We are here to support your business through emergencies and significant events.
Whether it's a natural disaster, an unexpected disruption, a financial crisis or a pandemic, we can connect you with practical resources, assistance programs and mental health support to help you navigate challenging times.
If you are in immediate danger, call 000 for Police, Fire or Ambulance.
Access a downloadable copy of the Emergency Preparation Toolkit – a tool we have developed to help guide you through preparing for an emergency.
Assess the disaster risk
Before you can prepare your business it's important to understand where your business is vulnerable and what is critical to its success.
While you can’t prepare for every risk, preparation and planning can help you during disasters.
If you’re in a disaster-prone area, consider consulting an advisor. Work Safe Tasmania can provide more information about assessing your business risks.
Some questions to ask yourself when identifying a business risk:
What types of things could cause an impact on my business?
The Business Continuity Tool will help you prepare your business for unexpected disruption and disaster.
Key things to consider when planning for disasters:
Key products and/or services. Identify your business’s critical and/or most profitable products or services.
Main customers. Consider which key customers will need to know about an emergency and how you will tell them.
Develop a finance plan. Plan how the business will operate in case of an unexpected disruption or disaster.
Business insurance. Ensure your business insurance policies provide appropriate cover.
Property and infrastructure. Regularly maintain property and consider any changes to the premises that can help minimise damage in a disaster.
Alternative operation location. If you are evacuated or unable to access your usual business premises, having an alternative location organised may allow you to continue operating.
Alternative supply chain. Your suppliers can also be impacted by a disaster. Identify alternative supplier options.
Other continuity arrangements. Consider using digital tools to help keep your business running such as e-commerce and collaboration tools.
Train staff for business continuity. Reduce reliance on individual people by training multiple staff for critical roles or tasks. Create a training plan so that multiple staff can perform all essential business tasks, keeping operations running smoothly.
Data security and backup. Schedule regular data backups so essential business data can be recovered in the event of a data loss incident including natural disaster, cyberattack, hardware failure or accidental deletion.
Safe Work Australia advises that “…under the WHS laws, all workplaces must have an emergency plan in place. The plan must let workers and visitors know what to do in an emergency. Your plan should be easy to access and reviewed and updated regularly.”
Safe Work Australia recommends your emergency plan needs to cover:
emergency and evacuation procedures for all premises
contact details for emergency services
providing medical treatment and assistance
communication between the emergency response coordinator and customers and staff
providing information, training and guidance to workers on how to follow emergency procedures.
Keep emergency procedures in easy-to-access and visible places such as common areas and in work vehicles for staff that travel as a part of their role.
Business insurance is a critical part of your business continuity strategy. Insurance helps you to manage risk and protects you and your business from financial loss.
It can protect your staff, earnings and business assets such as equipment, premises and stock.
In emergencies, because of the threats to life and property, people don’t always make the best, most rational decisions.
Having a plan to follow can guide you through so you aren’t relying on your memory and making poor decisions due to the stress that you may experience.
When an emergency occurs, you should have a kit with a ready-made plan that you can physically pick up and follow.
This plan outlines the steps you should take, removing the need to rely on your memory or search for a file on your computer.
This simple downloadable template will help you to create a plan for your business: Business Continuity Plan.
If an emergency happens, prioritise the safety of you and your staff.
Remind your staff of all emergency warning systems in your area including TasALERT, ABC Emergency websites and social media platforms.
Contact the relevant emergency services (Tasmania SES, ambulance, fire, police).
Be guided by emergency services personnel.
Follow your emergency procedures – take your emergency kit, ensure everyone is accounted for and evacuate to a safe location.
Take copies or backups of important business information and store them in secure offsite location or cloud storage.
Stay updated by listening to local radio or TV, following emergency social media and checking the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) website if it’s weather-related.
When the emergency subsides, and you face the daunting task of cleaning up, the extent of the damage and the effort required for recovery can feel overwhelming.
We are committed to supporting you through this period, helping you to regain stability.
When the risk has passed, everyone is safe and you are ready to look at the damage, be sure to take the following steps.
Impact assessment – using photographs and with a notepad and pen, make a record of the following:
any injured people
damage to property, equipment or stock
any vehicles or machinery
the impact on your business function and anticipated damage to your business reputation.
Inform key contacts:
bank, lawyer, accountant/advisor, business mentor.
Insurance:
contact the insurance company before you clean up and remove damaged goods. Take photos and document damage.
Market assessment:
complete your own assessment of the impact to your business and strategies to adapt to new conditions.
Communicate with your staff.
Communicate with customers and suppliers about what has happened and a likely return to business date.
Make an assessment of the financial impact on your business.
Review what went well and what didn’t. Add to your planning and learnings in preparation for the next emergency.
If at any time you need support, our business advisors can help you figure out what the next steps are through our Tasmanian Business Advice Service and New Business Support Service.