Highlights:
- PunchAlert and RingCentral offer emergency reporting from the RingCentral app for organisations, healthcare and education providers.
- Improve security, streamline communications and get location awareness through the integration.
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Businesses are facing a growing number of incidents that can impact the wellbeing of their employees. In fact, major workplace incident-related injuries increased by 29% in the UK between March 2020 and March 2021. The aftermath of an emergency, whether in schools, healthcare settings or offices and the failure to prepare, leaves the business and its employees vulnerable. It also impacts an organisation’s ability to operate.
A delay in response inevitably prolongs an incident – costing you valuable time and resources in the process.
What does the future of incident management look like?
Before the pandemic, many employees commuted to offices from Monday to Friday. This dynamic meant that health and safety concerns were predominantly office-based. Managers would focus on the welfare of their staff within the four walls of the office, but there was much less emphasis placed on employees working in alternative locations.
As more organisations turn towards less traditional operating methods, such as hybrid and remote working, manual forms of emergency response and employee welfare are limited. Calling employees one by one is much too time-consuming during a time-critical situation, and missing a call leaves both the employee and the employer in the dark.
Fortunately, developments in technology are providing solutions to many incident management challenges. Whether it be warning individuals of a nearby incident, giving peace of mind to friends, family and employers, or communicating practical advice to keep safe.
But how can technology give businesses with a large and varied workforce the ability locate and protect their employees?
What is PunchAlert for RingCentral?
PunchAlert for RingCentral makes it possible to report an emergency quickly to internal response teams or the closest 999 operator from any RingCentral app without losing critical time navigating between applications or screens. Therefore users can communicate more efficiently and resolve incidents faster while creating a detailed record and report of the incident.
Organisations in countries such as the US and UK are using PunchAlert to:
- Manage emergencies from mobile devices.
- Crowdsource safety tips and incidents from employees, customers or visitors.
- Send announcements to employees, customers, students or guests.
- Create a community of safety.
How can you manage emergencies through mobile devices?
PunchAlert for RingCentral users can tap into a number of features when dealing with an emergency. Here’s an overview:
- Responder chat: Allows responders to chat privately and with the person who reported the emergency.
- Mass notifications: Send emergency updates to the entire organisation or designated groups.
- Emergency plan distribution: Automatically send emergency plans to everyone’s phones.
- Real-time location capture inside geo-fences: View the emergency location and everyone’s whereabouts on the emergency map.
- Crowdsourced photos and videos: Post and receive emergency information from all users by text, voice recording, photo and video.
What are the benefits of an all-in-one safety communication solution?
Improve security: Pressing the panic button allows you to instantly alert on-site emergency responders of a potential life-threatening situation.
Streamline communication: Enables you to submit relevant content or information. This means emergency responders can deliver mass updates and instructions during emergencies.
Location awareness: Captures the location of an initial report and actively monitors the location of everyone until the organisation handles the emergency.
What are the pros for RingCentral customers?
Now you understand some of the overall benefits, let’s look at the specifics for responders and users.
PunchAlert for RingCentral for internal responders
- Dedicated responder chat channel
- The exact location of the reported emergency
- Ability to quickly deliver mass updates or instructions during an emergency
- Add single or multiple emergency plans to an emergency category for distribution during an emergency
- Activate Lockdown
- Detailed post-emergency reporting
PunchAlert for RingCentral for users
- Report an emergency to responders or 999 with a single click of a button
- Privately post content to responders as a photo, video or recording
- Send emergency location and type of emergency immediately when reporting
- Report emergencies through RingCentral Mobility
How do you set up PunchAlert for RingCentral?
With your most important assets being your people, there’s always more you can do to protect them in the event of an emergency. You can get started with PunchAlert for RingCentral today if you are a PunchAlert customer with a subscription. The account used to authorise the integration must be a SuperAdmin in their instances of both RingCentral and PunchAlert.
Originally published Dec 13, 2021, updated Jan 16, 2023
