Safety, security, and emergency communication in the Age of COVID-19

Note: AlertMedia is leading the evolution of employee safety for a modern workforce, offering the most intuitive emergency communication software on the market. Every day, AlertMedia’s software empowers companies like Volkswagen, DHL, JetBlue, and Walmart to communicate quickly and effectively with their employees about business-critical events. Its easy-to-use interface, multi-channel messaging, around-the-clock customer support, and real-time threat monitoring make it easy for thousands of organizations in 100+ countries to keep their people safe at all times. AlertMedia is a leading sponsor of the 2020 GSX+ virtual event. You can reach them in the virtual showcase by clicking here.

Emergencies come in many forms and, as we have been sharply reminded by the coronavirus pandemic, can be unpredictable. In the span of just a few months, our lives have been turned upside down as terms like “social distancing” and “self-quarantine” have found their way into our collective vernacular.

Organizations across all industries and from every corner of the globe have had to quickly pivot and adapt to changing market conditions and workforce dynamics. With an increasingly remote, distributed workforce — coupled with the fluid and rapidly evolving nature of COVID-19 — timely, relevant, and accurate employee communication has never been more important.

Organizations have long used emergency communication software to keep their people safe, informed, and connected during a wide variety of critical events, from severe weather and natural disasters to cyber-attacks and workplace violence. And while a global pandemic isn’t necessarily what anyone expected, COVID-19 has left every business searching for new ways and means to effectively communicate with their people.

Adapting Technology to the Changing COVID-19 Landscape

Along with its health and economic threats, the pandemic has dramatically changed how and where people work. This has forced security, risk management, and business continuity leaders to rethink their emergency response and communication strategies—and the technology behind them.

Maryland-based BTI Security, for example, invested last year in a modern emergency communication system to improve their overall emergency preparedness but found the platform’s dynamic communication capabilities invaluable when the COVID-19 outbreak began to spread. “Our employees have worked throughout the crisis [COVID-19]. As security professionals for federal, state and local government as well colleges and universities, we are essential personnel. We have been able to keep them informed as the situation we are all facing changes daily. With AlertMedia, we can intercede with information our employees need to know as they continue to perform their work for our customers,” says Devon Duggins, Executive Administrator of BTI Security. “We had specific ideas of how we planned to use the system, everything from HR to Operations, however, we had no idea how valuable it would be during the pandemic.”

The Role of Emergency Communication Technology

One of the most significant ways to improve employee health, safety, and well-being is through effective communication, and a particularly good example of this comes from aluminum giant Alcoa. In the late 1980s, Alcoa’s CEO, Paul O’Neill, helped transform the company into one of the safest (and most profitable) in the world, despite the aluminum industry’s significant risks. A major contributor to this was O’Neill’s focus on facilitating proactive, transparent, ongoing communication across the organization.

In the uncertain, chaotic conditions brought on by the pandemic, the communication of accurate information has become even more foundational to ensuring the welfare of both employees and the business. With an emergency communication system that enables the fast, reliable, secure delivery of mass notifications, security professionals can communicate with any-size audience, on any device, over any communication channel, anywhere in the world. They can send COVID-related warnings, alerts, and information out to affected employees in near real-time, even from a mobile device. 

Some advanced systems also integrate comprehensive threat data from the CDC and local and global news outlets directly into their software, allowing organizations to track reported cases, shelter-in-place regulations, and current government guidelines in relation to where employees live and work. This threat intelligence gives businesses the insights they need to stay ahead of the situation and proactively keep their people safe.

From communicating with furloughed workers to performing wellness checks to prudently starting to return to work, businesses are using emergency communication software in a number of ways to improve employee health and safety, maintain business continuity, and meet their duty of care in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

Staying Connected With Furloughed Employees

Metro Diner—a Florida-based restaurant franchise with 5,000 employees turned to AlertMedia in March when the pandemic began to escalate in the United States. Having to furlough most of its staff—like many foodservice and hospitality establishments have had to do due to locally mandated closures—Metro Diner uses the software to communicate frequently and openly with affected employees.

By keeping in regular contact with its dispersed employees and sending relevant, timely information—including details on how to file for unemployment and take advantage of the benefits available to them—Metro Diner has been able to keep engagement and morale up even in these difficult times. As restaurants around the country begin to reopen their dining rooms, Metro Diner is also using its emergency communication software to share reopening plans and protocols with their employees.

Communicating Office Closures

One banking institution headquartered in Florida has used emergency communication software for many years to communicate with employees when severe weather has threatened any of their dozens of branches located throughout the southeastern U.S. Operating in a region prone to hurricanes and tropical storms, the organization used AlertMedia to protect its people and branches during Hurricane Michael in 2018 and Hurricane Dorian in 2019. When the pandemic hit, using its emergency communication software to communicate COVID-related updates—such as information about branch closures and hours—seemed like a logical extension.

For both Metro Diner and this banking institution, multi-channel communication capabilities have been pivotal to safeguarding message deliverability. These capabilities allow an administrator to send a message simultaneously across a number of channels—including text message, email, voice call, mobile app push, and even social media—to reach employees within seconds.

In organizations with hourly and frontline employees, multi-channel messaging is critical since many of these employees do not have company email addresses or, if they do, can’t necessarily check them regularly. In the event that you need to inform employees to go home and self-isolate because of possible exposure, a delay of even a few hours could mean they are unknowingly exposing others to the virus. Multi-channel capabilities are also particularly useful for organizations with furloughed employees who can’t legally check or respond to email while on leave.

Coordinating Logistics and Operations

Since the devastating 2011 Joplin tornado, Kansas-based staffing firm Krucial Staffing has supplied clinical and non-clinical staff—such as nurses and paramedics—to locations requiring urgent assistance or long-term recovery support. 

From natural disasters to border crises and all emergencies in between, the organization regularly uses emergency communication software to streamline logistics and operational processes. When COVID-19 hit, the software allowed them to efficiently communicate with and organize over 4,000 medical professionals across the country in order to augment local hospital operations and provide medical surge staffing.

Adds Brian Cleary, CEO of Krucial Staffing, “AlertMedia has contributed greatly to Krucial Staffing's success during the pandemic. When the pandemic first hit, we already had the strong backbone of AlertMedia in place to quickly assemble and get real-time data on our staff deployments. From allowing us to easily coordinate scheduling availability to deploying healthcare workers to COVID-19 hotspots, AlertMedia really came to our rescue and made it easy for us to help those in need during a chaotic time."

Ensuring the Safety and Well-Being of Employees

During the pandemic, enabling continuous, two-way dialogue with employees can help organizations more effectively identify and address potential risks. Two-way communication capabilities—with features like surveys, read receipts, incoming messages, and “need help” requests—allow organizations to interact with their people to improve safety and keep a pulse on employee needs.

Operating out of more than 80 bases across the U.S., PHI Air Medical—one of the country’s leading air ambulance providers—uses emergency communication software to ensure the safety and well-being of its crew of pilots, nurses and paramedics who help transport more than 30,000 patients annually.

PHI Air Medical’s Emergency Operations Manager, Brad Olson, uses AlertMedia daily to communicate with employees who have transported a patient with a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19. For the 14 days following a possible or known exposure, Olson sends daily surveys to those employees to ensure they are not experiencing any adverse symptoms. These insights give PHI Air Medical’s leadership team the visibility they need to continue to ensure employee and patient safety.

When an emergency communication system integrates directly with an organization’s HR system of record—such as its HRIS or Active Directory—it can also access accurate employee contact data in real-time. This data enables the creation of dynamic groups, which allow administrators to easily segment and communicate with employees based on location, department, or any other attribute. As a result, organizations like PHI Air Medical are able to send relevant, targeted messages to only those employees who may be impacted, improving engagement and avoiding alert fatigue.

Reopening Safely and Sustainably

As stay-at-home orders begin to ease, organizations are using emergency communication systems to facilitate their full return to work. As Texas loosens lockdown restrictions, for example, employees of Houston-based Bellicum Pharmaceuticals are beginning to go back to work to continue the organization’s life-saving mission. To comply with the state’s requirement of performing daily employee health screenings—as well as to ensure employee safety and boost employees’ confidence about returning to work—Bellicum is turning to emergency communication software.

Leveraging their system’s two-way communication capabilities, Bellicum’s HR team sends an automatic daily survey to all of the company’s Texas-based employees asking if they have had any known exposure to or are showing any symptoms of COVID-19. Employees can then respond using a survey link within the message—a process that takes employees three seconds. If people don’t respond, the message can be automatically resent to only those employees until a response is received. These real-time survey insights also allow the organization to swiftly notify employees in the event of a suspected or positive case of COVID-19 in the workplace.

Maintaining Safety, Security, and Business Continuity During the Pandemic

In the current health and economic crisis, business continuity and emergency preparedness plans are being put to the test in ways we never imagined. Relying on email or manual phone trees is no longer going to cut it. Unreliable, outdated, and clunky emergency communication systems can cause even more anxiety, confusion, and stress in what is already a challenging work environment. With a modern emergency communication system that has multi-channel delivery, two-way messaging, and local threat monitoring and threat intelligence capabilities, organizations can proactively protect their people and their business in the new reality of COVID-19.

About the Author:

Peter Steinfeld is the SVP of Strategic Sales at AlertMedia, an Austin-based tech company that offers emergency communication software to businesses. AlertMedia is a certified Weather-Ready Nation ambassador and has been helping companies keep their employees safe and informed during hurricane season since 2013. Most recently, AlertMedia was listed as #285 on the 2019 INC 5000 list of the fastest-growing privately-held companies in America.