Employee Notification

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Employee Alert System Uses

Posted by Dave Burr on September 23, 2020
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: mass notification system, text alert system. Leave a comment

Most of our would-be AMG Alerts customers come to us with a specific purpose in mind, often spurred on by a recent event. But when you consider the myriad uses for an employee notification system, it’s a wonder that any organization has survived without one — at least without a steady level of pain over a period of years.

Here are a few examples that are real-life. We see them every day:

  • Weather-related messaging. Okay, this is the granddaddy of them all but we have seen systems underutilized here
  • IT systems-related issues. This is the second most popular use. Employees are informed of email/phone/special information application outages and their resolutions
  • Calling in personnel to handle a shortfall
  • Calling off personnel – i.e. cancelling a shift
  • Road closings and other local events that might impede travel to (or away from) the facility
  • Security situations, not only the unlikely “active shooter” scenario, but more likely issues such as suspicious persons or police activity
  • Informing about what is NOT an emergency – i.e. explaining smoke, suspicious odors, emergency vehicles in proximity, loud noises in the area, etc. that have no impact on safety or security but cause speculation and uncertainty
  • Facilities issues and expected resolutions, including for power outages, shut-off water, HVAC problems, emergency repairs, parking lot maintenance, etc.
  • Conducting drills
  • Alerting for unplanned conference calls. Although AMG Alerts has its own integrated conferencing with alerting, many customers use their own – but they use the notification system to grab people in emergencies and direct them to the call
  • Substance-abuse testing. If the employee notification system can target specific individuals, it can be used to alert them (in multiple modes) as to the need to report
  • Reminders about important organizational events
  • Emergency guidance about handling unforeseen events, i.e. “Please to do not talk to the media”. “Report sightings to manager”, etc.
  • Dealing with local health issues. This is one we unfortunately may see with increasing frequency, and maintaining employees or groups of them from entering or leaving an area might be an essential activity

If you’ve been managing an organization for a while, you’ll see some familiar concepts above. And we will undoubtedly be adding to this list as we see equally compelling uses.

Employee Alert System Speed

Posted by Dave Burr on June 5, 2020
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: employee alert system, employee notification system, mass notification system. Leave a comment

We are often asked the question by our AMG Alerts customers and prospects “How quickly will all of our people receive the message once we launch it?”

Some companies answer this question by giving statistics about the throughput of their system, whether it’s text, email, voice, etc.  Such a reply is misleading. The correct answer to that question is “whenever the message becomes available to the recipient”

Yes, front-end system performance is important, but it really isn’t the determining factor in recipients’ getting the message. In the case of text messaging, carrier networks have to get the messages to devices. The device needs to be available to the network, the network can’t be overloaded with data, and the device must be in the possession of the recipient. So, applying common sense, “all” recipients might not get the message for minutes, hours, or days.

Voice messaging has variables too. A power outage may render landline phones useless, to a significant degree. And if you are sending to a wireless device, you have the same issues as mentioned above.

If you are ringing landline phones in an office environment, normally there isn’t enough bandwidth available to the local equipment to actually ring every extension at the same time. In many cases, less than half of the extensions can be in use at any given time, so an automated system receives busy signals and has to keep trying at various intervals.

In any case, about half of voice calls result in a voicemail being left, so of course the recipient must first discover and listen to the voicemail.

In the case of email, it has to have not gone to spam, the email has to be checked, and the message must be noticed and read.

Common sense? For the most part, yes. What it means is that if people need to be informed of something quickly, it usually means that you need to use as many modes as possible, and a lot needs to go right. Fortunately, most messages sent do not need to be received in seconds, and notification systems largely fulfill their promise, as a whole. But remember that it is what happens downstream that counts.

Employee Alert Systems and Coronavirus

Posted by Dave Burr on May 27, 2020
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

When we published the blog regarding the various uses for an Employee Alert System, we mentioned local health issues, but that was in terms of more common issues such a influenza outbreaks.

Clearly, with the Coronavirus, we are getting into uncharted waters. Obviously we recommend that any organization with employees have some notification system in place. For those who have taken that step, we also suggest a stronger effort to maintain their databases.

The reason for having a good notification system in place isn’t necessarily for “emergencies” related to a virus outbreak, but for what might be a change in operations in an effort to prevent a spread within an organization. More people may be working remotely, and “passing the word” isn’t as simple as it is in the office.

In addition, many operational changes that are meant to be temporary may in fact become standard once the emergency is over. It is common for managers to adopt new ways of working after they are “forced into it” and ultimately see the value in new structure or methods. The use of technology has made a lot possible in the last twenty years, and a simple employee notification is certainly a good foundation that should make change easier.

Employee Notification System Reporting

Posted by Dave Burr on January 1, 2020
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

Most notifications to employees are broadcast in nature, meaning that there is no particular need for the employee to “respond” per se. You just need to get information into their hands. At least 98% of messages sent through our AMG Alerts application are of the “broadcast” variety. No response back to the administrator is required.

That said, most customers do care about the effectiveness of their broadcast. Did the system work? Do I have some bad phone numbers or emails in my database? Where are the problems that might need to be corrected for next time?

Many companies at least do an occasional “test” wherein they send something through the system that says “Let me know if you received this.” This method is problematic in two significant ways. First a proper employee notification system will use multiple modes, either all at once or to individual employees based on their preferences. So how should a reply be initiated for the message that I receive? This information is virtually always left out of the message, so people reply to the email, or attempt to SMS back, or listen to a message on voicemail and then say “now what?” The administrator will get some acknowledgements, somehow, but probably miss others.

Second, even if the above were not an issue at all, not everyone will comply. What does it mean when you get, say, 73% confirmation? Not much. All it means is that at least that percentage received the message, but the actual number is likely much higher. What do you do with that information?

We believe in “passive” reporting, wherein you can look at a broadcast after the fact and see which numbers are bad for SMS and voice, which emails were bounced back,  who may have had a spurious SMS issue, or which voice calls went to voicemail vs. being answered live. With this type of reporting, employees don’t have to do anything, and it can be a part of every broadcast, so you know if new problems creep in as you add new recipients.

We always suggest that people choose a system that has both specific reply capability as well as a “passive” reporting system where technology does the work of looking into possible communications issues.

Employee Alert Systems – Keep it Simple!

Posted by Dave Burr on July 10, 2019
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: employee alert system, employee notification system, mass notification system. Leave a comment

Companies are increasingly interested in employee notification systems such as AMG Alerts to deal with unforeseen issues on a timely basis. Sometimes it is as simple as letting employees and partners know that a necessary computer system is down. Other times it may be genuine emergencies that require quick action.

And as we normally suggest, our customers in most cases do not dilute the value of an AMG Alerts notification by mixing the mundane with the vastly important. They use their more traditional communications channels for the former, even if they are slightly less effective at reaching people.

Often, when a company gets started with AMG Alerts, they give careful thought to the setup, sometimes putting in place a system that allows extreme granularity among the Subscriber (our word for potential recipient) population. This allows them to target groups with pinpoint precision. While this seems like it would be a great idea, it has its downsides, which can be significant:

1) Maintenance:  Too much granularity – excessive “categorization” among the Subscriber base – creates an additional maintenance burden. It means that there is more likely that a person will move from one group to another and not be covered by laser-focused messaging until there is an update.

2) Confusion at Alert Launch: During the setup process, it’s clear what the categorization nomenclature means because it’s fresh in everyone’s mind. But then the system may go six months or more before an Admin needs to launch an urgent message. Confusion at that point causes delays or incorrect distribution.

You can set up AMG Alerts to send to Peoria location, Second Shift, Maintenance Department, Group A employees, and target only that group. But you could also send to all Peoria employees and specify who is affected within the message itself (!)

Do what’s right for you, but our motto regarding important messaging is  “Its almost always better to communicate to too many people, than too few.”  Keeping the system simple will almost certainly yield rewards.

Text Alert Systems for Business

Posted by Dave Burr on July 7, 2019
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

It’s common for managers to begin their employee alert system deployment with a search for text alert systems. After all, it is the most popular mode, That’s how most of our customers find us. However, text alone will not cover every person not every scenario. First, not everyone has access to SMS. Given that, you need to have your bases covered with other modes. There are accessibility issues that  may be better covered with Voice of Email.

Also, consider our article “Spamming via SMS“. Yes, this is a real thing! You may have a legitimate issue that needs to be highlighted that is not quite important enough to bother 250 people who might be on vacation, in heavy traffic, or at the dinner table. This is where email is important. When we point that out, we often hear that “we already have that for the office, and most of the people out in the shop don’t have email addresses” Well of course they do, and they need to be collected as part of system deployment. Not only that, a good percentage of AMG Alerts customers use our system occasionally to broadcast information about outages of their email systems, so collection of everyone’s personal email address is always beneficial, as a good system can toggle back and forth between business and personal email.

Therefore, an adequate system should include comprehensive email, text, and voice. We add web to that, because there are instances where an employee may feel he/she should have received a message and has not, and thus becomes anxious. His they are able to check for messages on demand, that problem is averted.

We always suggest that ALL modes need to be carefully considered at the outset. Nobody wants to have to “start over” in their deployment of an employee alert system.

Spamming via SMS

Posted by Dave Burr on April 15, 2019
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: emergency notification system, employee alert system. Leave a comment

What is Spam? Well, we all know the definition, right? It is that gigantic slug of nonsense emails that you delete every day, leaving the one percent valuable stuff (which ultimately turns out the be more like a half a percent).

Broadly-interpreted, though, Spam is *any* unwanted message. And it can come to you via a variety of media, including landline telephone, social media, and (gulp) even via your own personal device that you carry everywhere, via telephone or even text.

What many people don’t always consider (occasionally even our own AMG Alerts customers),  is that when it comes to messaging personal devices, the Spam designation is highly contextual. When any message arrives at an inopportune time, it can be judged harshly. When the message has obvious benefit for the recipient, which the vast majority would, there is normally little issue. But what if, say, the president of the company decides, out of the blue, to send employees his “thought of the day”? How valuable is such a thing when you are driving, sitting down to dinner with your family, asleep, or engaged in some activity on your time and yours alone.

When access to the wireless network and device usage is paid for by the sender (the company), there are few restrictions. But wireless carriers are extremely sensitive to complaints by private account holders about “abuse”, and since the definition of that term for any individual can change from minute-to-minute, all messaging should have a certain level of scrutiny.

We counsel our customers to follow opt-in rules that we provide, which should include not only opt-out instructions,and other information, but an internal contact for questions about whatever mass-texting program you have in place. Our system provides tools for reminding employees that that the system is there (in cases where the use is infrequent) and allowing them to review their preferences and take themselves out if needed.

At the end of the day, there should be an understanding and a level of trust between the sender and the recipients about how the system will be used and what to expect. Keep an open channel with them about how the program is going, and definitely follow the “Do unto others” philosophy as it applies to message sending.

 

 

Shop Floor Employees – Don’t Leave Them Out!

Posted by Dave Burr on October 29, 2018
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: employee alert system, employee notification system, text alert system. Leave a comment

One challenge that many of our AMG Alerts customers face is the spotty availability of some of the more valuable contact information for non-office employees, usually defined as those who don’t have company-provided emails. With email, the rollout of an employee alert system is truly a piece of cake because you can include signup links. Even if an administrator wants to use another method to populate the alert system database, their HRIS data often contains more contact information (i.e. mobile versus home landlines, personal emails) for office employees than those on the plant floor.

We do see companies give up on the idea of 100% inclusion. They use the alert system to get to a certain level and then rely on front-line management for “last mile” communication. Obviously this compromises effectiveness.

Statistics show that the vast majority of employees, at any level, do have access to email. Granted, in some cases, use may be spotty, but if they are aware of the purpose of the data collection campaign, they will provide it make a special effort to monitor it during the system rollout. Of course while the are providing that, they can provide the other data for use in the alert system, assuming the administrator plans centralized entry of all the data.

One creative thing that some customers have done is provide centralized “kiosks” so that employees can access our portal(s) to enter their information. These are simply web-enabled desktops located in strategic places such as lunchrooms and other common areas. Employees can, over the course of several days, enter in all the necessary data including their preferences.  A “campaign” such as this also highlights the importance of the system, which is another major benefit.

Employee Notification System – Information Gathering

Posted by Dave Burr on September 13, 2018
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: employee alert system, employee notification system, mass notification system. Leave a comment

One of the first considerations in the implementation of a mass notification system in a business setting is the population of the communications profiles for employees, particularly in situations where there is not much contact data available.

There are various ways of populating a system. One is to distribute a link, normally via e-mail in which the new system is introduced, and allow employees to sign up and express their preferences. The second, at least within AMG Alerts is to pre-load the system (via file upload) with some data, then use the AMG Alerts system to go out and solicit – via email – preference information, mobile phone numbers, and other relevant bits.

A third is to do it all internally, which works but of course always results in data that is high in “control” but usually lacking in comprehensiveness or accuracy.

The first two methods are the most popular, but in some applications, our potential customer will say “our people on the shop floor don’t have emails”. Notwithstanding that a more accurate statement would be “while we provide corporate email accounts to our office people, the shop personnel are not assigned emails and we don’t know their personal ones”, it is still a challenge to get them ramped up.

Here are some of the options for overcoming this:

  1. Manually distribute the signup URL to the shop people and let them do it that way. Of course, your participation rate could be a little less than perfect to start, but that will get fixed after the first “emergency” (Note that you can use an application like TinyURL to to make the shortest possible URL for the employees if they have to actually type it)
  2. Another cool way of providing the signup link is via a QR code printed in some prominent spot. But not everyone has a reader app on their phone. On the other hand, it is free and useful so it may be a good way of introducing employees to the concept because it has value in other communications
  3. Put the signup link somewhere within the company web site. People can navigate to it at their liesure, perhaps from home
  4. Designate desk or kiosk with the signup for AMG Alerts up and ready to go and allow a few days for employees to spend a minute putting in their profiles
  5. Have front-line managers or HR gather email addresses for each employee, and then that could be part of an initial upload. Then our system can be used to go out and ask for the rest of the information in the profile
  6. A slight variation of the above is to get ALL the information, mimicking on some paper form the information on the AMG Alerts signup, and then pur that in manually or via an upload

The key, unless the system is being maintained completely internally, is to get email addresses for each employee because system maintenance then becomes so much easier using the tools on our site. Just like refrigerators, opinions, and phones, everyone in this day and age has at least one. It isn’t always effortless to get it but the rewards are well worth it!

Employee Notification Systems – In-Office Notification Considerations

Posted by Dave Burr on July 1, 2018
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: employee alert ssystem, employee notification system, mass notification system. Leave a comment

We often see customers or potential customers concerned that they be able to ring every extension in the office in order to contact their employees about some critical issue. Some also believe that all extensions ring simultaneously, or nearly so. There are practical issues in play that should cause some to at least “de-emphasize” this approach to emergency communication.

First, most inter-office systems of any significant size actually do not have the bandwidth for every extension to be used at the same time. What happens then is that an automated IVR system encountering a busy or dead air or no answer may (or may not depending on the system) retry on a set interval, and in few cases would or should that interval be “immediate.” During this time, physical communication, or at the very least, behavior, on the part of in-office employees will take place that makes a callback at some later time, even if it is 5 minutes, moot.

For extensions in use, usually the message goes right to voicemail, and again, before the message is actually listened to by the employee, they already get the information from others.

Add to this the real potential that the office phone system would be the first thing to become completely inoperative in a power failure, and ultimately, the key to getting the word out within an office is actual word-of mouth spawned by a notification via wireless devices (whether it is Voice or Text).  Look at your own office – what percentage of employees being actually being told about something via an automated system would be required before action would occur?  10%? 20%? You almost certainly wouldn’t need much more than that.

Voice notification to landlines is most often used in cases where you don’t have the incredible communication leverage that an office situation provides, and is less likely to be bogged down or inoperable than would an office system in an emergency.  Many AMG Alerts customers like the option to call home landline phones depending on the situation, just to extend the possibility that the employee gets the information. Information is so easy to distribute among in-office employees, and the challenge most of our customers face is getting at people who are NOT sitting across the the room from them or in the next cubicle.

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