How to Write a Workplace Emergency Plan in Australia (Step-by-Step Guide)
- OHS News
- 13 minutes ago
- 5 min read
The fire alarm goes off at 9:47am on a Tuesday.
The new worker who started last week looks at you. The contractor who's been on site for two days looks at you. The customer waiting at reception looks at you.
Where do they go? Who calls 000? Who checks the back office? Where do you meet outside?
If you can't answer those four questions in five seconds, your emergency plan is missing something - or you don't have one yet.
This guide walks through what an Australian workplace emergency plan actually needs to include, the most common gaps we see in small business plans, and a step-by-step process to build one (or update yours) in an afternoon.
Yes, your business needs one - it's in the regulations
Under Regulation 43 of the WHS Regulations, every workplace in Australia must prepare, maintain and implement an emergency plan. Not "should." Must. The duty applies whether you have 50 workers in a warehouse or one person working out of a home office. If you're in Victoria, the OHS Act 2004 places a general duty on employers to provide a safe workplace, which includes having appropriate emergency arrangements in place. Victoria doesn't have a direct equivalent of Regulation 43 that applies to all workplaces, but the general duty still requires you to manage emergency risks.
There is no small-business carve-out. The size of the plan can scale with the size of the business - a sole trader's plan will be a fraction of the length of a 30-person manufacturer's - but the obligation itself doesn't change.
What an emergency plan must include
In plain English, Regulation 43 says your plan has to cover:
An effective response to an emergency - what actually happens when the alarm sounds.
Evacuation procedures - who goes where, by which route, to which assembly point.
Notifying emergency services at the earliest opportunity - who calls 000, what they say, and where they direct first responders.
Medical treatment and assistance - first aid response, kit locations, trained first aiders.
Effective communication - how you'll communicate with workers, visitors and emergency services during the event.
Testing of the emergency procedures - how often you'll drill, and the form the test takes.
Information, training and instruction - making sure relevant workers actually know the plan.
That's not a long list. But "we'd just walk out the front door" doesn't satisfy any of those seven items - and it's the version of the plan most small businesses are quietly running on.
Where most plans fall over
The plan exists, but it's old. Wardens listed have left the business. Phone numbers are out of date. The "assembly point near the loading dock" is now a building site.
The plan covers fire - and nothing else. Medical emergencies, gas leaks, severe weather, intruders, structural events - none of these are addressed.
No one's done a drill. A plan that's never been practised is a document that exists. In a real emergency, that's the difference between a controlled response and a panicked one.
New workers and contractors aren't briefed. The emergency plan gets covered (maybe) on day one of induction, then never again. Anyone hired or engaged after that knows nothing.
There's no record of any of this. Even if the drill happened and the briefing was done, there's no written record. From an audit or insurance perspective, that's the same as not doing it.
Copying an emergency plan template from 2018 and changing the logo doesn't mean your workers are protected. It means you have paperwork.
The step-by-step process to write yours
You can build a workable plan in an afternoon. Here's the order to do it in.
Step 1: Map your emergencies
List every emergency type that's plausible for your workplace. Don't overthink it. Most small Australian businesses need to plan for some combination of:
Fire
Medical emergency (worker or visitor)
Gas leak or chemical release (if you handle either)
Severe weather (storm, flood, heatwave)
Power outage
Structural event
Intruder, threat or violent incident
If you're unsure what's plausible, walk the site and ask: what could realistically go wrong here? The answers are your plan inputs.
Step 2: Define the response for each one
For each emergency type, write down:
The trigger - how someone knows the emergency is happening (alarm, sight, smell, report)
The first action - what the first person on the scene does (raise the alarm, call 000, isolate, evacuate)
The route or shelter point - where workers and visitors go
The roles - who's the warden, who calls 000, who checks rooms, who directs emergency services on arrival
The all-clear - how and when workers know it's safe to return
Keep it concrete. "Use sound judgement" is not a procedure.
Step 3: Document the practical details
This is where most plans either work or quietly fall apart. Get specific:
Assembly point - exact location, with a map. Marked clearly on site signage.
Evacuation routes - primary and secondary, with maps posted on each level.
Warden list - names, roles, contact numbers. Include a deputy for every primary warden.
First aiders - names, current first aid certificate dates, kit locations.
Emergency contacts - 000, building management, after-hours, any specialist responders for your hazards (e.g. chemical spills).
If any of those details change - and they will - the plan needs to be updated the same week.
Step 4: Train your workers
Every worker, contractor and regular visitor needs to know:
What the alarms sound like
Where to go and how to get there
Who their warden is
Where the assembly point is
What to do if their primary route is blocked
This is part of your induction process - and it's also part of your ongoing toolbox talks. A 5-10 minute conversation each quarter keeps the plan alive in people's heads.
Step 5: Test the plan
A plan that's never been tested isn't a plan. Run an evacuation drill at least annually - more often if your workplace is high-risk or has high worker turnover. Document the date, who participated, what worked, and what didn't. Then fix what didn't.
Step 6: Review and re-issue
Set a calendar reminder to review the plan annually, plus any time something material changes - a new site, a new hazard, a key worker leaving, a near-miss. Update the version number and the date. Re-issue to the team.
How this fits in your WHS Management System
A standalone emergency plan is better than nothing - but emergency procedures sit inside a wider WHS Management System for a reason. Your evacuation routes connect to your site induction. Your first aid response connects to your incident reporting procedure. Your warden list overlaps with your training records.
When the procedure lives in a documented WHS Manual, all of that joins up. When it lives in someone's head or in a forgotten Word doc on a shared drive, it doesn't.
For small Australian businesses, the practical answer isn't a custom consultant engagement or a SaaS platform with monthly fees. It's a complete, industry-specific WHS Manual with the emergency procedures section already built in - written procedures, checklists, drill records - that you can edit for your business and use today.
A free resource you can use this week
To help you start the conversation with your team, we've put together a free Toolbox Talk: Evacuation Procedures. Run it as a 10-minute discussion at your next team meeting. It's the version we use ourselves.
And if your WHS manual needs more than a tune-up
If your WHS manual is years out of date - or you're working without one - our WHS Management Systems give you a complete, industry-specific document set built by WHS specialists. Aligned to Australian regulations. Fully editable. One-off price, no subscription. Download today, use tomorrow.
This article provides general WHS guidance for Australian small businesses. It is not legal advice. For advice specific to your situation, consult a WHS professional or your state/territory regulator.
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