Emergency Notification Systems and Crisis Communication – Blog

Fall is an extremely busy time for schools; not only are there new students, faculty, and parents to add or register as emergency notification recipients, but there’s also the possibility of new safety or security personnel to train on emergency response policies. Although it takes time and energy to prepare your pre-planned communications for your organization’s specific needs and policies, you should create a monthly or quarterly schedule for yourself - and your team - to verify and improve specific details pertaining to your emergency notification system (ENS). This allows you to stay ahead of the curve and not feel overwhelmed with your emergency notification system checks, tests, and improvements.

It’s not just universities that have multiple campuses or facilities. Organizations with multiple facilities face many challenges when it comes to safety and security. It can be a challenge to ensure emergency communications at one facility, but it’s an even bigger challenge when it pertains to multiple locations, multiple personnel groups, multiple endpoints, and multiple integrations. Additionally, keeping your colleagues safe from harm can be difficult to manage due to overlapping responsibilities or poor communication. Every facility has different safety needs and it is often up to the operations and safety manager to make the call on what to do when things start to go sideways.

Safety isn’t simply a state of being. Safety is a way of life and a goal that each of us strives to reach - for ourselves, our families, and our employees or staff. All organizations have a responsibility to be prepared for any emergency scenarios that could impact their people or property.

Safety preparation at your organization goes far beyond simply having an emergency notification system (ENS). You need to ensure that you’ve prepared your ENS for any crisis situation that might impact your organization. On top of that, each individual — whether it be your critical communications team, staff and employees, students, or visitors — must understand how and why they will be receiving alerts and what to do with the guidance they receive. Ensuring your staff and employees are confident in their knowledge and abilities is a key part of emergency preparation.

Within the next few weeks, universities and colleges will be busy preparing for large numbers of visitors to their campuses for graduation ceremonies. From younger siblings to grandparents, these visitors will be happily awaiting to celebrate their graduate walking across the stage and receive their hard-earned diplomas and start the next chapter of their lives.

When a crisis situation happens at your place of school, work, or play there’s no time to think. The whole process of informing and guiding your organization to safety by signaling an alarm, emailing the staff, posting on social media, and informing authorities is arduous and time-consuming, which one can’t afford during an emergency. To help organizations act quickly during the first minute of an emergency, they need an emergency notification solution that allows them to synchronize the launch of alerts through multiple channels.