It’s that time of year again. The days are shortening, temperatures are dropping, and snow is knocking at the door in many parts of the country. But this winter season will be unlike any we’ve seen before. With the COVID-19 pandemic altering how we work, convene, and communicate, it will be more important than ever to ensure your workplace is prepared for the cold months ahead. Read More
On November 10, AlertMedia hosted its second “Coffee with an Expert” event—a live Q&A session on preparing for winter weather during the pandemic. The webinar was led by Jason Franklin and Paul Yura—meteorologists with the National Weather Service—who were joined by Peter Steinfeld, SVP of Safety Solutions at AlertMedia.
Paul and Jason began the discussion by sharing this year’s winter forecast and answering audience-submitted questions about the obstacles businesses are facing during this uniquely challenging season. The overarching theme of this discussion was how to ensure the physical and mental wellbeing of employees during the winter. If you missed the Q&A, you can access the recording here.
Think about how different things were for your business (and the world) earlier this year—before COVID-19 became a household name. Face masks were worn only by medical practitioners, “social distancing” was more likely to be the name of an obscure punk band than a mainstream phenomenon, and sports stadiums were packed with cheering fans. As recently as October 2019, a survey found that 44% of businesses did not allow remote work at all. Of course, then most employees weren’t juggling work schedules at the same time as overseeing distance learning and coping with concerns about their personal safety and health. Needless to say, 2020 has necessitated more than its fair share of change and adaptation.
When you hear the word “emergency,” what do you think of? Perhaps a fire or an active shooter in the workplace. Or an incoming Category 3 hurricane. Those types of emergencies—the ones that receive widespread media attention—present substantial risks to your organization and require a specific emergency communication plan designed to keep employees safe.
From a business perspective, however, there are many types of critical events that impact normal operations, and for these, your organization needs a similar emergency response plan. Fortunately, modern emergency communication systems have many practical applications, helping facilitate communication during any event in which a large number of employees need information quickly.
From traditional emergencies to a wide range of more common business events, a mass notification system can keep your people informed and connected.
When your business is faced with an emergency or other business-critical events, the last thing that should be on your mind is determining how to communicate with employees that are in harm’s way. That’s why we are passionate about helping organizations improve their emergency communication and business continuity planning long before there’s a threat.
Earlier this week, AlertMedia hosted a webinar on How to Select An Emergency Communication Solution that’s right for your business. The conversation was led by AlertMedia’s CTO Jeff Branc, a product leader who has built enterprise software for more than 20 years, and SVP of Sales Peter Steinfeld, a 20-year veteran of the emergency communication industry.
Read More
The word “emergency” often conjures up visions of sirens and flashing lights, but the most common business emergencies are less obvious.
The majority of business leaders understand the importance of being prepared for traditional emergencies, such as fires, natural disasters, floods, workplace accidents, and acts of violence. But there are many other disruptive events that have the potential to impact your people and operations. In this post, we’ll discuss other business-critical situations that can be just as detrimental to your organization as a traditional emergency and how a modern emergency communication solution can help you mitigate risk.
Remember the telephone game? One person starts the chain by whispering to the person sitting beside them until the message reaches the end of the line. Played with enough people, the game inevitably results in the message becoming so jumbled the person at the end hears something that barely resembles the original. This, essentially, is a phone tree.
Some organizations may choose to utilize a phone tree as part of their communication plan to deliver non-urgent information. But, when it comes to delivering critical, time-sensitive communications, there are far better ways to ensure the right message reaches your people.
In this post, we’ll discuss the basic concept of the phone tree and how a modern emergency communication system can help improve communication processes for critical business events.
Read More
At AlertMedia, we believe that maintaining employee safety during critical events starts with being prepared—knowing what to expect when the unexpected happens and being able to use that knowledge to change outcomes.
In support of that mission, we are thrilled to announce we are launching our first podcast: The Employee Safety Podcast!
Organizations and governments around the world continue to wrestle with the uncertainty and challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic. One such challenge is determining how and when organizations should communicate with employees when colleagues, or other individuals in the workplace, become ill or learn they have tested positive for COVID-19.
As a result, federal and state officials are actively working to clarify when and how employers must notify employees when there is a known exposure risk to both reduce confusion and establish workplace safety protocols consistent with the OSHA guidelines. As one example, the California state legislature recently passed new legislation establishing a statewide standard for how employers must handle workplace incidents involving employees with confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Read More
These days, it’s virtually impossible for employees to read everything their company sends them.
Most of us are bogged down with too many emails, voicemails we rarely hear, notifications from chat tools like Microsoft Teams or Slack, and well-meaning company newsletters that hardly get a look. With so much competing for our attention and too little time to pay attention to it all, we’re left to assume the critical information we need to know will get to us somehow.
Faced with overwhelmed employees already struggling to keep pace, what can a company do to improve employee communication open rates and retention?
Here are a few ideas to ensure your critical messages break through the noise.
