How to prevent man-made disasters?
Answers
When you hear the phrase, "disaster in the workplace," you think of big explosions, massive fires and horrible accidents. These associations make sense -- the effects of disasters, after all, are huge. But the steps you take to prevent these large-scale calamities are small, simple and, unfortunately, often forgotten or ignored.
THESE ARE THE FIVE STEPS TO PREVENT A MAN MADE DISASTER :
1.Prepare To Be Prepared
Disaster prevention is first and foremost about preparation. Pre-plan every job before employees commence any work on it. Schedule a meeting or huddle with all participating employees to fully understand and outline the details of the job. This includes scope of the work, key issues, potential problems, equipment access, personnel access and any important information.
2.Be Informed
After preparation, the next most important disaster prevention measure is knowledge. Make sure the physical and chemical characteristics of hazardous substances are visibly listed. These include items such as boiling and freezing points, density, vapor pressure, specific gravity, solubility, volatility and the product's general appearance and odor.
3.Get Supplies Ready
It's not pleasant or fun to think about a potential spill, but if it does happen, you'll be glad you prepared the necessary supplies to clean it up. These supplies include containers, temporary diking and cleanup materials.
4.PPE
Review the Personal Protective Equipment and tools that are necessary for the project, and make sure your supplies of these materials -- clothing, helmets, masks, goggles, etc -- are adequate.
5.Communication
This is key for most challenges in life, but especially for disaster prevention. Before work commences on a project, analyze how the work will impact other personnel and operations. Then, make sure proper communication channels and procedures are in place between participating parties.
HOPE IT HELPS...
Answer:
1. Training, Training and More Training
A business is only as strong as its weakest link and that weak link shouldn't be your employees. Educating and training employees, tailored to their job-specific roles, is vital for improving overall workplace competency and reduce the likelihood of human error. This is especially important for employees dealing with mission critical data and technology. In this case, consider developing criteria for employee certification and test employees on their knowledge.
The biggest obstacle to training for most companies is the cost of and time allocated to training. If you put a different lens on, you'll see that the ROI for training, when it prevents catastrophic data loss and downtime, is huge.
2. Limit Access to Sensitive Systems
Mission critical data and technology that requires skilled labor to operate and maintain should be secure and accessed by only a few well-trained employees. Develop a badge or sign-in restriction for systems that are sensitive to error. Reducing the access to these systems will reduce the likelihood of human error.
3. Develop a Strong Disaster Recovery Plan
Developing a strong DR plan, where steps are taken to identify and mitigate potential risks, can help to ensure that all of your employees are on the same page with regards to preventing (or quickly addressing) human error. Make sure that employees handling the most delicate systems read and understand the DR Plan.
4. Test your Disaster Recovery Plan
So many companies fail to actively test their DR plan. To put disaster into perspective, have employees run through simulated human error disasters. This practice will allow you to both test your DR plan to ensure effectiveness, and conduct a real-life simulation for employee training purposes.
Additionally, testing your DR plan reiterates the importance of retaining data security business-wide.
5. Hold Semiannual or Annual Refresher Courses
It's not enough to hope that employees retain the information provided to them in the above efforts. These practices should be repeated with all employees on an annual or semiannual basis to ensure retention.
Repeated training sessions are also very important because policies and best practices may have changed based on current trends and technology. Always keep your training up to date by studying the latest best practices, or partner with a company who will provide detailed reporting of best practices in your industry.
The most important thing to remember when it comes to human error is that if you don't address a concern, the likelihood of error will increase. Communicating the policies and best practices to employees will help to create a conscientious workplace paradigm. The best scenario is when your employees start to educate and remind other employees of these policies and practices. Reducing human error is a group effort, and it starts with you!