In Human Resource Continuity Planning, Certified Products Can Save Lives
Develop
Your Human Resource Continuity Plan
Businesses
have been preparing for and experiencing disasters and emergencies for as long
as commerce has existed. Over the years, this process has focused largely on
what is known as business continuity. Simply put, business continuity is the
ability to carry on business operations in the wake of natural or man-made
disasters or disruptions to normal business activities. Examples such as
Katrina and 9/11 come to mind when thinking about the need for business
continuity.
Both
of these events also offer an opportunity to examine the less-talked-about
planning and procedures that businesses must develop to keep employees and
on-site personnel safe in the event of any physical emergency or disaster.
Human Resource Continuity or HRC for both business and facility management focuses
on keeping employees safe and secure in the event of a fire or other workplace
emergency.
Developing
a focused human resource continuity plan can save lives by ensuring a
well-practiced and tested emergency evacuation plan along with the equipment needed
to support it, is in place and known by building occupants. The article below
will help facilities managers planning for human resource continuity by
highlighting the standards, testing and certification to look for when choosing
emergency escape equipment to support HRC planning for fire and smoke-based
emergencies, where carbon monoxide is one of the most deadly byproducts of
combustion.
Buyer
Beware
Most
emergency escape products for situations, involving fire and smoke, are not
certified to any American standard and may not provide the level of protection
required to ensure a safe evacuation from a facility. How can HRC planners sift
through the noise and misinformation of the emergency protection marketplace to
ensure any solution they implement will perform at the levels required to
maintain employee safety during an emergency situation?
First
and foremost, it is necessary to form evacuation plans that move facility
occupants away from the building and to a safe area. A crucial component of any
plan is the equipment used to guarantee occupants can escape the area of
immediate danger and find safety. The best way to ensure your emergency fire
escape equipment is up to standard is to purchase equipment that is certified
by Safety Equipment Institute
(SEI) to the ANSI
/ ISEA 110 standard that protects wearers from fire and smoke related
contaminants like carbon monoxide and other lethal gases produced by combustion.
By
its very nature, any HRC plan must be simple enough for everyone to understand
and execute. At the same time, the plan needs to be rigid enough to withstand a
situation full of variables, including: panic and mob mentality, blocked exits,
corrupted or shifting building infrastructure, and visibility and problems with
the building’s air quality. Human resource continuity planning is
time-consuming to piece together and implement for an office environment, but
even the most resourceful manager can be thoroughly lost in a crisis without
one.
Even
the best evacuation plan can and will have problems when faced with so many
unknowns and variables. Monthly or quarterly fire drills can help, but in panic
situations, it’s imperative that evacuees have the tools necessary to get out
of a dangerous, life-threatening environment quickly and safely. Having
American-certified smoke and fire escape hoods available during an evacuation
can help neutralize many of the variables found in an emergency situation, particularly
with air quality and visibility. However, most products on the market today are
not certified to any standard. If an HRC plan is tested for efficacy, how can
an emergency manager be assured that an escape hood will be effective?
Confusion
over escape hood options is very real. Since 9/11, the marketplace has been
flooded with a number of different products that touted safety during an escape
situation. In 2007, responding to this glut of questionable products, the Consumer
Product Safety Commission tested a number of off-the-shelf escape products. Not one of these products passed the
test.
Consider the Filter – carbon monoxide
The
most important part of any escape hood is the filtering system. The most
effective escape hoods will have a combination filter to remove a wide range of
particulates and gases.
- The best particulate filter
is a high-efficiency particulate air HEPA filter. These will filter 99.97
percent or better of sub-micron particles out of the air.
- The best gas filters contain
a catalyst and impregnated activated charcoal. The catalyst is essential
for turning toxic carbon monoxide, the number one cause of deaths during a
fire, into non-toxic carbon dioxide. The impregnated activated charcoal
works in tandem with the catalyst, removing toxic gases from the wearer’s
air supply and mitigating the effects of harmful gases generated by
burning materials during a fire.
Setting the Standard
In
light of the many sub-standard products on the market, the American ANSI/ISEA Standard 110
was established to ensure fire and smoke escape products provide the protection
needed to reach safety in a fire emergency situation. This new ANSI/ISEA
standard defines both test criteria and approval methods. It contains general
requirements for certification – including ISO registration for the
manufacturer, independent process and quality control audits, as well as
follow-up inspection programs – and a comprehensive schedule of performance
requirements and associated test methods.
Certified Solutions
To
earn certification, the product must meet specified requirements for physical
characteristics, including:
- Being tested with a series of
combustion byproduct gases, including: carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide,
sulfur dioxide, hydrogen chloride, acrolein and cyclohexane.
- Ease of donning, a full field
of vision, radiant heat, exposure to vibration, puncture and tear, as well
as extremes of pressure and temperature.
Escape
hoods incorporated into an evacuation plan should be certified by the Safety Equipment Institute (SEI),
which tests thousands of safety and protective products. SEI currently
certifies all NFPA 1981 self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) used by
firefighters, first responders and other emergency services personnel.
Incorporating
American-certified escape hoods into an HRC plan in an office or building can
minimize the number of fatalities and injuries resulting from carbon monoxide
poising, smoke inhalation and visibility problems during an emergency
situation. However, the product needs to have proven efficacy before it can be
added to any plan, meaning that only escape hoods certified by SEI to the ANSI/ISEA 110
standard should be considered. The fire escape hoods that have been certified
to this American standard can be found on SEI’s Web site, http://www.seinet.org.
Just
as an emergency situation is neither the time nor place to ad-lib an escape
plan, it is also no place to find out if a product lives up to its claims. When
planning for the human resource side of business continuity and any potential
fire and smoke-based emergency, it is important that any emergency escape
equipment be readily available, integrated into a well thought out HRC plan,
and be certified to the ANSI/ISEA 110 standard
by SEI.
Another
way to improve your HRC planning and ensure people are able to access the
life-saving equipment needed is having proper storage for all emergency
equipment. Fire and smoke escape hoods should be stored in an easily accessible
location. A preferred method of storage is a cabinet containing no more than 25
hoods with an alarm so any attempt at tampering or theft will be immediately
apparent and your HRC investment in staff safety will not be compromised. Like any planning process, a little research
and effort in the early stages will pay huge dividends in the event of any
emergency situation and may mean the difference between life and death for
building occupants.