ist magazine December 2022

Feature

Currently, most property disaster plans expressly hand off leadership responsibility of a disaster response to management. This would seem the most logical way of handling it; however, in practice, this leaves a property un derprepared. Disasters can be sudden events that either leave managers in jured, or unavailable through traditional communication devices. When disaster plans require a manager to approve a certain immediate disaster activity like initiating a basic evacuation or crisis communication method or explicitly state that managers must perform it, they immediately convert employees into useless bystanders. STEP 1 Rewrite Your Disaster Plans.

masks. Many properties also have special ized emergency communication mobile apps and expensive technology on which they rely. Ironically, this is what makes them not prepared because it shifts the dependency on equipment to do activities that, if they were not available, could not be performed by staff or management. To be effective, disaster EST must be specifically tailored to your em ployees. It should sync up perfectly with your disaster plan. For instance, if your plan doesn’t include search and rescue, then don’t put those supplies in your bags. Technology should also be used sparingly in a disaster. But when it is utilized by a property, employees should have complete access to it, know the passwords, and how to effectively perform the process of sending messages or otherwise activating it. → manager. All manager titles and proper names should be removed from disaster protocols so that any employee can perform any action without any kind of permission required.

Disaster plans should be imme diately rewritten so that staff are able to conduct any immediate response activity surrounding evacuation/shelter in-place/lockdown without the need of a

STEP 2 Reevaluate Your Disaster Equipment, Supplies & Technology (EST).

Disaster Equipment, Supplies and Technology (EST) has long been consid ered a critical element in any property preparedness program. However, in most instances, EST have actually made properties less prepared. This is either because staff are not authorized to use

them without permission of management, and/or they are inaccessible to staff. This goes way beyond the first aid kits or AED defibrillators. It also includes disaster equipment like search and rescue tools, emergency food and water, and critical use supplies like flashlights, rope and PPE

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December 2022 istmagazine.com