Business without boundaries: securing your employees

In a climate of increasing terror threats, regulatory complexity and rising insurance premiums, safeguarding your employees and giving them 24/7 peace of mind while they are working overseas, is vital to your corporate reputation. With fierce competition to attract and retain talent, the pressure is on to maintain safe working conditions, mitigate risk and demonstrate responsible staff stewardship at all times.

The challenges of going global
International travel presents complex challenges, particularly around security, communication, legal compliance and insurance. Added to this, employees may feel more vulnerable when they don’t speak the local language; face cultural barriers to reporting a crime; are in high-risk regions; operating in a hazardous sector; have a chronic health condition or disability; or worry about travelling alone.

Just consider, in the event of an international terror incident, extreme weather event, natural or man-made disaster or major travel disruption could you maintain seamless communications and minimise business disruption? Do you have the systems and resources to quickly take control, identify all individuals affected and issue prompt travel updates to minimise uncertainty and confusion?

Global protection, local response
Robust security policies are essential to consistently safeguard your mobile workforce. The better prepared you are, the better able you will be to maintain a trusted reputation. Embedding risk management, emergency procedures and crisis communications capabilities into routine security operations and training can significantly reduce your exposure.

Now, achieving this has become much easier, thanks to three key technology advances:

• Global uptake of smartphones to near ubiquitous levels
• Accessibility, reliability and speed of cloud-based mobile computing
• High availability of globally connected communications channels.

The latest cloud-based distributed command and control (DCC) solutions enable employers to leverage the prevalence of smartphones as an integral part of their safety and security operations. Designed to leverage investment in fixed security infrastructure and human resources, DCC solutions can dramatically improve incident response without further capital investment. By combining a comprehensive situational awareness system for corporate security response teams with a smartphone app that staff can use to raise alerts, a DCC solution extends the reach of first responders with transformative effect. A key advantage is the capability to extend emergency support services to all registered app users in pre-determined geographic safe zones anywhere worldwide.

The SafeZone solution
SafeZone™ from CriticalArc is a leading example of how a mobile DCC can transform security for world travellers. Using location intelligence, it gives security, health and safety teams a complete situational view by automatically sharing relevant real-time event data via user-friendly visual mapping. As a subscription model, it offers numerous benefits, without the ongoing overheads and costs of licensed legacy software or infrastructure.

A free smartphone app puts a help point or panic alarm in the pocket of every registered employee, enabling them to easily raise an alert, at any time, anywhere in the world, without compromising their confidential data. When they activate an alert, the corporate security team automatically receives intelligence about their location, identity and any special medical needs, without making a phone call. This overcomes language issues and other potential barriers to incident reporting.

Passport to safer travel
SafeZone DCC solutions offer multiple features that enable organisations to:

• Set up safe zones where employees can activate alerts for emergencies, general help and first aid
• Map temporary or permanent safe regions of any size or shape, anywhere worldwide
• Define the response team jurisdiction in line with risk, regulatory and insurance requirements
• Share real-time location and status of staff in high-risk situations with the response team
• Integrate corporate security policies with local third-party services
• Configure alarms to default to local emergency services if an incident occurs
• Deliver advice, action checklists and procedures appropriate to the user’s location context
• Establish a live alert/response communications channel for individuals or groups
• Maximise resilience with multi-channel communications via SMS, wireless and satellite networks.

Key benefits
SafeZone delivers numerous operational benefits including:

• Real-time, geo-located single-button alerts that make it easy for employees to request help
• Location sensitive incident procedures and advice to staff in real time, during the event
• Capacity for fast, low-cost mass-communication targeted to multiple audiences
• Faster, more effective response resulting in better incident outcomes at every incident scale
• Potential to negotiate lower insurance premiums
• Comprehensive data capture for full reporting, compliance and continuous improvement
• Demonstrable commitment to duty of care, safeguarding trust, credibility and reputation.

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