Natural disasters are not the only things that can bring businesses to a halt and Rotorua District Council's Pauline Hitchcock says owners need to have plans to minimise the impact of such disruptions.
As the Civil Defence emergency management co-ordinator at the council, Hitchcock said interest in home and business emergency
planning had risen since the earthquakes in Christchurch.
But she said even smaller, more localised events that did not fall under the Civil Defence umbrella could cause serious problems for businesses. These could include serious fires, illness causing a drop in staff numbers or IT system crashes.
"Having a business continuity plan can be the difference between a business succeeding or failing in an emergency."
Hitchcock said checking business insurance was up to date and appropriate was part of that, but there was much more to the process.
The first step is to identify events likely to affect your business, followed by creating a plan to deal with each of these. She said it was vital to include staff in this process and to ensure everybody knew what the plans were and where to access them.
Hitchcock pointed to Civil Defence Bay of Plenty Group's new Readynet system, which provides templates for emergency management plans and allows businesses and organisations to file these with Civil Defence so the right people have access to the right information should the worst happen.
She addressed an event hosted by Toi Te Ora's WorkWell programme on Thursday, June 2, on how to minimise the effect of such disruptions and reduce the chances of them putting businesses out of action for extended periods, or permanently.
Business owners need to protect their firm and its staff and tips offered to those attending the workshop included:
* Have an up-to-date contact list for all staff - include address, home and mobile numbers and email addresses
* Provide staff with contact numbers for management so they can keep you informed about their situations
* Acknowledge employees' first priority is themselves and their families
* Collect contact details for key customers and suppliers for use in emergencies
* Make a list of essential products and services and look at where those could be obtained if your supplier is unavailable
* Consider what work could be done from home
* Back up your IT systems off site so the chances of losing all your data at once is reduced
* Talk to your suppliers about their continuity plans
