The phone tree can be tested by doing a walk-through in a conference room or another office location.
To address this limitation, there is an automated method that allows business continuity managers to record a voice message that is broadcast to employees.
The manual call tree procedure, while often simple and effective, may not be scalable and could take too long if there are a large number of employees who need to be contacted. In the event the next person on the list cannot be reached, the caller continues with the next level of the phone tree so the chain does not break. In manual cases, each person on the call tree contacts the next person on the list and so on, until everyone has been contacted. Call tree benefits include human interaction, the ability to relay important information and the creation of a comprehensive list of employee contact information. Once the entire call tree has been notified, other business continuity plan procedures can proceed. The emergency call tree should be available in several locations - such as the company Intranet and in hard-copy format - and someone should keep the information up to date. The list of contacts, and sequence of notification, is then approved by the emergency management team and company management. Each listed employee may have several contacts, including office, home and cellphone numbers, and an email address.
The team creating the call tree coordinates data gathering with human resources, as contact data typically come from that department. Smaller organizations will often use a manual call tree in which each person who receives a call is responsible for calling others in the tree. They can be automated with software that contacts individuals using a landline, email, cellphone, text message or another type of communication. A call tree is also known as a phone tree, call list, phone chain or text chain.Ĭall trees play an important role in disaster recovery plans. A call tree is a layered hierarchical communication model that is used to notify specific individuals of an event and coordinate recovery, if necessary.