Did you… read the manual?
By now most people have received, for one reason or another, the old push off “it’s in the manual”. It usually starts with a pop-up fire or through our own procrastination. We need an answer fast and all we get is, “Did you look in the manual”.
Whether you are an Emergency Manager, a Health and Safety Professional, or working in Operations you need to bring follow through and that means knowing your tools. Quick Guides offer a streamlined process to training an end-user, but when it comes to managing and reporting on the investment in the company’s safety culture you need to turn to your user-manual.
Technology is creeping, sprinting and bulldozing its way into every aspect of our lives and our workplace is no different. I have worked hard to deploy Remote and Lone worker programs with our SPOT devices and brought communication services to multiple storm impacted areas. In each instance there are two key stages where the quick-guide and user-manual are your best friends.
Let me just preface, I do try to spoil my customers, but I do need them to learn to fish. So, even though I am there with them in the rollout, I still want them to know where to go for answers. Often everyone is busy and not always reachable, but the manuals are always there, sometimes even accessible on your device.
With Lone and Remote worker solutions the end-user training during roll-out is crucial to long-term success, but it answers the main questions: What the heck is it? How does it work? What do I need to do?
As we put programs in or quickly move to address community needs in hard hit areas, we put technology in end-user’s hands. Most of them will know nothing about the hardware or process and this is where the “quick-guide” comes in handy. These are usually devoted to getting the device up and running from an end-user perspective. Use these in your initial training. It helps to call out everything you are telling them and by working through the “Quick Guide” you hit all the key components.
Whether you are an Emergency Manager, a Health and Safety Professional, or working in Operations you need to bring follow through and that means knowing your tools. Quick Guides offer a streamlined process to training an end-user, but when it comes to managing and reporting on the investment in the company’s safety culture you need to turn to your user-manual. People have worked hard to pick apart and fight through the application to get you through a lot, and like Prego, “It’s in there!”. For hardware set time aside to use it in an apples-to-apples environment. Our tech saturated urban and metro areas are loud. When you use satellite devices, it will be relatively quiet. Set time once a month or twice a quarter to and travel to test equipment and drill on the process. The software will allow you to tactically run the drill, but also forensically analyze improvements. Don’t worry, time is on your side. All of your experience and advanced knowledge around alerting and layering can either run in real-time or historically.
So, remember. To effectively use our tools, you will need to use the quick-guide and user-manual, but nothing feels better than giving back. So, with a proud parent smile on your face and a sparkle in your eye ask them. “Did you…read the manual?”
 | Article By:
David Chalona |