Thankfully, It Wasn't Worse
In Prepare for the Worst, Plan for the Best: Disaster Preparedness and Recovery for Small Businesses (Wiley, second edition, 2008), I wrote about fire safety, including the importance of grounded electrical connections, maintaining a no-smoking policy at work and not leaving cooking appliances unattended, for example. Careful observation of safety procedures can significantly reduce your risk of fire at the workplace. Unfortunately, Credit Suisse learned this lesson the hard way when an employee left a space heater plugged in and on over the Thanksgiving holiday. The attached photograph shows the physical damage that resulted when an electrical fire started from the space heater. Thankfully, no one was hurt. Nevertheless, this is an important lesson in fire safety. Many small businesses become distracted by thinking of catastrophic risks specific to their geographic locale (hurricanes in the Gulf Coast states, earthquakes in California, etc.), but in fact, it is the everyday disasters, such as fire, that pose the greatest threat. Please take this opportunity to review your fire safety procedures to ensure that they are up to date and employees are compliant with them.