Why Mass Notification Systems Improve Communication with Remote Workers
With shelter-in-place orders enacted as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, businesses and other organizations have shut down facilities to help prevent the spread of the disease. As many organizations rely on remote work, some have discovered they do not have the right tools in place to effectively communicate updates to their people.
The devices organizations may have in place to communicate critical information, like IP speakers, desk phones, digital signage and more, become obsolete once people are no longer in a facility. Even word of mouth and in-person chats have been complicated by this crisis.
Many employees are relying on mobile devices and emails to pick up the communication slack, but large organizations need a tool that can reach all of their people with the same message at the same time. That’s why many businesses are turning to mass notification to reach people when they are remote. Mass notification systems offer organizations a central hub to plan, schedule and send critical communications to their workers when they are not in their facilities. The coronavirus outbreak is an evolving situation, so it is unlikely organizations will be able to utilize a one-size-fits-all message to share updates with their teams.
They need customizable messages that reach all of their people on their devices and within the applications where they are most likely to see a message. They also need a scalable solution so that regardless of size, everyone receives a message when it goes out.
Mobile Mass Notification Options
Leveraging mobile options available from a mass notification platform can deliver SMS text messages, push notifications and email directly to someone’s mobile device to keep them up to date on how ongoing operations will be impacted by the coronavirus.
Prerecorded audio messages can also be delivered to mobile phones via a mass notification system. Organizations should use multiple of these communication channels to reach their people with critical updates to ensure they receive messages in a timely manner.
Desktop Mass Notification Options
Certain organizations may send workers home with work computers, which offer several additional options for sending mass notifications. Desktop notifications can provide alerts that pop up over other open applications to grab people’s attention with important information. Certain systems can also reach collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex Teams that remote workers might access from their desktop computer.
These applications can serve as endpoints for mass notification delivery and automatically launch new channels with key stakeholders who can assess new developments and create an action plan.
Delivery methods like SMS text messages and desktop notifications can also offer the recipient the option to respond to a message. This can be a good way for organizations to confirm that everyone is out of a facility, check that people have read the message, or ask if people are experiencing symptoms related to the coronavirus to identify a potential outbreak in their organization.
Beyond Coronavirus: Benefits of a Mass Notification System
Implementing a mass notification system now can also have added benefits when the coronavirus pandemic is resolved. Mass notifications are used in a wide variety of industries to share messages with people on-premises and when they are remote. Although mobile notification methods may be most pertinent to organizations at the moment, when people resume normal routines and work locations, on-premises notifications to desk phones, IP speakers, digital signage and other devices can alert people about violent intruders, severe weather and other events that may disrupt daily operations.
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