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.