How do we automatically notify emergency wardens of who is on-site during an evacuation?
A paper visitor log doesn’t know who left the building, and in Australia and the United States, that gap in knowledge directly impacts your duty of care. When the fire alarm sounds, the question isn’t who arrived – it’s who’s still inside. Australian WHS legislation and US OSHA regulations place a clear obligation on PCBUs and employers to ensure the safety of everyone on site, and that includes knowing who is present during an emergency.
Knowing Who’s On Site Is Not Optional – It’s a Legal Duty
In Australia, the WHS Act 2011 requires PCBUs to maintain a safe working environment, and a critical component of that is knowing who is on site. Similarly, in the United States, OSHA’s General Duty Clause requires employers to provide a workplace free from recognized hazards, which includes ensuring all personnel can be safely evacuated. Failing to account for visitors and contractors during an emergency is a direct breach of these duties.
The Fatal Flaw of Manual Evacuation Processes
What we consistently see is that organisations rely on outdated methods – paper sign-in books, disconnected spreadsheets, or manual roll calls – that simply can’t deliver the real-time information needed during an evacuation. These methods create a dangerous delay, leaving emergency wardens without a clear picture of who is still in the building. Visitor data with no check-out tracking is, in effect, no data at all when seconds count.
Real-Time Visibility: The Foundation of a Safe Evacuation
Genuine protection comes from a cloud-based visitor management system that integrates real-time check-in and check-out tracking with an emergency evacuation app. This allows you to generate an emergency evacuation report – a live list of everyone on site – and instantly share that information with your evacuation team. Crucially, our system operates in offline/disconnected mode, ensuring data is available even if the internet fails. Contractor induction is also key, ensuring all service providers are accounted for and understand emergency procedures.
Time and People: Visitor Management That Works When It Has To
For over 12 years, Time and People has been helping Australian and US organisations move beyond compliance paperwork and build genuinely safer workplaces. We deliver cloud-connected visitor management systems with real-time evacuation reporting, designed to protect the people on your site – not just tick a box. Our experience across both countries means we understand the specific regulatory landscape and can deliver a solution that works when it has to.
Content prepared by Time and People — visitor and contractor management across Australia and the United States.