Fighting fire

The recent Atherstone fire once again raised serious questions over the management of employees in the event of an emergency evacuation. When a fire strikes, the top priority is to make sure occupants are safe. James Manning from Autotime Solution discuss

Staff monitoring can undoubtedly bring many cost-related benefits to an organisation, whatever the sector. Being able to accurately monitor the time and attendance of staff puts an end to fraudulent activity such as ‘buddy punching’, resulting in lower payroll costs and an improved bottom line. But when the safety of your staff is thrown into question, being able to track the whereabouts of your employees becomes a whole new ball game and an issue you can’t turn your back against.

The recent blaze at a vegetable warehouse in Atherstone was every employer’s worst nightmare – fire ripping through a building while staff were feared to be still inside the premises. It's a well-known cliché that if you can't measure it, you can't manage it and this certainly rings true in the event of an emergency evacuation.

Managing staff during a fire or other emergency is critical and goes far beyond the employee’s basic understanding of a company’s standard health and safety procedures. As a company you have a responsibility to track the whereabouts of your employees however large the premises may be. But what measures can be taken to ensure you staff is accounted for and that information is at hand to the emergency services?

Biometric time and attendance solutions may provide the answer. The strong relationship between a person and his/her biometric provides greater confidence in the authenticity of that person’s claim of identity than traditional authentication mechanisms such as passwords and clock cards.

Hand scanner terminals automatically take a three dimensional reading of the size and shape of the employee’s hand and verifies the user’s identity in less than one second. As such, it offers an infallible means of personal identification for clocking-in purposes. Because every person’s biometric features are unique, a biometric time clock effectively manages liability, as the worker performing the duties is the only one authenticated to do so.

Moreover, in the event of having to evacuate the site in an emergency, biometrics can provide an instant roll out report, ensuring it is quick and easy to verify the actual number of workers on site at the time of the emergency and compare that with the numbers present at the muster point. Previous systems, especially swipe card technology have proven flawed because they only report a card's presence on site, and not that of an actual person. When you consider that a card can easily be copied, stolen or borrowed the entire safety and security of an organisation can be put in jeopardy, and these are the issues that will grab the headlines for all the wrong reasons should an emergency situation arise.

The uptake of biometrics has been slow in recent years, mainly due to the costs involved for installation and "Big Brother" overtones that many associate with it. However, it’s all too easy to let these often hyped concerns cloud the real health & safety reasons for going down the biometric route. What price can you put on a life?

Today within most organisations, the personal safety and security of employees is of vital importance, primarily due to the increasing alarming rate of incidents involving workers. As such employment law and tighter control on Health and Saftey regulations have prompted many companies to monitor the working practices of their employees.

Time has moved on for time and attendance systems. Whereas a few years ago organisations were using them to time and attendance purely to automate their old timekeeping systems, now many more are increasingly viewing it as a key strategic requirement for absence management in times of emergency.

Turn to biometrics. You never know, it could save lives.