One of the most important things that you can do in your office is host regular fire drills and training for your staff. Fire drills, emergency training and safety practices are so important if you want your employees to be as safe as possible. You don’t just need to have fire drills, but they should be a weekly practice in your office space. You can’t always avoid a fire, though you can take as many steps as possible to prevent one from breaking out. You have to prepare for emergencies and disasters because life (and gas lines) are unpredictable. The more you prepare, the better off you will be in an emergent situation.
No one wants to trudge out into the rain for a fire drill, but the alternative is having an office full of people who don’t know what to do when an emergency situation breaks out. From horizontal fire shutter installation to ensuring that you can keep out the fire, to running regular training sessions, you need to do all that you can to ensure that you keep people safe. Your workplace cannot survive without safety protocols, so don’t let it! Here’s some of the reasons fire drills are a must.
- Practice is perfect. The more you practice what to do in a fire, the more your employees will know what to do and where to go. Eventually, it should become an easy thing to do because everyone knows where to go and what to do when the alarm goes. They need to know the location of the fire exits, where the meet up points are and who the fire marshals are, too. These drills are the best way to see which of your employees are behind in what they need to know.
- You can test the alarms. If you don’t test your work alarms, you’re going to be left in trouble when it comes to a fire! If the alarms in the building don’t go off when the smoke is detected, you will potentially end up in a fatal situation. Use your weekly drills to test your alarms and if any aren’t working, you can then contact the fire department to come and fix them up for you!
- It’s a legal obligation. If you don’t have working fire alarms, you will be fined. It’s one of the requirements for businesses that they must have working fire alarms in their building and training must be provided to employees so that they know what to do in the event of an emergency. You will be fulfilling your legal obligations if you have fire alarms fitted that work in your building. You also have to record every single fire drill and ensure that your staff are aware of them!
- Preparation is key. If people are informed, they will be more powerful than you can imagine. A working fire alarm is going to make all the difference in your business. Preparation saves lives and the more you prepare the better.
