers you want, but you will at least know that you’ve explored every option.

 You’ll Know What to Do During the Disaster

Of course, the moment of the disaster itself is probably the most critical. If, for example, there is a fire or a life-threatening storm during hours of operation, you need everyone to know what to do. This involves precautions that protect the business itself — disaster-related insurance covers, sprinklers, and other protective devices, etc. — but it also means protecting the people inside the establishment.

What sort of evacuation procedures do you have in place? Conversely, if there is a disaster scenario that requires everyone to stay indoors, do you have a place that is safe for people to go to? Does your staff know how and when they should get there? And how many people can fit in this area? What if the number of people in the building exceeds the occupancy limits?

Of course, most disasters create more variables than anyone could ever possibly think of. However, by looking at the issue as comprehensively as possible, you not only protect your financial interests during a disaster, but you also have the true potential to save lives.

That’s a responsibility business owners don’t always take into account but the fact remains: while people are under the roof of your establishment, they are beholden to the consequences of your choices. Make sure they are good ones.  

You Know What to Do After the Disaster

The trouble has blown over. That’s great from a human safety perspective, but it’s also when most of your key business considerations will come into play. With a plan in place, you will know exactly what to do next.

Depending on the nature of the disaster, this might involve having the building inspected. After everything that happened, is it still up to code, and safe enough for human occupancy? It will mean getting quotes for repairs and new orders on equipment that needs to be replaced.
It will also mean knowing how to get the ball rolling on the insurance claim that will hopefully pay for most or all of this.

The faster you can make these decisions, the brighter your business’s future will ultimately look. Remember that speed matters here. The longer you are closed, the longer you go without a salary.

It’s easy to procrastinate on disaster planning. How much energy do any of us have to devote to things that might never (hopefully will never) happen? The answer to that question probably isn’t “Oh, are you kidding? Tons of energy, for exactly that!” And yet making the time can literally be the difference between staying in business, and folding.

Plain and simple, there are some disaster prep decisions that can’t be made on the fly, and others, that shouldn’t have to be made in the moments immediately following a catastrophe. Making a plan now during peacetime is a great gift to yourself, to your staff, and to your customers.