On May 15th 2014 at 3pm staff were evacuated when a fire started at a factory in Australia producing smoke grenades and flares for the defence industry.

5 Fire Trucks were called to tackle the fire.

A CFA (Country Fire Authority) Operations Officer reported

“It was pretty innocuous really, but we took the precautions that were necessary given the nature of the business, and the company was very well drilled in terms of its procedures, which helped.”

If this was your business would the CFA Operations Officer have reported the same? Or would he have said something like:

“Unfortunately, when we arrived on scene the staff weren’t sure where to evacuate to and the managers didn’t have an up to date list of onsite employees. So we had to send fighters into the building to search rooms for a ‘missing employee’, who it turned out had gone home at lunch.

 

In the end it was pretty innocuous really, but it could have been much worse; we took the precautions that were necessary given the nature of the business.”

Build a Fire Emergency Procedure

Accidental fires can catch people unawares and, without an escape plan you’re placing the lives of everybody in your business at risk.

The Fire Safety Advice Centre provides a great portal for fire safety information including legislation, Fire Safety Guides, Risk Assessment and Safety Equipment.

With a Fire Escape Plan your staff will know what to do and where to go in the event of an emergency evacuation. Maps like the following one will greatly help.

Staff Roll Call

If you run a boutique that employs only a handful of staff then ensuring everyone has evacuated might not be such a difficult task.

However, if you run a department store or supermarket that has 100’s of employees you need an easy way to know who’s currently in the building. This is where time and attendance software comes in handy.

Not only can you schedule work shifts but each staff member can sign in and out of the building. This can be done either directly at the point of sale, at the back office or even on a machine dedicated to time and attendance.

Should you ever need to quickly evacuate your staff from the building there is a big “Emergency” button on the screen which will print out a list of staff in the building. From this list you can ensure everyone got out of the building giving you a peace of mind that you’ve left no one behind.

To learn more about Time and Attendance software please click here.

[Featured Image: Flickr Creative Commons]
Credit: Fire Escape Plan