Steps to prepare emergency response guidelines

First find out what is most likely to happen on your own side, then build a framework that suits your team's usage habits, write each step of the handling action in such a specific way that newcomers can understand it, get front-line people to practice testing vulnerabilities with real swords and guns, and finally dynamically update according to the actual situation. Many companies spend a lot of money to compile guides that end up as waste paper in filing cabinets. In essence, they skipped a certain step and became a porter of universal templates.

To be honest, I have seen too many people take the wrong first step. An owner of a Sichuan restaurant complained to me before, saying that he had compiled a thick emergency guide based on an online template. When a fire broke out in the kitchen pan, the chef flipped through it for three minutes and couldn't find the corresponding steps. I took it over and took a look. Good guy, he wrote more than ten pages about "escape from a magnitude 8 earthquake" and "evacuate from a volcanic eruption", risks that his city has not encountered for hundreds of years. Instead, he wrote two lines of vague descriptions about things that may be encountered every week, such as "customer stuck with fish bone", "oil pan fire" and "gas leakage". To put it bluntly, looking for risks is not about copying a general list. You have to dig through your own accident records in the past three years, ask surrounding peers what pitfalls they have encountered recently, or even wait on the front line for two days to see what problems are most likely to go wrong in people's daily work. These are the things you really need to guard against. Those extreme risks with a probability of less than one in 10,000, just mention it in one sentence, and don't take up too much space.

Speaking of which, I have to mention two schools that have been noisy in the industry. No one is right or wrong, it just depends on the scene adaptation. One group is the "minimalist" group, which believes that the guide can be printed on one piece of A4 paper, and the steps for each scene should not exceed 3 steps. It is best to include comics, which can be seen when you look up and stick them next to the cashier or work station. This idea is particularly suitable for retail stores and express delivery outlets, where there is a high turnover of personnel and front-line employees are generally impatient to read long articles. The fire protection guide I made for a chain milk tea shop before has only three sentences: "Turn off the power switch, unplug the power, use the dry powder fire extinguisher at the door to spray it. If it cannot be extinguished, run away, and call the residents upstairs to take the fire exit." There are no extra words. New employees can memorize it after just one glance. The other group is the "detailed group", which demands that all extreme scenarios be covered. Even details such as "which direction to run when the south wind blows when there is a leak" and "how to repair if the protective clothing is worn incorrectly" must be written clearly. This type is for high-risk scenes such as hazardous chemical companies and rail transit. After all, if an accident occurs, human life is at stake, and there is no room for ambiguity. If you are a small start-up company with less than 10 people and imitates other hazardous chemical plants and develops a three-level response process with dozens of pages, it will be like taking off your pants and farting.

There is no standard template for setting up a framework. Don't listen to those so-called experts who say that you must follow "incident type-response level-handling process". The best guide I have ever seen for an Internet company is not classified according to any standard at all. It is written directly by position: what should the front desk do if someone breaks into the building, what should programmers do if a server crashes, what should administrative staff do if there is a water leak or power outage. Anyone who encounters a problem can just turn to his own page and find the corresponding steps faster than anything else. There is only one thing to pay attention to: don’t use vague words. “Report in a timely manner” and “properly handle” are all nonsense. You must write down “Call the store manager’s mobile phone number 13xxxxxx within 5 minutes to report. If the WeChat does not reply, call directly.”

Oh, by the way, don’t forget to verify this step. How many people just locked the guide in the cabinet after compiling it, only to find out that it was all bugs when something went wrong. Previously, a company wrote an earthquake guide that told people to hide under their desks, but it turned out that the entire company had desks with glass tops. If they shook and hit their heads, it would be more dangerous than if a chandelier fell. It was only discovered later during the assault drill that they hurriedly changed to hiding in the middle of the aisle between two desks. Don't act like a drill. Don't notify everyone a week in advance that you are going to practice fire escape. When the time comes, everyone will line up slowly and go down. If you can't detect the real problem, you can suddenly sound the alarm one afternoon when everyone is fishing to see if anyone can't find the fire exit or if anyone is so panicked that they grab their computer and run. When you practice these problems, you will find that it is 10,000 times more expensive than paying the price when an accident actually occurs.

Finally, don’t think about it once and for all. The guide is like the emergency contact list on your phone and must be updated regularly. When the epidemic is over, the contents of temperature measurement and health code will be deleted. Recently, AI fraud has been increasing and an entry "Someone is pretending to be the boss and asking for a video call to confirm before transferring money" has been added. Even if nothing happens, every time a loophole is discovered after the drill, it will be more serious. If a small accident does happen, no matter how small, the corresponding handling steps must be filled in. The most down-to-earth guide I have ever seen. The cover is already fluffy, and there are notes handwritten by employees on the side: "The phone number of Manager Wang in the manual has changed, and the new number is 13xxxxxx" "The last time I went to the hospital, it was closer to the south gate and there was no traffic jam." This kind of guide is 10,000 times more useful than those guides that are based on provincial excellent templates and are plastic-wrapped and never read.

Anyway, after working in emergency management for so many years, my biggest feeling is: this thing is never meant to be used for safety inspections. It is an operation manual that can save lives and stop losses in the event of an accident. When editing, think from the perspective of someone who actually encounters the accident. Don't sit in the office and write, as the output will definitely be good.