From Blind Spots to Full Visibility: Why Emergency and Visitor Management Must Work Together

Emergency events don’t pick and choose who they affect. Whether it’s a fire, a chemical spill, or an active shooter, everyone on-site—employees, visitors, and contractors—needs to be accounted for and informed. However, too often, facilities focus their emergency plans on employees, leaving a significant gap in safety for temporary guests. 

It’s a real problem: 

• 54% of facilities say they don’t have clear visibility into where visitors and contractors are during an emergency.  
• 38% of facilities admit they cannot communicate with visitors in real-time when a crisis happens. (source)

That means nearly four out of ten facilities couldn’t warn a contractor about an emergency event or confirm whether a visitor made it to safety during an evacuation. 

Fortunately, there’s a way to close this gap. When emergency and visitor management systems work together, facilities can track everyone in real-time, send alerts to everyone, and ensure that no one gets left behind.

How an Integrated Emergency & Visitor Management System Saves Lives 

When an emergency unfolds, there’s no time to second-guess who’s on-site or how to communicate with them. Yet, many facilities still rely on disconnected systems that track employees separately from visitors and contractors, creating dangerous blind spots. If a fire breaks out or an active threat emerges, safety teams need a complete, real-time view of everyone in the building, not just their full-time staff.  

An integrated approach makes a significant difference. When emergency management and visitor management systems collaborate, they eliminate the gaps that endanger lives. It helps ensure that every person inside the facility is accounted for and can receive emergency updates when necessary.

1. Real-Time Tracking Means No One Gets Overlooked 

Real-time visitor and contractor sign-in data from a visitor management system can be automatically included alongside employees when an emergency event is triggered in an emergency management system. Without this connection, safety officers are often left piecing together incomplete information. They may have to rely on outdated paper logs, manually track down contractors in different facility areas, or completely overlook visitors who didn’t check in through an employee system. These gaps make it harder to get a full, accurate headcount during an evacuation—increasing the risk of missing someone. 

With an integrated approach, safety teams have access to a live, real-time list of every person on-site—not just employees. For example, in FacilityOS’s modular facility management platform, the visitor management module, VisitorOS, connects directly with the emergency management module, EmergencyOS and ensures that visitors and contractors are automatically included in the emergency evacuation process. By eliminating guesswork, this integration gives safety officers the visibility they need to make fast, informed decisions—helping to ensure no one is left behind. 

2. Emergency Alerts Should Reach Everyone, Not Just Employees 

What happens when visitors and contractors never receive the evacuation notice? Many emergency systems are designed to notify employees only, leaving visitors and contractors completely out of the loop. This means a contractor working in a restricted area might never hear the alarm or a visitor in a meeting room might not know where to go. 

Having emergency management and visitor management systems working hand in hand ensures that everyone, not just employees, receives real-time emergency alerts. The moment a threat is detected, an emergency platform can pull visitor and contractor contact details from the sign-in system, sending instant SMS, email, or app-based notifications with clear instructions. 

This eliminates confusion and keeps people from making dangerous mistakes—like waiting in unsafe areas, using the wrong exit, or failing to evacuate altogether. Instead of relying on employees to pass along instructions, the system delivers critical information directly to the people who need it. 

3. Digital Mustering Ensures a Fast & Accurate Headcount

Evacuations don’t end when people leave the building—safety teams still need to verify that every single person is accounted for. But when visitor and emergency management systems aren’t connected, mustering becomes a slow, manual process that relies on paper checklists and verbal confirmations. This process allows for human error, overlooked individuals, and unnecessary delays in confirming an all-clear. Furthermore, these methods result in incomplete records for audits.  

With an integrated platform like FacilityOS that has both visitor and emergency management you can avoid these challenges as visitors and contractors can be included in the digital mustering and roll call processes. When the system triggers an emergency event, employees, visitors, and contractors can be informed of their muster point options. Upon arrival at the mustering locations, they can provide roll call updates through a mobile app or SMS. Live headcounts update instantly, allowing teams to see who has updated their status and who is still unaccounted for.  

It also creates an audit trail for compliance, proving that emergency procedures were followed correctly and that all individuals were accounted for. 

4. A Safer, More Compliant Facility

Beyond the immediate life-saving benefits, integrating a visitor management system with an emergency management system also strengthens compliance—a critical concern for facilities operating under strict OSHA, ISO, and other regulatory standards. These regulations require full site accountability during emergencies, meaning facilities must be able to track and verify the evacuation status of not just employees, but everyone on-site. 

An integrated system ensures that every visitor, contractor, and employee is accounted for, providing a clear, verifiable record of safety protocols. This not only helps facilities avoid fines, legal risks, and liability claims but also demonstrates a proactive commitment to workplace safety. 

More importantly, it builds a culture of preparedness. Whether someone is on-site for a single meeting or a long-term project, they are included in the same emergency procedures as full-time staff.  

Real-World Example: How Valmet Transformed Emergency Response with FacilityOS 

When it comes to safety, Valmet doesn’t take chances. As a global leader in industrial automation and services, the company operates large, complex facilities where employees, contractors, and visitors work side by side. With strict OSHA and ISO compliance requirements, Valmet knew its emergency response procedures needed to evolve. The challenge? Their existing systems weren’t built to track or communicate with everyone on-site during a crisis.

The Challenge: A System That Left Gaps in Emergency Response

Like many large manufacturing and industrial facilities, Valmet’s safety procedures were built around employees. Visitors and contractors followed separate check-in processes, and their presence wasn’t always reflected in emergency reports. If an evacuation was needed, safety teams had to rely on outdated, manual methods—paper sign-in sheets, verbal check-ins, and headcounts that left too much room for error. 

This approach created two major risks: 

• Emergency teams didn’t always have real-time visibility into who was on-site. Contractors and visitors could be inside the facility, but there was no quick way to verify their location or status during an evacuation. 
• Visitors and contractors weren’t included in emergency communication channels. If a fire, chemical spill, or security threat occurred, these individuals might not receive alerts or instructions at the same time as employees—leaving them vulnerable and uninformed. 

Valmet needed a solution that could close these gaps without adding more complexity to their safety workflows. 

The Solution: A Fully Integrated Safety System 

To strengthen its emergency response, Valmet adopted FacilityOS, choosing both its VisitorOS module for visitor management and its EmergencyOS module for real-time emergency response. This decision allowed Valmet to create a seamless safety ecosystem, where every individual on-site—regardless of employment status—was automatically included in emergency planning, tracking, and communication. 

• With VisitorOS, every visitor and contractor are digitally logged upon check-in, ensuring safety teams always have an accurate, real-time record of who is inside the facility. This data feeds directly into EmergencyOS, so if an evacuation occurs, responders can instantly see who needs to be accounted for. 
• At the same time, EmergencyOS enables automatic emergency alerts to be sent not just to employees, but to visitors and contractors as well—removing communication blind spots and ensuring that no one was left guessing what to do.

The Impact: Stronger Safety, Faster Response, Better Compliance

Since implementing FacilityOS, Valmet has seen a major improvement in its ability to track, communicate with, and account for every person in its facilities during an emergency.

• Faster, more accurate evacuations: Real-time access to visitor logs and employee check-ins allows Valmet to confirm who is on-site in seconds. No more manual tracking or uncertainty. 
• Improved emergency communication: Visitors and contractors now receive instant alerts during emergencies, ensuring they can evacuate safely without relying on secondhand information. 
• Stronger compliance: With a modular platform with both visitor and emergency management modules, Valmet is meeting OSHA and ISO safety standards with a fully documented process for emergency response and mustering. 

"We were looking at solutions that could meet OSHA requirements for visitor and contractor safety, and that's where FacilityOS helped us, especially with ISO compliance." 
 — Nick Lising, Sr. Manager, Health, Safety and Environment, North America, Valmet 

At the end of the day, compliance is only part of the equation—what really matters is making sure that every person inside the facility can get out safely when it counts. By integrating its emergency and visitor management systems, Valmet has created a smarter, more accountable approach to emergency response—one that leaves no one behind.