Survey: Businesses Overwhelmingly Concerned About Active Shooters in the Workplace, But Are Unprepared for Them

Despite Two-Thirds of Organizations Naming Active Shooter as a Top Threat, 79 Percent Are Not Fully Prepared – and More Than 60 Percent Run No Readiness Drills

BURLINGTON, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Everbridge, a global enterprise software company that provides applications which automate the delivery of critical information to help keep people safe and businesses running, and Emergency Management and Safety (EMS) Solutions, a provider of professional consulting services in the area of incident management, business continuity planning and exercise design, today announced the findings of recently completed research into organizations’ safety communications plans and their ability to manage a potential active shooter situation. The research surveyed security and emergency management leaders at 888 organizations, with a focus on companies with greater than 500 employees. The report, titled “Active Shooter Preparedness,” is available here: https://www.everbridge.com/active-shooter-survey/. Respondents were overwhelmingly concerned about violent acts – such as active shooter situations – taking place at their company or organization. Despite that worry, a majority of respondents also said that they were not properly prepared for an active shooter situation, highlighting communication to affected employees and individuals as one of the major issues. “The results of this study underscore a very disturbing trend. While an active-shooter scenario is every company’s nightmare, few organizations are prepared to effectively manage the situation,” said Regina Phelps, Founder, EMS Solutions. “Companies need to move beyond fear into action, take clear steps to prevent an attack from happening and also be prepared if it does.” Key findings of the research include:

• 69 percent of organizations view an active shooter incident as a potential top threat. Workplace violence also was cited as a top threat by 62 percent.
• An overwhelming 79 percent replied that their organizations were not fully prepared for an active shooter incident.
• Communicating with and confirming the safety of those in an impacted building were seen as the biggest challenges during an active shooter situation by 71 percent of organizations. Despite that, 39 percent still said they didn’t have a communications plan in place.
• 61 percent do not run any active shooter preparedness drills at all.
• 73 percent said that employees or students are willing to exchange some aspects of privacy for enhanced security.

The results of the research can be grouped under three major themes:

• Companies Are Concerned About Violent Acts In The Workplace

Three of the top five threats that companies are preparing for are active shooter situations (69 percent), workplace violence (62 percent) and terrorism (38 percent). In addition, 79 percent of executives and leaders are more concerned about employee or student safety than they were two years ago.

• Communication During Critical Events Is A Major Challenge

71 percent of security leaders believe that communicating to impacted individuals is their biggest challenge during an active shooter situation. This is followed by the challenge of locating people who may be in an impacted building or facility (55 percent). In order to be properly prepared, companies must have a communications plan in place.

Almost all respondents (94 percent) agreed on the importance of having a method for employees and students to easily report information back to safety officials during an incident.

• Despite Recognizing Violent Acts As Top Threats, Companies Are Still Unprepared

While respondents reported that they understood the threat of violent acts – and the need for communication channels to be in place – many remain unprepared.

39 percent don’t have a communications plan in place for active shooter events – and essentially the same margin (44 percent) don’t have a plan to communicate and escalate alerts to those most likely to be impacted. A majority of respondents (61 percent) do not run any active shooter preparedness drills, further showing how unprepared they are for potential incidents.

Respondents were asked how prepared they felt they were for an active shooter event – and only 21 percent felt that they were ready. 79 percent replied that their organizations were – at best – somewhat prepared for an active shooter incident. Even among those who felt prepared, only 7 percent said they were “very much prepared.”

“Communication plans, education and practice are critical to being prepared for any emergency situation,” added Imad Mouline, CTO of Everbridge. “During an active shooter incident, it is imperative that organizations have a way to quickly and reliably locate individuals in harm’s way and share relevant information, such as instructions to either shelter-in-place or evacuate a particular part of a building. This research shows far too many organizations still have a long way to go to call themselves prepared to locate and inform affected personnel during an active shooter situation.” EMS Solutions and Everbridge conducted the research in July 2016, asking those responsible for the security and emergency preparedness at their organizations about active shooter incident preparedness. The most common titles of respondents were Director of Security, Manager or Director of Emergency Management and Manager or Director of Business Continuity. Less than 10 percent of those surveyed were customers of either Everbridge or EMS Solutions. To download a copy of the “Active Shooter Preparedness” research report, please click here. About Everbridge Everbridge is a global enterprise software company that provides applications which automate the delivery of critical information to help keep people safe and businesses running. During mission-critical business events or man-made or natural disasters, over 3,000 global customers rely on the Everbridge platform to quickly and reliably construct and deliver contextual notifications to millions of people at one time. The company’s platform sent over 1 billion messages in 2015, and offers the ability to reach more than 200 countries and territories with secure delivery to over 100 different communication devices. A broad set of applications enable companies, hospitals, agencies, states, cities and towns to address issues related to severe weather and man-made incidents, IT outages and cyberattacks, safety of traveling staff, and facilitate regulation-compliant messaging. Everbridge serves 8 of the 10 largest U.S. cities, 7 of the 10 largest U.S.-based investment banks, 24 of the 25 busiest North American airports, and 6 of the 10 largest global automakers. Everbridge is based in Boston with additional offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Beijing and London. For more information, visit www.everbridge.com, read the company blog, https://www.everbridge.com/blog, and follow on Twitter and Facebook. About Emergency Management and Safety Solutions EMS Solutions has been providing professional services in the area of incident management, business continuity planning, and safety exercise design since 1982. During that time, EMS Solutions has worked with over 1,000 clients, including many Fortune 1000 companies. A partial list of clients includes Nike, IMF, Whole Foods Market, Northern Trust, VISA, Lam Research, Intuit, Stanford University, International Paper, Bank of Canada, PG&E, Cal-ISO and the World Bank. Regina Phelps, RN, BSN, MPA, CEM, EMS Solutions; Founder, is an internationally recognized expert in the field of emergency management and continuity planning. For more information, please visit www.ems-solutionsinc.com.