Emergency Response in the Workplace

This video serves as an emer­gency response guide­book for offices. With approach­ing tor­na­do and hur­ri­cane sea­son, we address inclement weath­er. We also address things such as work­place vio­lence and engag­ing in active shoot­er training.

Video Tran­script:

Speak­er 1: Hey there and wel­come to the next install­ment of The Budd Group safe­ty train­ing. We’re going to be talk­ing a lit­tle bit about how you can keep your­self safe dur­ing dif­fer­ent types of emer­gen­cies, whether you are at work or at home.

The first one that we want to talk about is weath­er events, which is extreme­ly rel­e­vant right now as we are com­ing up on hur­ri­cane sea­son. In our mar­kets, the two pri­ma­ry weath­er events that we need to be con­cerned about are tor­na­does and hur­ri­canes. So, if you are at work when one of these weath­er events is hap­pen­ing it’s extreme­ly impor­tant that you are famil­iar with the site spe­cif­ic emer­gency response plan. Your man­ag­er should have a copy of this and should be able to train you on it. This is sim­ply going to tell you where to go in a dif­fer­ent type of emer­gency, or who to con­tact. If you hap­pen to be at home, it’s equal­ly impor­tant that you have your own emer­gency response plan so that you know how to keep you and your fam­i­ly safe in a time of emergency.

The pri­ma­ry things that we need to be con­cerned about when we’re deal­ing with these types of weath­er events are wind and rain. Wind can cause heavy objects to fly around and poten­tial­ly strike us. And rain, as you know, can quick­ly cause a flash flood, and cause lots and lots of trou­ble for us. So to avoid these things, we want to make sure that we know where we’re going to go to seek cov­er. We want to be able to find a place that is away from any heavy objects, or away from any glass or win­dows. If you hap­pen to be out­side, or in your vehi­cle this means get­ting out of the vehi­cle and find­ing the low­est absolute spot that you can be, and cov­er­ing your neck and your head. And to avoid water or ris­ing water. We’d sim­ply want to be aware of our sur­round­ings and know where we would go in a time of emer­gency that we would­n’t be trapped and that we can be as high as pos­si­ble to avoid that water.

And as a reminder one more time, it’s real­ly, real­ly impor­tant when you are at work that you know what you’re going to do in these types of emer­gen­cies. This means being very famil­iar with the emer­gency response plan for your site. And this also means know­ing how you’re going to com­mu­ni­cate with your man­ag­er. If you’re not at work yet, how are you going to learn about this emer­gency? And if you are at work, how are you going to com­mu­ni­cate that with your man­ag­er? Whether it’s a phone call or a text mes­sage, it’s just impor­tant that you and your man­ag­er have worked this out ahead of time.

The best way for you to be pre­pared in an extreme weath­er emer­gency is to make sure that you know your site spe­cif­ic emer­gency response plan. This will tell you where to go and who to con­tact dur­ing a weath­er emer­gency. In heavy winds, find the low­est area around you if you are out­side, which means get­ting out of your vehi­cle. Or away from glass and heavy objects, if you are inside. In a flood­ing sit­u­a­tion, find the high­est point pos­si­ble and make sure to leave your­self a way to escape, if need­ed. And, most impor­tant­ly, know how you’re going to com­mu­ni­cate with your man­ag­er in an extreme weath­er event.

Speak­er 2: Action.

Speak­er 1: The next type of emer­gency that we want to cov­er is a fire emer­gency. Again, this is, hope­ful­ly, some­thing that you nev­er have to face at work, but if you do it’s impor­tant that you know how to han­dle it.

Here at The Budd Group, we’re going to clas­si­fy fires in two ways: fires that we should fight, and fires that we should not fight, fires that we need to get out imme­di­ate­ly. And there’s a cou­ple of ways that we can iden­ti­fy fires that we do not need to fight. The first is if you don’t know what is burn­ing, then you should­n’t try to fight it because there are dif­fer­ent types of fires, there’s dif­fer­ent clas­si­fi­ca­tions of fires. And it may be that the fire extin­guish­er that you have is not capa­ble of putting out the fire that you need to put out. The sec­ond is very sim­ple, if it’s just too large or if it’s spread­ing too quick­ly, you need to get out and you don’t need to wor­ry about fight­ing that fire. And the third would be if it’s pro­duc­ing some type of tox­ic smoke that is mak­ing peo­ple have trou­ble breath­ing you just need to get out, no mat­ter how small the fire is, and con­tact the author­i­ties immediately.

If you were going to try to fight the fire with a fire extin­guish­er, like this, it’s impor­tant that you know how to use it. And the acronym that we like to use is PASS, P‑A-S‑S. And that sim­ply means to Pull the pin, to Aim the hose at where you want to spray it, to Squeeze the trig­ger, and then Sweep the area so that you’re not stay­ing in one area, but you’re cov­er­ing the entire base of the fire that you’re try­ing to pull out. Again, that’s PASS: Pull, Aim, Squeeze and Sweep.

But I want to remind you that as an employ­ee of The Budd Group, it is not your respon­si­bil­i­ty to put out a fire. It is your respon­si­bil­i­ty to keep you and those around you safe. So my ulti­mate advice to you is to trust your gut. If it is a fire that you believe that you can­not put out, no mat­ter how small it is, please get out, and fol­low the evac­u­a­tion plan that is a part of the emer­gency response plan that you have for your site. And also, as soon as it’s safe to do so, con­tact 9−1−1 no mat­ter how small the fire.

If you hap­pen to be involved in a fire inci­dent, call 9−1−1 first, no mat­ter what size the fire is. And do not attempt to fight the fire, if you do not know what is burn­ing, it is too large or spread­ing too quick­ly, or it’s emit­ting a tox­ic smoke. If you are going to use a fire extin­guish­er, fol­low the PASS phrase, Pull the pin, Aim the hose, Squeeze the trig­ger and Sweep the entire base of the fire. And, most impor­tant­ly, our pri­or­i­ty is your safe­ty. If you feel uncom­fort­able about the fire, for any rea­son, exit to safe­ty immediately.

Anoth­er type of emer­gency that, hope­ful­ly, you don’t have to ever face at work is a work­place vio­lence inci­dent. If this were to hap­pen, it’s impor­tant that you know how to respond to it. So if you were to face this type of event, and it’s impor­tant to know that this type of event does not mean just phys­i­cal vio­lence, this could be emo­tion­al vio­lence or bul­ly­ing or ret­ri­bu­tion, any­thing that you feel is mali­cious in nature. If you were to face this event, it’s impor­tant that you know how to respond to it and maybe how to even pre­vent it.

So first, how to pre­vent it. Make sure that you’re pay­ing atten­tion to those around you, and pay­ing atten­tion to their atti­tudes and per­son­al­i­ties. And if you notice some­thing that just does­n’t sit well with you, trust your gut and say some­thing. If you see some­thing, say some­thing, report it to your man­ag­er. Let them know that it’s mak­ing you feel uneasy and that your con­cerned for that per­son that you’re work­ing with. Often­times, there’s oth­er stuff going on out­side of work that can cause some­one to boil up. And it’s not just any­thing that’s hap­pen­ing in that one moment. So please just look out for that per­son and say some­thing to your manager.

If you do end up in a sit­u­a­tion that becomes vio­lent, the best thing that you can do is sep­a­rate your­self from that sit­u­a­tion imme­di­ate­ly, and noti­fy a man­ag­er. If it’s a seri­ous enough event, sep­a­rate your­self from the sit­u­a­tion, and noti­fy the author­i­ties or call 9−1−1 immediately.

Keep in mind that work­place vio­lence does not have to be phys­i­cal, it could be emo­tion­al or psy­cho­log­i­cal. The best way to avoid work­place vio­lence is to pre­vent it by noti­fy­ing your man­ag­er imme­di­ate­ly, if you notice aggres­sive or mali­cious behav­ior. If some­one is behav­ing vio­lent­ly remove your­self from the sit­u­a­tion as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, and noti­fy your man­ag­er immediately.

The last type of emer­gency that we want to talk to you about is one that we hope that you nev­er have to face at work, at home or any­where else, but it’s one that we believe, at The Budd Group, is extreme­ly impor­tant for you to be pre­pared for, and that’s an active shoot­er sit­u­a­tion. So we want to walk you through a cou­ple of dif­fer­ent things to help you respond in that type of emergency.

As you’ve heard in oth­er places, the way that we want to respond to this is run, hide and fight, and in that order. So the first, run. It’s extreme­ly impor­tant that you know any­where you are, whether an event like this is tak­ing place or not, where your exits are, how you would get out of a build­ing if you need­ed to in a hur­ry. So please be aware of your sur­round­ings. This means not always being glued to our phones, but when we walk into a new space or a new envi­ron­ment mak­ing sure we know how we would get out of that envi­ron­ment if we need­ed to for any type of emergency.

The sec­ond response will be hide. And, again, it’s very impor­tant that we know where we are going to hide, so you have to be famil­iar with your sur­round­ings and know that in that type of sit­u­a­tion I would go into this room and I would bar­ri­cade that door with some­thing to keep myself safe and keep those with me safe.

Now, for these first two things, it’s also impor­tant to remem­ber in this type of sit­u­a­tion that the law enforce­ment that is show­ing up to help in the sit­u­a­tion they don’t know who the shoot­er is, and who the vic­tims are. So, it’s very impor­tant if law enforce­ment shows up to keep your hands vis­i­ble, and to iden­ti­fy your­self so that they know, and lis­ten to what­ev­er they say. They may ask you to get on the ground or to go out­side. And it’s impor­tant to just lis­ten because, again, they don’t know who the vic­tims are, or who the shoot­er is.

And the final thing would be to fight. If you do not have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to evac­u­ate, you do not have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to hide your best chance at sur­vival is to engage and use any­thing you can around you as a weapon to fight that shooter.

The last thing we want to talk to you about is the best way to keep you safe dur­ing an active shoot­er event, and that’s to avoid it entire­ly. Most active shoot­er events actu­al­ly do hap­pen at the work­place, though they don’t get a lot of media cov­er­age. And, usu­al­ly, these types of acci­dents are not iso­lat­ed. Usu­al­ly, they hap­pen because some­one has had some­thing going on at home, or some­thing going on at work, and they’ve just had enough. So for that rea­son it’s extreme­ly impor­tant, just like when we talk about with work­place vio­lence, for you to say some­thing if you see some­thing. If you’ve noticed some­one’s behav­iors change and it catch­es you off guard, or you notice some­one mak­ing threats or any­thing like that, any­thing that does­n’t sit well with you, please report it to your man­ag­er imme­di­ate­ly. So that we can try to help that team­mate and get them the help that they need so that we can avoid sit­u­a­tions like this.

The final thing is we often get the ques­tion when or how should I call 9−1−1? And the answer is, it depends. If you find your­self in this sit­u­a­tion you want to call 9−1−1 as soon as it is safe to do so. And that sim­ply means if you’re in an area where you should­n’t be mak­ing noise because it may cause the shoot­er to find you or know where you are, then it would not be a good idea to call at that time, let some­one else do it. But if you are in a place where you could make the call, the soon­er that we can get law enforce­ment to that sit­u­a­tion, the bet­ter. Again, we hope that none of these emer­gen­cies are things that any of our employ­ees ever have to face, but we want you to be pre­pared to han­dle them, if you do.

In an active shoot­er sit­u­a­tion, our first option for safe­ty is to run. This means being sit­u­a­tion­al­ly aware and know­ing where your exits are at all times. Call 9−1−1 only when it is safe to do so. And only run if you are con­fi­dent that you are run­ning away from the shoot­er. Remem­ber, that law enforce­ment does not know who the shoot­er is, so keep your hands up and do what­ev­er they ask. Our sec­ond option for safe­ty is to hide. This means know­ing where all of our hid­ing spots are at all times, and bar­ri­cad­ing our­selves and turn­ing off the lights, if pos­si­ble. And the final option for safe­ty is to fight. Only take on this option as a last resort, and use what­ev­er objects you can find to attack the shoot­er and cre­ate distraction.

The Budd Group strives to be a God-hon­or­ing com­pa­ny of excel­lence safe­ly deliv­er­ing ser­vices in jan­i­to­r­i­al, main­te­nance, and land­scap­ing; offer­ing devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for their employ­ees; and con­tribut­ing to their community.

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