Evacuation Roll Call – the roll call we all need

Accounting for people! It starts from the day we are born. The theatre nurse count our fingers and toes and enters the birth details into a medical registry. We are sent off to school, where our teacher completes roll-calls. We join the Scouts, Girl Guides, the Youth Group, Choir, football team, etc. and at every stage, people are counting our attendance or presence. But why is it necessary to do a head-count or roll call? What is the importance of accounting for people?

There are many reasons why roll calls are important and are so prevalent throughout society. Roll calls are used in places such as classrooms, and camps so that the caregivers of un-accounted for people can be asked to explain their child’s non-attendance. Most educational frameworks appreciate the fundamental principle that attending class is a prerequisite to learning – and so the roll-call is also used as a method of tracking attendance and using that data to identify gaps in a student’s learning standards.

The military and law enforcement are the kings of roll calls and, while their reasons may differ, typically uniform attire, weapons inspection, and task assignment are top of the list. Prisons, on the other hand, roll call to ensure no one is missing – or more to the point – no one has removed themselves from the comfy confines of their prison cell.

Dangerous workplace environments demand frequent roll calls. Think about the mining industry with its visual roll call of dog tags. They have dog-tags on display on an ‘in mine’ board. However, roll calls also invade other areas of our society, even into politics.

By the standing rules of the United States Senate, the quorum may be established by a roll call (quorum call) only and not by any other method, such as headcount. Any senator may demand a roll call at any moment to establish the quorum. Once the request is performed, the quorum is assumed to be present until a senator suggests otherwise. This practice enables the Senate to engage in debate and conduct less controversial business without requiring the physical presence of fifty-one senators in the chamber.

Role calls are essential because people, for multiple reasons, are unaccounted for every day. This brings me to ask the question: “Is there one roll call that all organizations should be able to manage effectively?”

Today, around the world, organizations are likely to face legal challenges from employees and other groups should their security, and health and safety policies and procedures are found not to be up to scratch. Organizations now face a more extensive range of threats, which increases the likelihood of a building or workplace evacuation.

Managing roll-call with OnEvac

In a real-life evacuation event, employees, visitors, and contractors are as likely to take flight from the situation of risk as they are to hang around waiting for the roll call to be completed. But if there is one roll-call event that is crucial to ensuring the safety of people and accounting for their presence – it is the post-evacuation roll call event.

OnEvac allows you to track cleared zones, enables people in your duty of care (employees, visitors, and contractors) to self-verify their safety via SMS, view requests for help, and monitor real-time evacuation progress. The data stored within OnEvac allows first responders, wardens, and safety marshals to have accurate information in an emergency; share critical messages, view real-time verification process, and manually verify the safety of everyone on-site.

OnEvac is a valuable tool that creates seamless evacuation events. You are given the full picture of what is happening in the building as well as up-to-date information of who has marked themselves as safe and who is still in the building.

See how OnEvac can make managing your roll-call more effective today.