Here are just some of the new features:
Your Choice of Two New Assessments to Measure your Preparedness - Thousands of organizations from commercial businesses to houses of worship, schools, non-profit institutions, and even some government agencies have used a Ready Rating Assessment to measure the quality of their emergency response plan.
Now the program has two versions to choose from:
- The ReadyGo Assessment is a brief 25 question assessment designed for organizations that are relatively new to emergency planning. Completing this assessment will help you evaluate some of the most critical strengths and weaknesses of your current program.
- The ReadyAdvance Assessment provides a more in-depth measurement of your organization’s preparedness plans and is meant for organizations that have taken some basic steps but are ready to become even more prepared.
Which Assessment Is Right For Me?
- If you do not have a plan, the ReadyGo Assessment is the place to start. Many organizations can complete this assessment in fifteen to thirty minutes.
- If your organization currently has a robust preparedness plan, you can use the ReadyAdvance Assessment to measure your existing plans. The Assessment has 60 questions and can usually be completed in less than an hour.
Which assessment you choose is up to you, and you can switch them at any time.
Enhanced Resource Center with the tools and information you need to improve your Ready Rating Assessment score. The new Resource Center is filled with checklists, sample forms, educational papers and videos from preparedness experts – all there for you to use and/or repurpose. And because the Red Cross knows that not all the resources fit perfectly into an organization’s templates, many of them are available in file formats that make is easy for you to modify, reproduce, republish or distribute as long as you include a copyright notice that the source of the information was the Ready Rating program. The Resource Center has the exact copyright language to use – making it easy!
Resource Center Topics Include:
- Evacuation Assembly Areas
- Emergency Planning Committees
- Sheltering Exercise Checklist
- Guide to Media Training for Staff
- Exercise Assessment Checklists
- Training Your Emergency Response Team
- Keeping Emergency Contact Information Current
- Emergency Lighting
- Supply Chain Disruption
- Recommended Emergency supplies
- Persons with Disabilities
- Which Hazards and Emergencies are Your Highest Risk
- And many, many more
We also offer special information written for schools and houses of worship
Customizable Emergency Action Plan Template Tools - OSHA requires that all employers have an Emergency Action Plan (EAP). If you have ten or more employees, the EAP must be written. Ready Rating offers two versions of this tool for members to customize with templates that can be modified using standard word processing programs.
- EAPGo - Creates a basic template that includes the 6 minimum topics that OSHA requires. Use this tool if you only want the simplest version of an EAP, with just a few topics and pages.
- EAPAdvance - Includes the minimum topics above and allows you to choose from an additional 60+ topics so you can make sure you have a thorough plan that addresses all of your organization’s needs. Simply decide if there are other topics in addition to the OSHA minimum requirements that you wish to include in your EAP and click to include those topics using the Include/Exclude buttons. This will add suggested guidance to the plan which you can later edit to meet your needs.
Your Ready Rating Star Rating -While the information you obtain from the various Ready Rating tools has enormous value, having a clear indication of progress is also 
important. This is why Ready Rating has created its Star Rating System.
Members earn stars for taking positive actions such as:
- Joining the Program
- Completing an Assessment
- Customizing an Emergency Action Plan
- And demonstrating a commitment to ongoing improvement by updating your Assessment as you complete the various recommendations contained in the Next Steps Report.
Remember, some of your stars expire if you do not return to the Assessment page, updating yours to improve your score. Do this at least annually, although many members indicate that it is easier to track as you make individual improvements.
Take a few minutes now to explore the new website. Then work on these two steps:
- STEP ONE: Take one of the updated Assessments to get a new measurement of your preparedness
- STEP TWO: Implement the actions recommended on your Next Steps Report.
You will earn stars, but even more important, your business will be better prepared for imminent disasters or emergencies.