Keeping Tabs on Employees When Disaster Strikes

If your employees aren’t at the workplace when emergency strikes, it’s critical to have a way to stay in touch. Companies have long turned to emergency notification systems to handle that task – but new technologies are changing the way those systems work.

In an article on the TechNews World website, Pam Baker says “Mobile communications are leading the way in mass notification systems for a very good reason.” Baker examines several different types of emergency notification systems, and looks at the ways in which they have technologically advanced in the past few years.

“Not everyone is in the office when an emergency strikes, so contacting them through as many means as possible is required during the event," Roberta Witty, research vice president at Gartner, told Baker. “Text messaging and cell phones are becoming the top two forms of emergency notification.”

But as handy and efficient as mobile devices are, Baker says, they don’t always fit the bill in an emergency. They only work if employees have the devices with them and operating when the notification goes out.

Most experts recommend a broader approach to mass notification, Baker adds. Don’t just look at one-way communications like e-mail linked to a mass distribution list. Instead, choose a system that will also track responses and take appropriate action based on employee responses.