Facebook to bring Safety Check to workplace early next year

To help organisations locate their people in a crisis, Facebook is planning to introduce the Safety Check feature in "Workplace", the social network's messaging service for businesses.

"With Safety Check, if a crisis arises, organisations can identify who may be affected, send multiple modes of notification, and monitor employee responses. And they can do it fast," Facebook said in a blog post this week.

Facebook launched Safety Check in 2014 to provide its users a simple and easy way to let friends and family know they are safe in a crisis, and check on others in the affected area. In the last four years, millions of people have used Safety Check.

"Safety Check for Workplace will be available in early 2019," said the blog post.

The announcement of the Safety Check tool for Workplace was made on Tuesday at the Flow, the inaugural leadership summit from Workplace by Facebook held at Menlo Park, California.

Along with Safety Check, Facebook announced a number of new features designed to make work better, smarter, and faster for people on Workplace.

Among those features was the "Do Not Disturb" status that allows users to turn off notifications in Workplace and Workplace Chat to let colleagues know when they are not available.

"Simply turn off notifications across mobile and desktop at the touch of a button to maintain your flow, finish that slide, or just take a break," Facebook said.

The social networking giant also rolled out a feature for people who are in multi-company groups to work together using Workplace Chat.