Emergency response reimagined: With threats on the rise, HR leaders are urged to act now
At a time of escalating workplace safety threats — from acts of violence to severe weather events — companies are being forced to rethink emergency response strategies that often lag dangerously behind real-world risks. For HR executives, it represents an opportunity to champion life-saving innovations.
“Emergency response should never be approached from a ‘check-the-box’ perspective,” said Brian Higgins, founder and CEO of Group77, a provider of security assessment planning and consulting services. “The type of facility, the location, the work being performed and the culture of the organization must be considered so that emergency and security plans are tailored to the overall environment.”
A tailored approach is especially critical as workforces become more distributed. Liz Nguyen, CTO of Intrado, a security operations provider, points out that 20th century 911 networks and systems were not designed to address the larger shift to hybrid and remote work environments.
Perhaps the most alarming gap in workplace emergency systems is the disconnect between security infrastructure and actual emergency response.
“Despite extensive camera systems, 911 operators typically cannot access this vital, visual information during crises,” said Dean Drako, CEO of Eagle Eye Networks, a security company. “This disconnection forces emergency personnel to rely solely on verbal descriptions from distressed callers rather than seeing the situation in real time, significantly delaying threat assessment.”
New technologies are addressing this gap. Cloud-based video surveillance systems with AI-powered analytics are being implemented at workplaces to detect threats and emergencies in real-time, Drako points out. 911 camera-sharing technology gives emergency communication centers a live look at a location during an emergency, empowering them to deliver critical incident information to first responders, he said.
The liability landscape for workplace safety is also evolving. Herbert Post, VP of safety and health at Tradesafe, a safety supplies company, notes that “if better tools exist (and they do) and a company chooses not to use them, that’s a risk. And it opens you up to serious liabilities.” OSHA’s General Duty Clause makes it clear that employers need to deal with known hazards, he noted.
Nguyen adds that regulations like Kari’s Law and Ray Baum’s Act require businesses to ensure 911 calls made from both landline and PBX phones, as well as UCaaS platform emergency communications, are routed to the nearest public safety answering point with precise location information.
Emergency preparedness must also account for increasingly severe weather events. AccuWeather’s 2025 forecasts project extreme heat, drought and an active hurricane season, with 3 to 6 direct storm impacts to the U.S. predicted. Natural disasters in the past 12 months have been the most costly and impactful stretch of extreme weather in America in 90 years, according to AccuWeather.
For HR departments, it all means that emergency plans must be comprehensive enough to address both human-caused and natural emergencies — and technology alone isn’t the answer, according to experts.
Post emphasizes that emergency response tools “only work if people know how to use them: under pressure, in real time and without second-guessing. That’s where a lot of companies still fall short.”
“Companies can overspend chasing the newest technologies when policies and procedures are a critical aspect of any security system,” Higgins added. “Having the cutting-edge technology and hardware for access control will be ineffective if the policies for access control are not followed.”
Experts say the most successful organizations are those that test emergency plans regularly through exercises; review their emergency plans, annually at a minimum; invest in employee training; consider privacy concerns in safety tech implementation; and integrate physical and digital security measures.
As companies adopt more sophisticated monitoring tools, employee privacy concerns must also be considered. “Employees don’t want to feel watched, especially not by something that’s supposed to keep them safe,” Post said. “The companies getting this right are transparent. They explain what data is collected, why and when. They don’t collect more than they need.”
Finally, vigilance is not a one-and-done proposition but, rather, an ongoing exercise. As Post puts it, “I keep seeing companies treat emergency response like it’s something they only revisit once a year, usually because policy says they have to … but threats evolve fast, and most systems don’t.”