Five Steps to Develop a Threat Analysis for Your Business

Threats come in many different shapes and sizes. Threats can happen in any environment, including a business.

What would you do if your life or your employee’s life was at stake?

There are many steps, like developing a threat analysis, that you can take to help you and your employees have an added layer of protection in the event of an active threat.

Threat analysis looks at the security of the facility as a whole and asks the types of questions like how easy would it be for a regular person to access the business.

Read on to learn more on how to develop a threat analysis for your business including:

1. Form a core planning team.
2. Identify and assessing threats and hazards.
3. Develop and analyze a course of action.
4. Review the course of action.
5. Exercise the course of action.

IDENTIFY AND ASSESS THREATS AND HAZARDS

Your core planning team should come together frequently to identify threats and hazards that are posed to the business, as well as perform an assessment of each.

An assessment can include employee safety, exterior and interior building access, exterior and interior business visibility and  vehicle access. Your core planning team should also look to past threats that have happened within the community, whether to your own business or any surrounding business.

Developing a running list of threats and hazards can help your team develop an in-depth emergency plan should an active threat situation occur.

DEVELOP AND ANALYZE A COURSE OF ACTION

After identifying threats and hazards to the business, your core planning team will start to develop and analyze a course of action.

This course of action can include, but is not limited to:

• What actions will be taken in an active threat situation? Actions could include going to a safe room, hiding, running or fighting back.

• Who in the team is responsible for what? During an active threat, depending on the course of action taken, there may be a time where your employees have to fight back. Instead of all of them going for the active threat’s whole body, each employee can take one specific location on the body to take down.

• When does specific actions take place? Depending on the course of action, your employees may need to be in specific locations such as a safe room, hiding, etc.

• Where in the building will the action take place? If your building has a safe room, all employees will need to know where this is, or if there are designated hiding places, a map should be handed out so all employees know these spots.

• What has to happen to the plan of action to occur? Your core planning team should designate action plans for each segment: run, hide, fight.

• What resources does the team need to carry out these actions? If you have multiple floors in your business, you may want to buy resources such as a safety ladder. If you have an extra room that isn’t being used, perhaps it could be remodeled as a safety room. After assessing your business’s risks, your core planning team should be able to make these recommendations.

REVIEW THE PLAN

After developing the threat analysis and a course of action, your core planning team should discuss this plan with you. You should analyze the plan so that your perceived threats match up with theirs.

After reviewing the plan, you and your core planning team should develop any necessary materials that may be needed to exercise this plan.

EXERCISE THE PLAN

Each member of your core planning team should go back to their departments and run through this plan with every employee. All materials should be discussed, any resources needed should be demonstrated on how to use, and any concerns with the plan should be brought up then.

After all departments run through the course of action plan, the entire company should exercise this plan together.