Steps to prepare emergency response guidelines

First understand your own risk profile, then set up a hierarchical treatment framework, then conduct full-scenario verification, and finally leave a hole for dynamic updates - don't believe the kind of tutorials on the Internet that can be made with a template in half an hour. 90% of such guides are just waste paper at the emergency site, and no one can even read it.

When I helped a suburban logistics park revamp its fire emergency guide two years ago, they first used a general template available online. The first article was "call the fire control room as soon as possible when a fire is discovered." However, after actually walking around the park, I discovered that the transfer area of ​​three high-standard warehouses was a signal blind area. The loaders in the warehouse didn't even have a signal bar when they took out their mobile phones, let alone make a call. Moreover, their fire control room is outsourced, and there is only one person on duty from 2 to 4 in the morning. If something happens at this time, the phone may be busy and you may have to wait for ten minutes.

Speaking of which, there are actually two ideas for making emergency guides in the industry. No one is superior or inferior: one is "compliance first", which first lists all the items required by local emergency management and industry supervision, and supplements the corresponding content for each item. First, ensure that you will not be fined if you pass the inspection.； The other group is "practical first". They first understand the types of risks that are most likely to occur on-site, write down the disposal process so that it can be used directly, and then go back to supplement the compliance requirements. If you are in areas with strong supervision such as medical institutions and chemical industrial parks, it is recommended to take two approaches in parallel. Don’t wait until you are done to find out that you have missed the items required by the supervision. It will take a lot of effort to change them later. ； If you have a small company or store with more than a dozen people, you can do the practical part first, instead of creating a tome with dozens of pages that no one will want to read.

Once you have a clear understanding of your home's background, the framework will not be too far apart. Many people like to divide the framework by risk types such as "fire, earthquake, heavy rain, and public health." It looks neat, but when something goes wrong, people panic and search for a long time and can't find the corresponding entry. I am used to cutting it according to the timeline: what should the personnel on duty do one minute after the incident, where should the emergency team be and what should they do 10 minutes after the incident, which external resources should be contacted after more than half an hour after the incident, and who will contact them. The contact information is directly attached to the corresponding entry, making it easy to find. Oh, by the way, be sure to add "boundaries of authority and responsibilities." Don't write ambiguous words like "relevant personnel are responsible for handling." Just write "the security captain on duty is responsible for closing the underground garage barrier" and "the administrative director is responsible for contacting 120." If something goes wrong, no one will shirk the blame.

After filling in the content of the framework, don't rush to print it out. Ask the people on the front line to go through it for verification. This step will save you a lot of chances of getting into trouble later. Last year, there was a rainstorm emergency guide in a business district that was not verified. It said, "Close the underground garage entrance barrier during a red rainstorm warning." But it turned out that there was a once-in-a-century rainstorm. The key to the barrier was in the hands of the property manager. He was away on vacation that day. It took the security guard ten minutes to open the lock. The underground garage was already half flooded. When checking, don’t let the leadership team sit in the conference room to make decisions. Call in security guards, cleaning staff, front desk staff, and warehouse managers who will be the first to encounter emergencies. Go through each scenario, including which step is stuck, which tool cannot be found, which contact information cannot be reached. If you change it on the spot, it will be more effective than changing it ten times in the office.

Don’t think that just one version of the guide will last three to five years. This is the same as the APP on your mobile phone and must be updated according to the actual situation. The company has changed the fire control room outsourcing team, and the contact information needs to be updated. ； A new fire station has been opened next to the park. The alarm dispatch time has been reduced from 15 minutes to 8 minutes. The corresponding early handling process needs to be adjusted. ； Even if there is a new elevator in the building and the road at the door is repaired so that fire trucks cannot get in, they have to be updated simultaneously in the guide. I generally recommend that customers make a small update every quarter and a full calibration once a year, and update as soon as emergencies are dealt with. Don’t wait until something goes wrong to find out that the information in the guide is still from last year.

I have been doing emergency management consulting for almost ten years and have reviewed emergency guides from more than a dozen industries. I have come up with the most crude but useful judgment standard: you give the printed guide to the security guard on duty at the door and give him 30 seconds. If he can immediately find the corresponding action for his position, the guide is considered qualified.； If you can’t find it after turning three pages, don’t hesitate to go back and change it.

To put it bluntly, the emergency guide is not a PPT report for leaders, nor is it a compliance document with a limited number of words. It is an operation manual that can guide panicked people in the event of an accident. The more it fits your own scene, the better it will be useful. All other pretense is empty.