One of the biggest causes of a delayed response to a task is calling out members for the task due to the following reasons
- Incorrect contact details (i.e. incorrect and out of date phone numbers).
- The member is unavailable.
- The member is not qualified for the required task.
To try and speed up responses we urge you to keep your details as up to date as possible, we do realise you are volunteering your time and do not expect you to be on the site every day maintaining your profile nor do we expect it to be your highest priority when your details change but a complete profile helps us immensely. To achieve this we have added the following key features to members' profiles and is what we need to be as up to date as possible.
Contact details
An obvious one really but there are occasions where the phone numbers a member has entered are incorrect, please take that extra few moments after saving your profile to verify the phone numbers are indeed correct. We also ask that you complete the emergency contact details as completely as possible, thankfully to date we have had no need to contact a members emergency contact and we hope we never have too.
The Call out tab allows you to specify a preferred order your phones are called in, we will shortly be trialing an automated call out system and this system will use this information to determine the order in which to call your phones.
Availability
We can produce a number of reports that check on a members availability both generally and in real time when a task in ongoing but these reports are only as reliable as the availability information of our members; on the Availability tab of your profile are two keys sections
- Out of Town
If you will be away for an extended period (e.g. greater than 7 days) you can enter the dates you will be leaving and returning. If you do not know when you will be returning you can leave the duration open ended by leaving the Returning at field blank; if you are already out of town but know when you are returning you can leave the Leaving at field blank and just complete the Returning at field. - Hours unavailable
This is correct it is hours unavailable, this may seem an odd request but we have done this to try and make it easier for you to enter as generally this is a smaller list as members tend to be unavailable for just one block through the day (i.e. their work hours). This is aimed mainly at those members that work consistent hours each week, we appreciate some of our members will probably work shifts and therefore it would be an onerous task for them to keep these details up to date but for those of you that do work consistent hours it will help us to ensure we only call you when you are available.
The automated call out system mentioned earlier will also use your availability information when determining whether to call you.
Certifications
When the search managers' send members out into the field the search managers first priority is the members' safety and they achieve this by ensuring a member is only asked to perform a task for which they are qualified, equally they also ensure the team members have certifications for the group as a whole in the event a team member becomes injured or is required to be in high risk zones (e.g. one team member has advanced first aid or team required to work in avalanche risk zones).
It is therefore imperative that you only add certifications that you are sure you have a certification in, if you are not sure or you think you have extra certifications we have not considered bring it to our attention and we can update our list of certifications. It is also important that you enter the expiry date of your certification (if required) as we use this information for the following
- A member can only be asked to perform actions for what they are qualified and once a certification expires they are not considered qualified in that area any more. For example a member with a high level of first aid such as OFA3 that has expired cannot be expected to perform first aid to that level on a task as this may expose the member to liability risks if something goes wrong with the subject. This is not a blank and white decision but is something that both the member and the search manager needs to be aware of.
- We base our training needs in areas where we have limited capacity and where we can see a group of members may have certifications due to expire. We can then try and make training available to recertify in those areas.
- You can request that you are sent notifications at predefined periods prior to expiry so that you are aware of a pending expiry and can make arrangements to recertify.