Global Emergency Response Support for Major Technology Client

Within a global technology company, a new organization took over the emergency response program management. The new managers wanted to ensure that there was clarity on the regulatory requirements for their different facility types: Office, Datacenters, Manufacturing, Research and Design (R&D) facilities, and/or larger campuses with multiple facility types. The original request was to identify applicable emergency response requirements but evolved to developing a corporate policy, compliance templates for the site-specific emergency plans, personal emergency evacuation plans for personnel with workplace challenges, compliance audits, and a regulatory risk calculator.

This project is ongoing, and we update the information annually as well as address new acquisitions, COVID requirements, and new hybrid office impacts to the emergency response program. 

In 2018, Antea Group developed a customized deliverable of global regulatory requirements for all the 141 jurisdictions of federal, state/province, and local emergency response requirements. The team identified applicable emergency response regulations and explained compliance requirements regarding:

• General Requirements for Emergency Response and Preparedness for Offices, data centers, research & development, and Manufacturing (where applicable), including:
  • Requirements for exit routes
  • Exit route signage and evacuation route posting
  • Maintenance, safeguards, and operational features for exit routes
  • General Employee Training
  • Drills/Exercises
• Medical Services and First Aid Requirements
• AED Requirements
• General Fire System Requirements:
  • Authorizations/Permits
  • Portable fire extinguishers (including location, signage, and inspections requirements)
  • Employee alarm systems (noting if a permit is required and inspection requirements)
  • Cost/Impact of Noncompliance
  • Notification and Permits
• Emergency Response Team Requirements
• Written Plan Requirements.

This list changes annually to address new focus: COVID, Personnel with disabilities, Communication in a multi-tenant facility, high-risk facilities, etc.

Antea Group has been visualizing the changes, new questions requirement, and the cost of non-compliance to help the client to justify action.

As a result of this work, Global Company Leadership has gained awareness of global requirements and mapping for the Regional/Country team specific to facility type and location. We have established clear compliance requirements that each facility was able to use to evaluate their compliance. The client can use the trending results to calculate the risk of non-compliance to the company and utilize the cost calculations of noncompliance to assess risk tolerance. They were also able to prioritize gaps to create a road map to compliance by facility, country, region, and corporation.