Managing Emergencies: Key Competencies for …

1 Hayes, , & Omodei, (2011). Managing emergencies : Key Competencies for incident management teams. The Australian andNew Zealand Journal of Organisational Psychology, 4, 1 10. DOI FOR CORRESPONDENCE: Peter Hayes, School ofPsychological Science, La Trobe University VIC 3086, : Australia and New Zealand, incident ManagementTeams (IMTs) coordinate responses to a wide range oflarge-scale natural, industrial and civil on the size and complexity of an incident ,IMTs may vary in size from three or four teammembers from a single agency district to more than 100personnel from multiple agencies. The AustralasianInter-agency incident management System (AIIMS)provides a common operating framework that IMTs useto manage these emergencies . The AIIMS protocol out-lines a standard structure for incident managementincluding member roles, responsibilities, and opera-tional procedures (AFAC, 2005).

2 The IMT s role is tocoordinate the resources required to contain, and ulti-mately resolve, an bushfires are a prototypical, and generallywell understood example of a wide range of emergencysituations that organisations may be required tomanage, this setting provides an excellent opportunityto investigate incident management Competencies . It isno coincidence that people sometimes refer to manag-ing difficult situations as putting out fires . Fromtime-to-time most large organisations may face someform of crisis whether this be the recall of a faultyproduct, industrial action, or the malfunction of aninternet provided service. Thus, the present researchmay provide useful insights to organisations consideringtheir own capacity to respond to critical (wildfires) are the most common type ofemergency that Australian IMTs are deployed tomanage. Each year bushfires result in considerableproperty damage and have been responsible for manydeaths (McLennan & Birch, 2005).

3 The competency ofbushfire IMTs has been an issue considered in recentroyal commission and coronial inquiries ( , 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission; SouthAustralian 2005 Wangary Coronial Inquest). A concernraised during these has been whether the IMTs initiallydeployed to manage bushfires were adequately staffedby sufficient appropriately trained and experienced per-sonnel. In other words, were sufficient competent IMTpersonnel deployed early enough to effectively manageManaging emergencies : Key Competencies for incident management TeamsPeter Hayes1,2 and Mary M. Omodei21 Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre, Melbourne, Australia2 School of Psychological Science, La Trobe University, AustraliaEach year Australian fire and land management agencies deploy incident management Teams (IMTs) to managebushfires. An important question is: what are the key Competencies required for IMT personnel? Recentresearch in high reliability organisations suggests that teamwork-related Competencies are likely to be mostimportant because incident management depends critically upon interdependent team members, often oper-ating in dynamic, uncertain, time pressured, and high stakes environments.

4 This study used semi-structuredinterviews with experienced IMT personnel (N= 15) to identify 12 key Competencies important for bushfireIMT roles. Analysis of 30 bushfire incidents described by interviewees confirmed that three Competencies (a)interpersonal and communication skills, (b) leadership, and (c) IMT procedural knowledge were implications for organisational decision making in emergency contexts in general are : Competencies , bushfire, incident management teams, teamworkARTICLE AVAILABLE ONLINEThe Australian and New Zealand Journal of Organisational Psychology12 PETER HAYES AND MARY M. OMODEIThe Australian and New Zealand Journal of Organisational Psychologythe incident in its early phase? Evidence provided atthese inquests suggests that the agencies concernedstruggled to ensure that this was the order to address the issue of adequate resourcing,a prior consideration that arises from these inquiries isjust what constitutes the key Competencies required ofIMT personnel?

5 Although various Australian fire andland management agencies have developed their ownrole standards for internal use ( , CFA-DSE, 2006a;CFS, 2008), to date no competency sets forAustralasian bushfire IMTs have been the Australasian Fire and Emergency ServicesAuthorities Council (AFAC) is developing unit stan-dards for a wide range of emergency situations whichIMTs may be required to manage ( , an all-hazardapproach). However, the draft AFAC unit standardsdeveloped so far focus on outcomes and performancecriteria for IMT role-holders and do not identify theimportant underlying behavioural elements required forpersonnel to be effective. The present study seeks toaddress this gap in the literature by proposing a set ofkey Competencies for bushfire incident article describes the development of a proposedset of key Competencies for bushfire IMT briefly describing the Australasian Inter-agencyIncident management System (AIIMS) framework, thefirst section provides a brief introduction to competen-cies and outlines two previous studies that proposedcompetencies for incident management settings.

6 Thesecond section describes the study s method, results,and a discussion of the findings, including whether thesame Competencies are salient when IMTs manage aroutine incident compared with Managing a challeng-ing incident . Included in the discussion is a comparisonof the Competencies developed in this study with thoseidentified in the two previous AIIMS Framework and incident management CompetenciesThe AIIMS framework embraces three principles thatassist IMTs to focus on the management of the incident (AFAC, 2005). First, AIIMS involves functional man-agement, enabling particular individuals or sub-teamswithin the IMT to focus on specific tasks. The standardIMT structure involves an incident Controller oversee-ing three functional sub-teams: Planning, Operations,and Logistics (see Figure 1). For a smaller incident theteam may consist of only a few members. For largerincidents an IMT can be scaled up to a more extensiveteam with numerous specialist and supporting second AIIMS principle of span of control con-cerns the scalability of IMTs in relation to incident an incident and the corresponding IMT becomelarger, position-holders are expected to delegate so thatthey do not manage more than five reporting groups orindividuals.

7 Similarly, as an incident de-escalates,responsibilities for IMT personnel are scaled-downaccordingly. A brief outline of the key IMT roles andresponsibilities follows (AFAC, 2005). The incident Controllerhas overall responsibility for themanagement of the incident . The incident Controllerestablishes incident objectives, and ensures that effec-tive strategy is put in place to manage the incident in asafe, effective, and efficient manner. The Operations Sectionis responsible for the control ofall operations that are focused directly on resolving theincident. The Operations Section ensures that thestrategies implemented to resolve the incident are inaccordance with the incident Action Plan (IAP). TheIAP sets out the objectives for Managing the incidentand describes strategies and resources relevant for thecontrol of an incident . The Planning Sectionprovides support for the manage-ment of the incident with specific responsibility for:collection, evaluation and dissemination of incidentinformation, prediction of incident behaviour, prepara-tion and dissemination of plans and strategies for thecontrol of the incident , and the collection and mainte-nance of information as to the resources that areallocated to the incident .

8 A key output from theseactivities is the formulation and updating of an IAP. The Logistics Section sprimary function is to support theincident through the provision of human and physicalresources, facilities, services, and materials. The IAPassists the Logistics Section in estimating the require-ments for the next operational third AIIMS principle employed in IMTs is man-agement by objectives. The incident Controller inconsultation with the IMT sets the desired objectivesfor the incident . These objectives become the guidingprinciples for resolving the incident and form part ofthe incident action plan. Only one set of objectives andone IAP is in place at any AND COMPETENCY FRAMEWORKSThe idea of identifying key attributes important in anindividual s work performance goes back to RomanIncident Control Planning Operations Logistics FIGURE 1 incident management team (AFAC, 2005).

9 3 The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Organisational PsychologyINCIDENT management team Competencies times when this approach was used to select good sol-diers (Draganidis & Mentzas, 2006). The moderninterest in Competencies developed during the 1970swhen McClelland (1973) suggested that organisationsmay be better served by focusing on individuals com-petence at tasks rather than their intelligence orscholastic aptitude. The publication of The CompetentManagerby Boyatzis (1982) encouraged further interestin Competencies (Hogan & Kaiser, 2005) and led to thedevelopment of a considerable literature ( , Dalton,1997; Schippmann et al., 2000; Spencer & Spencer,1993; Woodruffe, 1993).The evolving literature has been marked by consider-able debate and some confusion around the centralconcept of competency (Hogan & Kaiser, 2005; Young& Dulewicz, 2008). For example, Hoffmann s (1999)review of the literature highlights that competencieshave been defined as assessing either: observable performance; standards for performance; or the underlying attributes of a person that lead to an approach consistent with the third definitionoffered by Hoffmann, this study adopts Kurz andBartram s (2002) definition of Competencies as therepertoire of capabilities, activities, processes andresponse available that enable a range of work demandsto be met more effectively by some people than byothers (p.)

10 230). Competencies are more than broadknowledge, skills, and attitudes; they are context-spe-cific clusters of knowledge, skills and attitudes that areapplied to particular work (Kraiger, 1999).Using this definition, Competencies describe a person scapability to successfully complete particular work activi-ties, and usually consist of several components. Thebreadth of a particular competency influences thenumber of component characteristics (Kurz & Bartram,2002). A specific competency ( , meets deadlines )may contain only a few components, whereas a broadercompetency ( , provides leadership ) may be made upof a larger cluster of characteristics. To help operationalisecompetencies, organisations often develop behaviouralindicators , which may further explicate each competency(Dubois, 1999). It has been proposed that for an individ-ual to perform well in a typical job they generally need tobe proficient in 8 to 12 Competencies (Schmieder &Frame, 2007).