How does your company promote its evacuation policy?

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Permalink Reply by Jason Burzynski on February 11, 2010 at 8:40am

We do meetings as a whole with each shift. We practice 2X a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. When conducting our drills, we usually close one or two exits saying they have been compromised by fire, forcing people to remember and use their secondary exit routes. We use our safety committee members to facilitate the evacuation. After everyone has exited, we do a headcount. Hope this helps!

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Permalink Reply by Michelle Sears on February 11, 2010 at 8:56am

Thats great you have first and secondary routes - definitely something to consider! Thanks!!!

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Permalink Reply by Mark Balduzzi on February 16, 2010 at 9:56am

One way organizations can keep evacuation plans in employee memory is to link the ICE image with their EAP plan. The image was specifically created to be used as a multipurpose safety awareness tool.

If your company wanted to reinforce the EAP in an on-going basis it can easily do so through presentations or different educational posters that act as reminders of proper employee response in an emergency.

Another positive is that employees won't easily forget that ICE is associated with "In Case of Emergency" because the ICE Program is already established and in use "off the job" as well in homes, cell phones, smart phones, vehicles, recreation and a variety of other applications for the employee's family. So in essence, the safety emphasis is not 1-2x yearly but 24/7 on and off the job.

One way to support the process is to note that OSHA specifically recommends employers facilitate that employees maintain emergency medical information be readily available in an emergency situation (29CFR1910.38(a) and 29CFR1926.35).

Simple, easy and inexpensive to put into action.
www.ice4safety.com

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Permalink Reply by Mark Balduzzi on February 16, 2010 at 9:59am

Actually, there are already posters associated with home fire safety evacuation located on the website and more that can be made up to suit the particular audience (your employees) so you don't have to use those easily dismissed cartoon like safety reminders we all grew up with.

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Permalink Reply by Michelle Sears on February 16, 2010 at 11:33am

You're right - I have ICE on my phone. That's an instantly recognizable safety feature. Thanks for the input!

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Permalink Reply by Mark Balduzzi on February 16, 2010 at 11:58am

If you by some chance have an I-Phone or I-Pod you might really be interested in smart-ICE which was created by a fire chief and ems responder named Tim Green from EMS-Options (www.ems-options.com) - they actually use the ICE symbol on the phone to denote the location of what is a very well designed phone "App" available from Apple. I was so impressed with this App, I licensed them to use the image. Thanks for the discussion opportunity Michelle.

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