In the event of an emergency, it’s important that safety procedures are carried out quickly and efficiently. Knowing who is present in the building and their location during an evacuation can help emergency services find missing people and safely clear the building.
Visitor management systems are known for being a versatile way to track and manage the people entering your business premises, but did you know that they can help in an emergency evacuation?
Evacuation lists
In situations without any visitor management systems in place, you can never account for everyone in the building. Using a visitor management system can provide you with a list of people currently in the building and their last known location.
Because guests are required to sign in and out when they enter and leave the premises, you can get an accurate evacuation list that you can use to mark people as safe and make emergency services aware of people who are still in the building.
Cloud based system
In an emergency, a cloud-based visitor management system can save you precious time. If you’re using logbooks or electronic management systems, you might be unable to access the list of people in the building if you have been evacuated.
With a cloud-based visitor management system, you can access your evacuation list on your phone by logging in to your system on the application. Cloud based visitor management systems also allow you to access your data while offline so you can obtain the important data you need without being connected to the internet.
Coordination
In an emergency, it’s vital that you provide responders with as much information as you can so they can do their job to their best ability. Being able to provide emergency responders with a list of people who are still not accounted for, and their last known location will allow them to prioritise getting people safely out of the building without having to search every department for them. This could potentially save lives.
Visitor evacuation lists can provide responders with the number of employees and visitors that are still unaccounted for, the areas they’re located and additional information that could help authorities.
Visitor photographs
With many visitor management systems, they use visitor registrations that allow people to attach an image to their account or visitor badge. This can be especially useful to emergency responders as it can help them easily identify people during a search and mark them as safe when they’re out of the building.
Sign out
Some visitor management systems allow visitors and employees to sign out on a mobile app allowing you to get an accurate read of how many people are in the building. It is important to remind visitors and employees to only sign out once they are leaving the building.
This can prevent confusion during an emergency, for instance if a visitor hasn’t signed out and is under the impression they are still present within the building, emergency responders will not know for certain if a certain person needs searching for.
Access to contact information
During the visitor registration process, visitors will be able to add contact information. This can be especially helpful getting in contact with people who are not accounted for to find out if they are safe or if they need assistance. Being able to contact the people in the building will also give emergency responders a better understanding of the situation developing inside the building.
How can VMFree help?
VMFree is a free visitor management system with a wide range of useful features to help your business thrive. Our visitor tracking feature allows you to create a real time report of who is on site and mark each one as safe in the event of an emergency. To learn more about our features or to discuss what you’re looking for in a visitor management system, please contact our expert team today!