Who Ya Gonna Call? – The Importance of Employee Training

Written by Jerry Shamburg

From the Book of Shamstradamus – Disaster Prognosticator

How involved are your employees in the emergency plans for your company? Do they receive training in First Aid and CPR, or how and when to use a fire extinguisher? Do employees know how to properly report emergencies to both emergency services and key internal contacts? Do employees work as a team with specific assignments supporting the incident or does everyone Call 911? Have employees received any training to assist each other during those first few minutes of every emergency?

This month I want to discuss the most critical element of your company’s resiliency and recovery plans – your employees. Regardless of the emergency, be it fire, earthquake, medical, workplace accident, your employees are “the first on scene” and their actions during those first few minutes could make a significant difference in outcomes. Throughout my career I have trained many employee teams, and I have seen some incredible responses and actions that saved lives or avoided further impacts to the business. Conversely, I have also observed bad actions and decisions by employees that should not occur. 

Whether you are a small business with a handful of employees, or a larger organization with multiple floors or locations with hundreds of employees, providing your employees with training and tools for their role as emergency responders is critical to a resilient organization. 

I’ll begin my examples with the basics of First Aid and CPR.

We had just completed employee emergency team training at a remote site. Emergency roles and duties were covered, and each team member was provided with position checklists and tools to facilitate their roles. A few weeks later an employee in this building is having a medical emergency. The employees worked as a team to attend to the patient, summon 911, notify Security, and even send an employee to the outside entrance to meet and direct responding EMS units to the patient. These employees provided an incredible support role during the critical first minutes of that incident, and possibly saved the patient’s life. Here’s an example of another medical emergency where employees had not been trained:

A new business unit comes online and as required there is an employee emergency team identified, and there are AEDs placed throughout the building. However, these teams had not been given time to attend the recommended courses and building employees had not received any emergency training. A few weeks later an employee complains to a co-worker that he is having chest pains. His co-workers do not call 911, but instead put the victim in an office chair and wheel him down the hall to look for assistance (none of them had any First Aid or CPR training). They continued throughout the building for several minutes until encountering a team member by chance in the hall. Emergency Services responded and transported the employee to a local hospital. 

In these examples, the employees are on-scene and become the de facto First Responders while waiting the arrival of EMS personnel and both illustrate the importance of training employees in First Aid, CPR and AED. 

Let’s look at another basic employee skill, Fire Extinguishers. We have them everywhere. But do employees know where they are? Do they know which type of extinguisher they can or should use? Have employees ever actually held a fire extinguisher in their hands? 

I was conducting a hands-on fire extinguisher course with a large group of schoolteachers. We had a burn pan that we ignited, and the students would then approach and extinguish the fire with an ABC Extinguisher. One teacher finished her turn then asked if she could go back and do it again. She told me “I’ve been teaching 40 years, and this is the first time I’ve ever done this!” She was truly excited to have learned a new and important skill. 

Properly trained and equipped employees can stop a small fire before it grows into a costly disaster and a major emergency for your company. Here’s an example of just that:

An employee is working after hours on a fully detailed scale model of a major theme park under construction. This working model is quite large and very costly. While on the phone, the employee hears unusual sounds and returns to the hi-bay where the model is displayed. He sees small smoldering spots on the model where an overheated light fixture above has dropped dripping melted plastic. The employee summons help retrieves a fire extinguisher and puts out the small fire spots on the model. While the model did sustain some minor damage, the employee’s quick actions mitigated an emergency that could have caused significant damages and delays to the project.  

Now let’s look at almost the same scenario and how a lack of training resulted in a totally different outcome:

A highly classified communications satellite has completed testing and is in a high-by awaiting transport to the launch facility. On his rounds, the building security officer observes smoke and flames coming from behind storage cabinets in the high bay. Due to the physical security measures in place, there were minor delays making access into the area. Fire Department personnel quickly extinguish a small fire on a workbench caused by a melted light diffuser. The area is being ventilated, personnel are being debriefed by Security and the emergency appears to be over. Suddenly the building’s fire riser alarm sounds and the overhead sprinkler system (which had not deployed) suddenly activates. The satellite sustains water damages that result in millions of dollars of costs and delays to a critical program. It would be determined later that personnel were not familiar with how to manually shut off the sprinkler system. 

My final example on employee training speaks to evacuation plans:

Prior to 9/11, we trained high-rise employees to evacuate three floors below and above the alarmed floor. After 9/11 the local Fire Department began requiring evacuation completely out of the building. As my team and I conducted the (new) evacuation drills, we met employees who had worked in their building for over 20 years and had never followed the evacuation stairs down more than the three floors they were initially taught. They didn’t know how to get out of the lower levels once they evacuated. We had to take small groups and walk them through their evacuation routes to their assigned external sites. 

Resiliency comes from being prepared, trained, and equipped for emergencies. This all begins by making sure your employees know what to do and have been provided the necessary training to do those tasks. Your emergency plans should include brief and concise guidance for your employees. And all of that should be reinforced through training and drills for all employees, as they will be your first responders. 

Gerald (Jerry) Shamburg is a former Emergency Manager with over 30 years of experience with public and private sector organizations. Jerry is an Advisory Board Member and Resiliency Coach with The Resiliency Initiative. He can be contacted via email at Jerry@theresiliencyinitiative.com.