Could Your Organization Account For All Employees in an Emergency?
Last Wednesday, an explosion at a Louisiana-based chemical plant caused several injuries and triggered a temporary shelter in place order for nearby residents. The blast occurred at the Westlake Chemical plant in an empty storage tank. The result was five employees being treated at local hospitals and a sixth receiving first aid on the scene. The resulting fire was quickly extinguished as the storage tank was empty, however, a large plume of smoke was visible from the surrounding area.
OSHA requires most firms with over 10 employees to have a written emergency action plan. One of the five primary sections that OSHA advises these plans include is a system to account for all employees in an evacuation. An empty storage tank was one of the least likely places for an explosion and no business expects an emergency or disaster. Yet emergencies and disasters can strike anyone, anytime, anywhere. Can your organization account for every last employee, visitor and contractor if an emergency strikes?
Emergency Accountability
“Many businesses don’t have a trusted or reliable way of accounting for everyone who is on site in an emergency”, says Savance Business Solutions Manager, Sam Loria. “An evacuation plan might include places to meet for roll call, but knowing who to look for is the biggest challenge. During a real emergency, knowing which employees have left or which visitors are present can be almost impossible with siloed reports and paper logs.” Savance Workplace has developed an emergency mustering system that automates this entire process with a simple swipe of a badge.
The Savance solution uses a tablet to give you a list in real-time of who is on-site, and allows for offline use in case network connectivity is lost. Employees, visitors and contractor locations are immediately updated as they swipe in and out of locations. This process integrates seamlessly with existing access control and supports any door control solution. In the event of an emergency, a digital roll call is held at predetermined meeting places using the tablet and badges. This allows the organization to know in real-time if any employees or guests are on premises and not accounted for. Self check-in kiosks can be used for any business that doesn’t have an access control system.
All Savance emergency mustering solutions meet OSHA regulations for workplace emergencies and evacuations. The Savance solution is trusted by major corporations on land and sea to keep employees safe and accounted for. In this case, Savance has literally written the book on emergency mustering and it’s available for free here:
https://www.savanceworkplace.com/pdf/savance-definitive-guide-to-electronic-emergency-mustering-ebook.pdf
