Are you ready for an emergency?

An emergency can happen at any time – are you prepared? Emergency preparedness plans help many organizations get ready for a wide variety of emergencies, including power failures, severe weather events, and various life-threatening situations. But in an emergency, how prepared are you to deal with this critical event and its ramifications?

Your organization prides itself on taking care of its constituents, and wants to be ready for any critical situation. To evaluate your organization’s emergency preparedness, consider the following questions:

1. Do you have a system in place to alert and warn your constituents? When it comes to emergency preparedness, a unified communications system is valuable for several reasons. This system allows your organization to alert large groups of constituents about a rapidly developing event and provide real-time updates. Ensure your organization has a system in place to alert and warn your constituents about emergencies, and creates drills and exercises to teach system users how to send emergency notifications.

2. Can you alert your constituents from anywhere, at any time? During an emergency, your organization should leverage the mobility of society, and ensure it can notify its constituents from anywhere, at any time. With a unified communications system that gives administrators the ability to send messages from mobile devices, your organization can keep its constituents informed throughout an emergency.

3. Can you leverage two-way communication? Your organization must send and receive updates during critical events. Tracking hashtags and keywords on social networks helps an organization get the latest news and information, as Instagram and Twitter users can provide instant updates that your organization can share with its constituents. In addition, a unified communications system that has the ability to send polling notifications allows your organization to learn more about a critical situation in real-time so it can allocate its resources appropriately.

In an emergency, how prepared is your organization? Take the Everbridge Readiness Assessment to find out.