How To Include a Mass Alert System Into an Emergency Plan

A Traditional Emergency Plan

One of the most fundamental to-do items of any organization is to develop an emergency plan. Whether an organization has two employees or 200,000, it is critical to have a plan in place to ensure every member of your team knows what to do in an emergency.

It is one thing to say you should have a plan, to actually have a plan in place, and yet another to have practiced the plan. Nearly 60 percent of American adults surveyed admit they have never practiced what to do in a disaster at work in the past year. That means fewer than half of American workers will know what to do when an emergency arises.

The first step in keeping your employees safe is to develop an emergency plan and to practice, practice, practice. Every emergency plan should make it crystal clear what actions employers and employees must take to ensure safety. OSHA stipulates a traditional emergency action plan should include the following:

• A preferred method for reporting fires and other emergencies
• An evacuation policy and procedure
• Emergency escape procedures and route assignments, such as floor plans, workplace maps, and safe or refuge areas
• Names, titles, departments, and telephone numbers of individuals both within and outside of the company for additional information or explanation of duties and responsibilities under the emergency plan
• Procedures that employees who remain will need to perform such as shutting down critical plant operations, operating fire extinguishers, or performing other essential services that cannot be left untouched for every emergency alarm before evacuating
• Rescue and medical duties for any workers designated to perform them

The plan must include a way to alert employees to evacuate or take other action, and how to report emergencies. OSHA clarifies which communication systems are to be made available:

• A public address system
• Portable radio unit
• Other means to notify employees of the emergency and to contact local responders

If you checked all of these items off your list, you may assume you are ready. Unfortunately, you are still at risk because these bullet points are not enough. A portable radio unit? With today’s technology, are you really going to depend on walkie talkies? While this plan may be traditional, it has some growing up to do.

What Constitutes an Emergency?

One of the critical tasks an organization must tackle when developing an effective emergency plan is to determine its risk factors for each location and employee. Many companies have remote employees and facilities, traveling employees, and drivers of a fleet. Some offices are in skyscrapers while others are in a factory or warehouse.

While risks will differ per location and company, we do have insight into some of the most common events that trigger the activation of an emergency plan. They include:

• IT outages
• Weather-related incidents
• Power outages
• Natural disasters
• Fires
• Facilities management incidents
• Security-related issues
• Health and safety incidents
• Cybersecurity incidents
• Travel disruption

All of these instances could happen in any company, but there will likely be more potential issues that should be considered in order to prepare. While you cannot predict everything, you can survey each work environment to assess threats. The best plans, however, will be scalable enough to cover virtually any situation that may occur.

Having an “all-hazards” plan in place will ensure employees have a standard protocol to follow in case of any emergency. Specifics may change depending on the circumstance, but there should be set guidelines that can be applied to any critical event.

Evaluating Your Current Plan

Most companies think they are prepared when they actually are at risk. When considering the “what ifs” and risks for each location, it is a good idea to also evaluate each work environment within those locations. Emergency plans need to be specific to not only the location but to the employees working in those locations.

It is important to note whether your plan considers the layout of the building to understand the best evacuation routes, where emergency supplies might be located to offer the greatest accessibility, what accommodations there would be for handicapped employees, how parking is arranged to enable first responders to access the building quickly, and a designated safe zone for evacuated employees to gather or receive medical attention.

One of the most important features of a plan to examine is communication methods. Even in the past decade, the way we communicate vastly differs from how we communicated when computers and phones were our only options. When evaluating your emergency plan, it is critical to look at how employees are notified of an emergency, how information is delivered and received, and how effective the channels of communication are at reaching every employee in harm’s way.

Communication Makes Perfect

It is good to know that companies have moved beyond what OSHA recommended as ideal communication channels, being a public address system and portable radios. Thankfully, we have much better communication options. Email and phone systems are likely the most common modes of communication in a company’s emergency plan.

If your company relies on a phone system to reach employees, you are likely assuming several things about your employees. First, your employees are near their phone and will answer the phone. Second, if they do not answer, they will listen to the voicemail. There are a couple of problems with these assumptions.

In times of emergency, phone calls and emails simply are not enough. There are too many variables in play as to whether the employees who need the messaging the most will actually receive the message. Fortunately, there are newer channels that are proving much more effective in reaching people in the most efficient and reliable ways possible.

What Is a Mass Alert System?

The truth is, most people, including your employees, have their smartphones with them wherever they go. They are checking their phones for all kinds of communications an average of 85 times per day and 97 percent prefer texting over all other forms of communication other than face-to-face. These statistics prove the best way to reach the masses is through a sophisticated mass alert system capable of utilizing every and all communication channels – especially the ones most likely being used by your employees.

How to Integrate a Mass Alert System Into Your Plan

Just like with the emergency plan as a whole, the mass alert system should be practiced regularly. Notify employees through the mass notification system that a “test” is going to be activated (we recommend monthly or quarterly tests), and elicit feedback to determine if every employee received multiple notifications in a timely manner.

Employees can provide valuable insight into how well the system worked and whether any improvements need to be made. Some software will provide metrics that quantify how many employees received the messages and which channels were most effective based on open rates.

A More Prepared Organization

The goal of any emergency plan is to keep employees safe and to ensure the organization is prepared should an emergency arise. As the saying goes, it’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when. Things will happen. Things likely already have happened. The most prepared organizations are those who learn from the past and take those lessons to improve.

A mass alert system may be intended to communicate during an emergency, but should also be considered for any mass communication. When an organization needs to send an immediate and important notification to everyone in the organization or just to specified groups of its employees, the alert system can provide the ideal vehicle to get the message across reliably.