Most employers now seem to be moving towards a fire warden and sweep system thus removing the sign-in/sign-out process from fire safety. Whilst it can work in highly secure sites that use electronic recording and ready retrieval of the "on site" list, for may premises it is impossible to keep track of personnel movements. For the 80 person office on one floor there may be smokers (and other substance abusers) who nip out for a while plus visitors who forget to sign in/out plus contractors (ditto) and the boss who refuses to play anyway. Should be quite easy to ensure that on activation of the evacuation alarm, nobody is left behind by use of wardens and a programmed sweep.

Yep - My experience supports that of David & Kate - our signing in board was taken off the wall during a test and all the little sliders slid to 'in' and a diary just didn't get used. Sweeps by competent people works in our building.