smarter personnel accountability through intelligent ... · lightning detectors, horns, and strobe...
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Smarter Personnel Accountability Through Intelligent, Automated Emergency CommunicationsAtHoc Helps Ensure That Staff Members Are Where They Are Expected to
Be, Performing What They Have Been Tasked to Accomplish
White Paper
Public or private, senior leaders at organizations of
all sizes and purposes routinely claim that people
are their greatest asset. And yet, 80% or more of
these companies and agencies do not have a
process to account for personnel during and after
an emergency.
Emergency equipment, such as weather radios,
lightning detectors, horns, and strobe systems for
fire alarms, is of limited use when supervisors and
staff cannot be reached to inform them of what is
happening, and what they are expected to do. The
situation becomes even more complicated when the
incident occurs at remote locations miles away from
the home office, when staff members are traveling
on business, or when key personnel are on vacation.
The first step in controlling a crisis begins with
locating all staff and resources to ensure their safety
and availability. By being proactive instead of reactive,
organizations are much more likely to understand
the impact of the crisis and direct resources as
efficiently as possible to manage the situation. Pre-
crisis planning, real-time actionable information, and
tightly targeted emergency communications are how
progressive organizations implement the strategic
and tactical elements that are most likely to
be effective.
This white paper discusses personnel accountability
for commercial and government organizations of
many types. It begins with a review of personnel
accountability, and then describes how a
carefully designed integration between personnel
accountability and emergency communications
software solutions provides a fast, effective solution
to the personnel accountability challenge.
AtHoc is an ideal platform for a variety of personnel
accountability scenarios. The guaranteed message
delivery, with direct support for multiple forms of
wired, wireless, direct, and social media channels,
works seamlessly with a broad range of personnel
accountability software applications, with support for
crisis management and post-crisis recovery.
Since AtHoc utilizes two-way mutual
acknowledgment, it is not subject to the limitations
of personnel and equipment tagging or tracking
systems. There are no privacy or labor contract
concerns. Its flexibility gives supervisors and staff
the ability to issue or respond with multiple, tightly
defined options, which in turn drives more granular
information for post-event analytics.
The ability to know immediately where staff members
are, the resources available for use at any location,
and which tasks have been accepted or completed,
turns accountability into a real-time resource. The
data-based design delivers the accountability
information that organizations need to assess how
individuals, locations, departments, and the overall
organization respond to training and events.
Personnel accountability depends on knowing where
staff members are, who is available for assignments,
and which tasks and operations they have accepted.
This information helps supervisors reallocate or
stand down staff upon task completion, as well as
redirect or reassign supervision and resources when
staff are unreachable or unable to assist. AtHoc is
the solution for turning personnel accountability
into a sophisticated, data-driven system that helps
responders preserve lives and protect property
more effectively.
Accountability, Reliability, Flexibility
Executive Summary
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White Paper
Personnel Accountability
“Trust, but verify” is the core of effective personnel
accountability practices. This proverb, famously
used by President Reagan when meeting with
General Secretary Gorbachev, should also be a
central tenet for personnel accountability designed
to assist during emergencies. Managers at all levels
of the organization must know, in real time:
• Where everyone is
• What every team member is doing
• The status of every assigned task
• Whether the tasks being performed are
properly assigned to a given group
or individual
• Who has taken over responsibility for others
unreachable or unavailable for their
primary tasks
Every lapse in accountability leaves people and
property at risk – and increases the likelihood that
a manageable situation might rapidly escalate out
of control.
At its core, personnel accountability is the process
for communicating, assessing, and confirming the
status and condition of all personnel assigned to an
organization. The more timely this information might
be, the more valuable it is for generating better
decisions during an emergency. Best practices
in this area include training for HR and personnel
managers, an engaged workforce, and the
connectivity to send and receive personnel status
reports and updates in real time.
The U.S. Air Force describes their personnel
accountability system this way: “Air Force Personnel
Accountability and Assessment System (AFPAAS)
standardizes a method for the Air Force to account,
assess, manage, and monitor the recovery and
reconstitution process for personnel and their
families affected or scattered by a wide-spread
catastrophic event. AFPAAS provides valuable
information to all levels of the Air Force chain of
command, allowing commanders to make strategic
decisions which facilitate a return to stability.”
Personnel accountability must be both intuitive and
beneficial for supervisors and staff to participate in
a centralized, data-driven communications network
that automatically verifies availability. While simple
in concept, building an effective accountability
program depends on the standards set for any
given industry, the individual needs of the
organization, and the selection of the proper
communications platform.
For example, it might seem obvious that fire
departments would know where firefighters are
located prior to an emergency. The image of the
local firehouse with first responders on call, fire
trucks and Dalmatian dogs at the ready, is a deeply
ingrained cultural image. The reality is considerably
more complex.
Firefighters have a unique need to account for every
member of every team at a hazardous incident
scene. While it might seem simple for an embedded
supervisor to stay in touch with crewmembers, it is
not uncommon for one or two members of the team
to leave an assigned area to retrieve equipment,
return to a truck, or stop to exchange a breathing
air bottle. Since their actual location is unknown,
they may inadvertently end up in harm’s way, with
no backup or support.
At the other end of the scale, off-duty workers might
be needed for an extremely dangerous event. Very
large situations can make it hard to ensure that the
correct staff members and resources have arrived
where they can be most effective. Personnel might
be injured or unavailable during the early stages of a
mass disaster or as conditions deteriorate.
In each of these situations, real-time accountability
is essential. Fortunately, personnel accountability
for firefighting is a well-defined discipline, with
proven models for success. The NFPA (National Fire
Protection Association) has two standards – 1500
and 1561 – that guide this process. While these
standards are specific to firefighting operations, the
overall approach has broad applicability to a wide
range of other organizations.
Personnel accountability generally falls into two
areas: planning and execution. The following
sections provide a brief overview of each.
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White Paper
Accountability PlanningAccountability planning for firefighting begins at
the basic level – determining who must perform
what actions during each type of emergency that
the organization will face. The NFPA standards
recommend focusing on the following categories:
Personal • Roles, limitations, and responsibility
• Report to or supervise
• How to handle inappropriate responses
by others
Single resource • Where to report during an incident
• What vehicles can be used (personal
or provided)
• Roles, limitations, and responsibilities
• Performance and response measurement for
each individual
Supervisor • To whom each supervisor must report
• Staff who should report to each supervisor
• Constant communication with supervisors
and staff
• Monitoring staff for cohesion, continuity,
and communication
Scene • Track status, location and function of each
resource during an incident
• Check-in for assignment, check-out when
tasks and shifts complete
• Measure success according to
pre-defined criteria
Function • Track the actions to be performed during each
type of defined incident
• Reallocate resources as required by the scene,
function, and resources available to achieve
the desired result, using pre-defined criteria
for success
Firefighter organizations need to be able to answer
the following questions for each of the categories
listed above:
• Who and what is the resource?
• What should the resource be doing?
• Where should the resource come from? Where
should it report?
• Why is this resource needed for this type
of incident?
• How will individuals be judged
for accountability?
This information becomes the core for personal
accountability policies. These policies, in turn, drive
detailed accountability plans, with clearly defined
measurements of success. When considering these
processes, leadership teams may want to ask
themselves the following questions.
• How would our organization respond to a crisis
that occurs when personnel are dispersed
over a large geographical area?
• Would our supervisors know where their
assigned people are located during the
entire incident?
• Would displaced employees know where to
find information and how to relay their status
and needs back to the organization?
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White Paper
Effective ExecutionA crisis – or simulations held to test accountability –
is the time when personnel can be measured
for their actions and behavior. Both testing and
real-world emergency situations reveal critical
insight into emergency preparedness, with
accountability delivering a powerful metric for
the overall effectiveness of individual, group, and
organizational response.
It is here that the proper communications platform for
enforcing accountability is essential. If staff cannot
be reached, quickly and with clarity, at all stages of
the emergency, then it becomes impossible
to combat dangerous situations efficiently, or to
obtain information on how future situations might be
better addressed.
Executed properly, the personnel accountability
solution will deliver the following information:
• Where resource location, allocation, and
accountability is working – and where
emergency preparedness plans
need refinement
• Which personnel need enhanced training to
improve performance – or reassignment to
less essential positions
• Which personnel need coaching to help them
remain focused on prescribed tasks without
the risk and lack of availability that come from
“freelancing” without approval
What personnel accountability guidelines, such as
NFPA 1500 and 1561, do not provide is guidance
on how to make these essential communications
happen. When time is of the essence, it is critical
to employ a structured, data-driven communications
solution. This technology helps supervisors reach the
proper personnel, with the proper assignment and
messaging, precisely when they are needed, with
simple response mechanisms to
establish accountability.
Emergency communications should streamline both
outreach and response, using predefined criteria for
contact, task assignment, and acknowledgment.
Software-based solutions can tabulate these
responses as data, which can be analyzed later to
provide training and planning improvement.
This system should cover both individuals who
require direct response, and those who can
automate their response. For example, some staff
might be commanded to speak with a supervisor,
whereas others might be able to respond via text,
email, or smartphone app. In some cases, check-in
might be as simple as enabling a GPS or near field
communication (NFC) tag, or a supervisor taking a
head count, with the system programmed to accept
that approval over an individual response.
Successful execution depends on communication.
Accountability is much harder to measure and
achieve without it.
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White Paper
Air Force Personnel Accountability and Assessment System (AFPAAS) standardizes a method for the Air Force to account, assess, manage, and monitor the recovery and reconstitution process for personnel and their families affected or scattered by a wide-spread catastrophic event. AFPAAS provides valuable information to all levels of the Air Force chain of command, allowing commanders to make strategic decisions which facilitate a return to stability.
U.S. Air Force
The AtHoc Solution
AtHoc is a software-based emergency
communications platform designed specifically to
integrate seamlessly and easily with all personnel
accountability programs. AtHoc is a permission-
based, highly secure crisis communication solution
that works in real time to link organizations with key
personnel, both inside and outside the organization.
Designed to deliver streamlined messaging and
response, AtHoc provides the feedback and
flexibility that enables accountability when time is of
the essence.
AtHoc’s data-driven design provides up-to-the-
second visibility into who has checked in with
supervisors for mustering, assignment, and task
completion, delivering immediate insight into
where resources need to be directed for maximum
effectiveness. This information also provides the
data-driven foundation for enhanced planning and
staff training.
AtHoc delivers predetermined messages based
on permission levels linked to specific individuals,
with different structures for different emergency
situations. In terms of accountability, organizations
use AtHoc to:
• Seamlessly and automatically contact
individuals and organizations for mustering,
assignment, and task completion
• Eliminate the need to manage contact
information for internal personnel or
external organizations
• Receive real-time acknowledgment that
emergency messages have been received,
and that required actions have or have not
been completed
• Broadcast information updates to all staff and
partner organizations as situations evolve
over time
AtHoc minimizes lack of accountability due to new
devices or phone numbers, when new staff members
are not yet listed in directories, or when former staff
are contacted in error when someone else should
be responsible. The result is a communications
system that ensures that all essential personnel can
be reached.
AtHoc has a wide range of features that help
supervisors concentrate attention and resources
where they are needed most:
GIS-based outreach using GPS-based
geofencing to issue communications or response
requests inside or outside the designated area. Staff
members who are not reachable represent assets
who might need rescue or support, or may need
investigation into why they were available but did
not respond.
Simplified, secured messaging based on best
practices that remove confusion and ambiguity
during emergencies. Since messages and
responses are pre-programmed, supervisors and
staff respond quickly to acknowledge specific
objectives. This centralized outreach-and-
response model generates consistent data across
the organization, which in turn drives post-event
analysis for measuring accountability and improving
future response.
Date and time awareness, including do-not-
disturb for resources who are off shift, on vacation,
or not reasonably close to the location of the
emergency. Individuals who choose to be available
during personal time can be called in to assist, and
compensated for their extra work.
Automated escalation and continuity, in which
an accountability request is not acknowledged or
recipients indicate they cannot perform assigned
tasks. AtHoc automatically contacts the next
available resource, or transfers supervisory
responsibility. Staff members can be dispatched
to find unreachable or in-distress resources. Key
attributes or talents among staff can be built into the
system, to locate and allocate specific skills outside
normal job descriptions, as and when needed.
Top-down, bottom-up communications ensure
that accountability and response can begin at
the location of the crisis, without resources being
withheld until headquarters has been alerted. This
ability to escalate upwards as needed helps with
coordination as the scope of any individual event
becomes clear.
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White Paper
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solutions across the entire mobile ecosystem and beyond. We
secure the world’s most sensitive data across all end points –
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information, visit www.blackberry.com.
About BlackBerry
© 2016 BlackBerry Limited. All rights reserved. Trademarks, including but not limited to BLACKBERRY, EMBLEM Design, BBM and BES are the trademarks or registered trademarks of BlackBerry Limited and the exclusive rights to such trademarks are expressly reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Content: 04/16 | Rev. 11APR2016
For more information on how personnel accountability can be optimized please feel
free to visit the AtHoc website, or request a free demonstration from our technology
team by calling 650-685-3000
Doc Code: CommGen2016-18-March-1210
Real-World Results from Using AtHoc
White Paper
Many critical and regulated organizations use AtHoc
to protect their people and fully account for the entire
workforce. Government agencies send and receive
messages to ensure the safety of their personnel.
Health care systems use AtHoc to rapidly poll and
assign off-duty staff members to fill vacant shifts.
Home health workers depend on AtHoc to check in
and out at client visits and can ask system operators
to track them out of a neighborhood with a history of
crime or violence.
Our military customers frequently use AtHoc to inform
personnel of delayed openings or cancellations
during winter weather and poor travel conditions.
Our U.S. federal customers rely on AtHoc to inform
personnel of escalations in security posture, and
reinforce on-duty staffing with additional personnel.