September: National Preparedness Month
Are You Prepared?
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It seems each day we learn of another man-made or natural disaster. Our reactions may differ depending how we are personally affected. As we continue to encourage you to take charge of your professional life, meet Janet Lockridge, MA,
Precise Operations Management, a Business Continuity and Disaster Planning Consultant and educator in emergency preparedness. Additionally, Ms. Lockridge professional credentials include Federal, State and Local Community Preparedness Initiatives. She maintains FEMA Certifications in National Incident Management Systems (NIMS) (IS-00700.a) and Basic Workplace Security Awareness (IS-00906).
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National Preparedness Month is a perfect time for professional business owners, such as architects, engineers, landscape architects, construction companies to evaluate and prepare their operations and workflow processes in the event they experience an unforeseen emergency. Emergencies such as floods, explosions, fires, disruptive person/s or a threat of a bomb is occurring more often within our workplaces. These occurrences are happening to your clients and stakeholders too. How confident are you in the resiliency of your business to continue operating should you experience an emergency?
Occupational Health & Safety Administration (OSHA) Standard 1910.38 requires ALL businesses have an Emergency Action Plan (EAP). Written and oral emergency action plans must be in writing, stored in the workplace, and available to employees for review. However, an employer with 10 or fewer employees may communicate the plan orally to employees.
By the nature of your business, other businesses aggressively seek out architects, engineers and construction professionals to perform vital consultations and damage assessments of building structures and infrastructure after a disaster. If your business operations are halted because you did not plan to quickly recover from a disaster, the recovery efforts of your clients could be slow and fragmented, too.
It is important to develop your Business Continuity and Disaster Preparedness Plans to minimize the risk your business operations may face should you experience a man-made and/or natural disaster.
The following are three business continuity tips to help architects, engineers, landscape architects and construction companies to prepare for faster recovery from a disaster and to better meet the needs of your clients.
Prepare to Stay in Business: Roughly 40 to 60 percent of small businesses never reopen their doors following a disaster, according to the Federal Emergency Management (FEMA). Create a Business Continuity Plan to become operational again quickly after a disaster. Have redundancy for workflow processes to ensure you can continue to operate your business.
Create a Disaster Recovery Plan: Ensure your plan includes important workflow processes for critical operations to maintain payroll, banking, and accounting systems. Create IT redundancy and determine how you will protect your system against cyber security threats.
Document, Document, Document: Distribute your Business Continuity and Emergency Action Plans to your staff. For OSHA recordkeeping, document when your plan was created and when staff was trained. Update your plans annually and maintain them as part of your long term strategic planning.
No one can predict when a disaster will strike, however, taking time to have a well thought out pre-determined plan of action before an emergency can help mitigate risk and ensure your ability to remain in business.
Preparedness is key also for proper management of your professional credentials, personal and business. AECredentialing provides an effective simple low cost technology solution to assist you with maintaining and managing your professional credentials continuity. For more information, visit
AECredentialing.com. We are prepared to schedule a demonstration for your review.
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Housekeeping Note: If your address, phone number or email
address has changed please notify your credentials agencies.
Contact Details:
LS Credentialing Services, WBE Certified, P.O. Box 91, Olathe, KS 66051
Info@AECredentialing.com
Join us in our efforts to go "green". Think before you print.
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Architects: Jurisdiction License Renewal Due Date
09/2016
Guam
10/2016
Michigan
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Engineers:
Jurisdiction License Renewal Due Date
09/2016
Louisiana, Texas
10/2016
None
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Landscape Architects: Jurisdiction License Renewal Due Date
09/2016
None
10/2016
None
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If your license renews on your date of birth this month, or by state requirement when your license origination occurred, it's time to renew.
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New Feature
The
CredentiaLIST -stores hard copy and electronic Certificates of Education for easy access
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Receive a custom monthly email credentialing report containing: |
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- All A/E/LA national and international licensure status with renewal dates
- Professional affiliation membership types with renewal dates
- Current multi-discipline continuing education requirements needed
- Comprehensive recorded history of categorized education credits
Learn more about our innovative and easy-to-use service at:
AECredentialing.com.
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