Smarter Personnel Accountability Through Intelligent, Automated Emergency CommunicationsAtHoc Helps Ensure That Staff Members Are Where They Are Expected to

Be, Performing What They Have Been Tasked to Accomplish

White Paper

Public or private, senior leaders at organizations of

all sizes and purposes routinely claim that people

are their greatest asset. And yet, 80% or more of

these companies and agencies do not have a

process to account for personnel during and after

an emergency.

Emergency equipment, such as weather radios,

lightning detectors, horns, and strobe systems for

fire alarms, is of limited use when supervisors and

staff cannot be reached to inform them of what is

happening, and what they are expected to do. The

situation becomes even more complicated when the

incident occurs at remote locations miles away from

the home office, when staff members are traveling

on business, or when key personnel are on vacation.

The first step in controlling a crisis begins with

locating all staff and resources to ensure their safety

and availability. By being proactive instead of reactive,

organizations are much more likely to understand

the impact of the crisis and direct resources as

efficiently as possible to manage the situation. Pre-

crisis planning, real-time actionable information, and

tightly targeted emergency communications are how

progressive organizations implement the strategic

and tactical elements that are most likely to

be effective.

This white paper discusses personnel accountability

for commercial and government organizations of

many types. It begins with a review of personnel

accountability, and then describes how a

carefully designed integration between personnel

accountability and emergency communications

software solutions provides a fast, effective solution

to the personnel accountability challenge.

AtHoc is an ideal platform for a variety of personnel

accountability scenarios. The guaranteed message

delivery, with direct support for multiple forms of

wired, wireless, direct, and social media channels,

works seamlessly with a broad range of personnel

accountability software applications, with support for

crisis management and post-crisis recovery.

Since AtHoc utilizes two-way mutual

acknowledgment, it is not subject to the limitations

of personnel and equipment tagging or tracking

systems. There are no privacy or labor contract

concerns. Its flexibility gives supervisors and staff

the ability to issue or respond with multiple, tightly

defined options, which in turn drives more granular

information for post-event analytics.

The ability to know immediately where staff members

are, the resources available for use at any location,

and which tasks have been accepted or completed,

turns accountability into a real-time resource. The

data-based design delivers the accountability

information that organizations need to assess how

individuals, locations, departments, and the overall

organization respond to training and events.

Personnel accountability depends on knowing where

staff members are, who is available for assignments,

and which tasks and operations they have accepted.

This information helps supervisors reallocate or

stand down staff upon task completion, as well as

redirect or reassign supervision and resources when

staff are unreachable or unable to assist. AtHoc is

the solution for turning personnel accountability

into a sophisticated, data-driven system that helps

responders preserve lives and protect property

more effectively.

Accountability, Reliability, Flexibility

Executive Summary

3

White Paper

Personnel Accountability

“Trust, but verify” is the core of effective personnel

accountability practices. This proverb, famously

used by President Reagan when meeting with

General Secretary Gorbachev, should also be a

central tenet for personnel accountability designed

to assist during emergencies. Managers at all levels

of the organization must know, in real time:

• Where everyone is

• What every team member is doing

• The status of every assigned task

• Whether the tasks being performed are

properly assigned to a given group

or individual

• Who has taken over responsibility for others

unreachable or unavailable for their

primary tasks

Every lapse in accountability leaves people and

property at risk – and increases the likelihood that

a manageable situation might rapidly escalate out

of control.

At its core, personnel accountability is the process

for communicating, assessing, and confirming the

status and condition of all personnel assigned to an

organization. The more timely this information might

be, the more valuable it is for generating better

decisions during an emergency. Best practices

in this area include training for HR and personnel

managers, an engaged workforce, and the

connectivity to send and receive personnel status

reports and updates in real time.

The U.S. Air Force describes their personnel

accountability system this way: “Air Force Personnel

Accountability and Assessment System (AFPAAS)

standardizes a method for the Air Force to account,

assess, manage, and monitor the recovery and

reconstitution process for personnel and their

families affected or scattered by a wide-spread

catastrophic event. AFPAAS provides valuable

information to all levels of the Air Force chain of

command, allowing commanders to make strategic

decisions which facilitate a return to stability.”

Personnel accountability must be both intuitive and

beneficial for supervisors and staff to participate in

a centralized, data-driven communications network

that automatically verifies availability. While simple

in concept, building an effective accountability

program depends on the standards set for any

given industry, the individual needs of the

organization, and the selection of the proper

communications platform.

For example, it might seem obvious that fire

departments would know where firefighters are

located prior to an emergency. The image of the

local firehouse with first responders on call, fire

trucks and Dalmatian dogs at the ready, is a deeply

ingrained cultural image. The reality is considerably

more complex.

Firefighters have a unique need to account for every

member of every team at a hazardous incident

scene. While it might seem simple for an embedded

supervisor to stay in touch with crewmembers, it is

not uncommon for one or two members of the team

to leave an assigned area to retrieve equipment,

return to a truck, or stop to exchange a breathing

air bottle. Since their actual location is unknown,

they may inadvertently end up in harm’s way, with

no backup or support.

At the other end of the scale, off-duty workers might

be needed for an extremely dangerous event. Very

large situations can make it hard to ensure that the

correct staff members and resources have arrived

where they can be most effective. Personnel might

be injured or unavailable during the early stages of a

mass disaster or as conditions deteriorate.

In each of these situations, real-time accountability

is essential. Fortunately, personnel accountability

for firefighting is a well-defined discipline, with

proven models for success. The NFPA (National Fire

Protection Association) has two standards – 1500

and 1561 – that guide this process. While these

standards are specific to firefighting operations, the

overall approach has broad applicability to a wide

range of other organizations.

Personnel accountability generally falls into two

areas: planning and execution. The following

sections provide a brief overview of each.

4

White Paper

Accountability PlanningAccountability planning for firefighting begins at

the basic level – determining who must perform

what actions during each type of emergency that

the organization will face. The NFPA standards

recommend focusing on the following categories:

Personal • Roles, limitations, and responsibility

• Report to or supervise

• How to handle inappropriate responses

by others

Single resource • Where to report during an incident

• What vehicles can be used (personal

or provided)

• Roles, limitations, and responsibilities

• Performance and response measurement for

each individual

Supervisor • To whom each supervisor must report

• Staff who should report to each supervisor

• Constant communication with supervisors

and staff

• Monitoring staff for cohesion, continuity,

and communication

Scene • Track status, location and function of each

resource during an incident

• Check-in for assignment, check-out when

tasks and shifts complete

• Measure success according to

pre-defined criteria

Function • Track the actions to be performed during each

type of defined incident

• Reallocate resources as required by the scene,

function, and resources available to achieve

the desired result, using pre-defined criteria

for success

Firefighter organizations need to be able to answer

the following questions for each of the categories

listed above:

• Who and what is the resource?

• What should the resource be doing?

• Where should the resource come from? Where

should it report?

• Why is this resource needed for this type

of incident?

• How will individuals be judged

for accountability?

This information becomes the core for personal

accountability policies. These policies, in turn, drive

detailed accountability plans, with clearly defined

measurements of success. When considering these

processes, leadership teams may want to ask

themselves the following questions.

• How would our organization respond to a crisis

that occurs when personnel are dispersed

over a large geographical area?

• Would our supervisors know where their

assigned people are located during the

entire incident?

• Would displaced employees know where to

find information and how to relay their status

and needs back to the organization?

5

White Paper

Effective ExecutionA crisis – or simulations held to test accountability –

is the time when personnel can be measured

for their actions and behavior. Both testing and

real-world emergency situations reveal critical

insight into emergency preparedness, with

accountability delivering a powerful metric for

the overall effectiveness of individual, group, and

organizational response.

It is here that the proper communications platform for

enforcing accountability is essential. If staff cannot

be reached, quickly and with clarity, at all stages of

the emergency, then it becomes impossible

to combat dangerous situations efficiently, or to

obtain information on how future situations might be

better addressed.

Executed properly, the personnel accountability

solution will deliver the following information:

• Where resource location, allocation, and

accountability is working – and where

emergency preparedness plans

need refinement

• Which personnel need enhanced training to

improve performance – or reassignment to

less essential positions

• Which personnel need coaching to help them

remain focused on prescribed tasks without

the risk and lack of availability that come from

“freelancing” without approval

What personnel accountability guidelines, such as

NFPA 1500 and 1561, do not provide is guidance

on how to make these essential communications

happen. When time is of the essence, it is critical

to employ a structured, data-driven communications

solution. This technology helps supervisors reach the

proper personnel, with the proper assignment and

messaging, precisely when they are needed, with

simple response mechanisms to

establish accountability.

Emergency communications should streamline both

outreach and response, using predefined criteria for

contact, task assignment, and acknowledgment.

Software-based solutions can tabulate these

responses as data, which can be analyzed later to

provide training and planning improvement.

This system should cover both individuals who

require direct response, and those who can

automate their response. For example, some staff

might be commanded to speak with a supervisor,

whereas others might be able to respond via text,

email, or smartphone app. In some cases, check-in

might be as simple as enabling a GPS or near field

communication (NFC) tag, or a supervisor taking a

head count, with the system programmed to accept

that approval over an individual response.

Successful execution depends on communication.

Accountability is much harder to measure and

achieve without it.

6

White Paper

Air Force Personnel Accountability and Assessment System (AFPAAS) standardizes a method for the Air Force to account, assess, manage, and monitor the recovery and reconstitution process for personnel and their families affected or scattered by a wide-spread catastrophic event. AFPAAS provides valuable information to all levels of the Air Force chain of command, allowing commanders to make strategic decisions which facilitate a return to stability.

U.S. Air Force

The AtHoc Solution

AtHoc is a software-based emergency

communications platform designed specifically to

integrate seamlessly and easily with all personnel

accountability programs. AtHoc is a permission-

based, highly secure crisis communication solution

that works in real time to link organizations with key

personnel, both inside and outside the organization.

Designed to deliver streamlined messaging and

response, AtHoc provides the feedback and

flexibility that enables accountability when time is of

the essence.

AtHoc’s data-driven design provides up-to-the-

second visibility into who has checked in with

supervisors for mustering, assignment, and task

completion, delivering immediate insight into

where resources need to be directed for maximum

effectiveness. This information also provides the

data-driven foundation for enhanced planning and

staff training.

AtHoc delivers predetermined messages based

on permission levels linked to specific individuals,

with different structures for different emergency

situations. In terms of accountability, organizations

use AtHoc to:

• Seamlessly and automatically contact

individuals and organizations for mustering,

assignment, and task completion

• Eliminate the need to manage contact

information for internal personnel or

external organizations

• Receive real-time acknowledgment that

emergency messages have been received,

and that required actions have or have not

been completed

• Broadcast information updates to all staff and

partner organizations as situations evolve

over time

AtHoc minimizes lack of accountability due to new

devices or phone numbers, when new staff members

are not yet listed in directories, or when former staff

are contacted in error when someone else should

be responsible. The result is a communications

system that ensures that all essential personnel can

be reached.

AtHoc has a wide range of features that help

supervisors concentrate attention and resources

where they are needed most:

GIS-based outreach using GPS-based

geofencing to issue communications or response

requests inside or outside the designated area. Staff

members who are not reachable represent assets

who might need rescue or support, or may need

investigation into why they were available but did

not respond.

Simplified, secured messaging based on best

practices that remove confusion and ambiguity

during emergencies. Since messages and

responses are pre-programmed, supervisors and

staff respond quickly to acknowledge specific

objectives. This centralized outreach-and-

response model generates consistent data across

the organization, which in turn drives post-event

analysis for measuring accountability and improving

future response.

Date and time awareness, including do-not-

disturb for resources who are off shift, on vacation,

or not reasonably close to the location of the

emergency. Individuals who choose to be available

during personal time can be called in to assist, and

compensated for their extra work.

Automated escalation and continuity, in which

an accountability request is not acknowledged or

recipients indicate they cannot perform assigned

tasks. AtHoc automatically contacts the next

available resource, or transfers supervisory

responsibility. Staff members can be dispatched

to find unreachable or in-distress resources. Key

attributes or talents among staff can be built into the

system, to locate and allocate specific skills outside

normal job descriptions, as and when needed.

Top-down, bottom-up communications ensure

that accountability and response can begin at

the location of the crisis, without resources being

withheld until headquarters has been alerted. This

ability to escalate upwards as needed helps with

coordination as the scope of any individual event

becomes clear.

8

White Paper

BlackBerry is securing a connected world, delivering innovative

solutions across the entire mobile ecosystem and beyond. We

secure the world’s most sensitive data across all end points –

from cars to smartphones – making the mobile-first enterprise

vision a reality. Founded in 1984 and based in Waterloo,

Ontario, BlackBerry operates offices in North America, Europe,

Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America. The

Company trades under the ticker symbols “BB” on the Toronto

Stock Exchange and “BBRY” on the NASDAQ. For more

information, visit www.blackberry.com.

About BlackBerry

© 2016 BlackBerry Limited. All rights reserved. Trademarks, including but not limited to BLACKBERRY, EMBLEM Design, BBM and BES are the trademarks or registered trademarks of BlackBerry Limited and the exclusive rights to such trademarks are expressly reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Content: 04/16 | Rev. 11APR2016

For more information on how personnel accountability can be optimized please feel

free to visit the AtHoc website, or request a free demonstration from our technology

team by calling 650-685-3000

Doc Code: CommGen2016-18-March-1210

Real-World Results from Using AtHoc

White Paper

Many critical and regulated organizations use AtHoc

to protect their people and fully account for the entire

workforce. Government agencies send and receive

messages to ensure the safety of their personnel.

Health care systems use AtHoc to rapidly poll and

assign off-duty staff members to fill vacant shifts.

Home health workers depend on AtHoc to check in

and out at client visits and can ask system operators

to track them out of a neighborhood with a history of

crime or violence.

Our military customers frequently use AtHoc to inform

personnel of delayed openings or cancellations

during winter weather and poor travel conditions.

Our U.S. federal customers rely on AtHoc to inform

personnel of escalations in security posture, and

reinforce on-duty staffing with additional personnel.