Guest safety is one of the most important priorities of commercial real estate (CRE).
Any time you open your doors to the public, your team must be ready to respond to any event, such as a fall, a fight breaking out, a sprinkler or HVAC malfunction, or a power outage. Power outages have increased by 64 percent since the early 2000s, with weather-related outages up by 78 percent—a trend that shows no sign of reversing any time soon.
The best way to plan for unpredictable disturbances is to establish an incident response training program to help team members respond to events that may arise at your facility. This is a great way to keep staff members up to date with the latest safety protocols, technologies, and strategies.
Read on to learn why incident response training is important, what steps to follow when training your team, and why continuous training is important.
Why Incident Response Training is Important
Unexpected incidents can be surprising for both guests and personnel, potentially leading to panic and disorder. But with a comprehensive incident management response training program in place, you can equip team members to handle any challenge that comes their way.
Here are the main reasons CRE operations need to prioritize incident response training:
- To prepare for when something goes wrong.
- To coordinate your response and communication in the event of an incident.
- To track what needs to be done and who needs to do it.
- To review and improve your procedures after an incident occurs.
- To be proactive in addressing potential problems before they happen.
Steps to Follow When Training Your Team
All properties are unique, so it’s important to establish custom training that aligns with your specific property, location, and market. For example, a stadium or arena will have different training requirements than a store or restaurant.
In light of this, here’s an incident response training template you can use to prepare your team.
1. Know What Risks to Expect
Every venue has different risks that must be considered, such as the placement of emergency exits, staircases, and floor plans. Training should therefore involve analyzing specific venue layouts and data to generate a realistic threat model.
2. Outline Roles and Responsibilities
When an incident happens, there’s no time for guesswork. All team members should know their specific roles and responsibilities so they can spring into action quickly and efficiently.
3. Develop Response Procedures
It’s also necessary to document specific procedures for incidents—such as fires, unruly crowds, and active shooters. Having clearly defined response procedures in place can help to gain control of just about any situation and minimize damage.
4. Document Reporting Procedures
Communication is another critical part of incident response management. All team members should have clear procedures to follow to communicate during an event. This can save both time and lives.
5. Invest in Incident Management Tools and Other Critical Systems
Team members should have a working knowledge of all incident management tools and systems, including communications tools. It’s also necessary to inform and upskill team members any time you add or update incident response tools.
6. Create Recovery Procedures
After an incident occurs, there’s often more work to do involving tasks like reporting, making repairs, and notifying stakeholders. For this reason, it’s necessary to outline specific recovery procedures to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
Continuously Evaluate the Training
Incident response isn’t something you can set and forget. Properties, environments, customer needs, and threats are highly dynamic and change by the day.
As a result, property managers must implement continuing incident response education every quarter. Robust education materials enable staff members to become more familiar with evolving technology procedures and more capable of responding to challenging situations.
Streamline Incident Response Training with 24/7 Software
Going over incident response training scenarios with team members is only one piece of the safety preparation puzzle. For the best results, you also need to have a robust cloud incident response training system in place to centralize training and make sure your team follows a single set of protocols and operating procedures.
24/7 Software offers one of the best incident response training platforms on the market. Our solutions enable teams to communicate, monitor incidents, and exchange information from a single pane of glass—making incident responses that much swifter.
To learn more about how Incident Management from 24/7 Software can transform your approach to incident response, check this out.
