Suchergebnisse

The fire and emergency services is a particularly large industry - in Australia alone it employs 250,000 personnel - yet there is very little by way of published human factors books addressing this sector directly. This book provides an overview of state-of-the-art research that has been conducted within Australia, funded by the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre. As Karl Weick once commented, emergency events do not 'play by the rules' and these research chapters tell us something about a potential future world of work that is highly dynamic, interdependent and for which improvisation and c

AbstractThis paper provides an insight into the complexities of decision‐making during an unprecedented disaster. We used the critical decision method to explore a series of decision points that were made for a low probability yet high consequence decision that was made by the commander of the Australian Urban Search and Rescue team deployed to Fukushima in 2011. The findings identified that in a situation with no similarities to previous experiences, the commander used a process of anomaly detection to trigger a situational assessment, following this with mental simulation and consultation of his actions. In this unparalleled case study, hazard‐specific expertise also supported the decision‐making process. The paper offers practitioners and academia an example of high consequence decision‐making in a unique situation as well as the opportunity to reflect on the models of decision‐making previously identified as useful in these operational environments.

Shifting the focus to human work within complex socio-technical systems / Pascal Béguin, Christine Owen and Ger Wackers -- Learning from accidents : analysis of normal practices / Lenna Norros and Maaria Nuutinen -- Derailed decisions : the evolution of vulnerability on a Norwegian railway line / Ragnar Rosness -- Offshore vulnerability : the limits of design and the ubiquity of recursive process / Ger Wackers -- Channelling erratic flows of action : life in the neonatal intensive care unit / Jessica Mesman -- How do individual operators contribute to the reliability of collective activity? : a medical emergency centre / Jacques Marc and Janine Rogalski -- When users and designers meet each other in the design process / Pascal Béguin -- Near misses and mistakes in risky-work : an exploration of work practices in high-3 environments / Christine Owen -- Toward developmental work within complex and fallible systems / Christine Owen

AbstractThis paper discusses incident management strategies widely used above the incident management team (IMT) level in the four Australian States namely, Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and Queensland. It begins with an overview of how incident management approaches above the IMT might differ from the local IMT level. By exploring this difference, this paper provides an insight into how emergency management personnel working above or beyond the local IMT level often deal with large scale multiple emergency events and require an understanding of broader problems that they might confront in the future. Then, it provides an outline of how strategic emergency management objectives are addressed in the state level arrangements in aforementioned jurisdictions. Specifically, this includes response orientations, state level emergency management facilities, long term thinking, the management of stakeholder relationships, leadership, and organisational adaptation and capacity building. Later, some of the challenges associated with incident management above the IMT level are discussed. Finally, the paper concludes by discussing the implications of this study to the emergency management sector.

Purpose– This study reports on a survey of experienced emergency management personnel in Australia and New Zealand to identify the influence of organisational features in perceived emergency management performance. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of organisational features in emergency response performance and to discuss how this knowledge can be used to enhance the response capacity of emergency services organisations.Design/methodology/approach– Based on a review of the literature, a conceptual theoretical model for organisational performance is first developed based on four organisational features found to be previously important in emergency management organisation. These are, adaptability, leadership, stability (mission and direction) and stakeholder communication. An organisational survey was distributed to all 25 fire and emergency services agencies in Australia and New Zealand which included indicators of these elements. Responses were received from experienced emergency management personnel from fire and emergency services agencies. The sample was stratified into the three main organisational types, namely, established, expanding and extending organisations.Findings– The findings reveal that the predictive significance of organisational features in emergency response performance vary among established, expanding and extending organisations. The predictive significance of stability, adaptability and leadership for perceived success is strong in all organisational types. It is interesting to note that the predictive significance of communication with external stakeholders is low in all organisation types. This indicates the preference of emergency services agencies to look internally within their own operations than externally to build relationships with different specialism.Originality/value– The theoretical model in this study makes a first attempt to understand the role of organisational features in emergency response performance of organisations in Australia and New Zealand. This work contributes to theorizing emergency operations by highlighting how organisations need to manage two orientations simultaneously: their own internal as well as external orientations, together with their processes for managing both mission and direction and the need for change and flexibility.

AbstractTo survive and thrive in a crisis requires crisis management teams (CMTs) to make sound strategic decisions. This paper examines the perceptions of CMTs from a group of nonresponse organisations to identify dimensions of the strategic decision‐making process during a crisis management exercise. The paper draws on data collected during a series of exercises with seven Australian government agencies and businesses. Using principal component analysis, this paper outlines four dimensions that are perceived to support strategic decision‐making in this context—psychological safety, critical thinking, managing expectations and adaptive capability. Embedding these dimensions within key systems and processes can provide CMTs with the structure they need to effectively respond to a crisis and enhance organisational resilience.

AbstractEvery year, incident management teams (IMTs) coordinate the response to hundreds of emergency events across Australasia. Larger scale emergencies such as a storms, floods, wildfires, oil spills and chemical explosions can place a lot of pressure on an IMT. Non‐technical skills play a central role in the performance of these teams. This article reviewed the broader non‐technical skills (NTS) literature before focusing on the NTS required for emergency management. It was found that most NTS frameworks share four to five common skill categories, although there were greater differences at the element and behavioural marker level. A variety of issues were identified in the literature that highlight that emergency management is very different from other domains where NTS systems have been developed. The literature on NTS in conjunction with this set of issues was used to develop a proposed NTS framework for emergency IMTs. This framework comprises 7 skill categories (i.e. communication, coordination, cooperation, decision‐making, situation awareness, leadership and coping, stress and fatigue management). The 7 skills can be further delineated into 16 elements and 44 behavioural markers. The framework provides a prototype that can form the basis for further research in this area.

The scale and complexity associated with the coordinated response to natural disasters inevitably produce human errors. However, little is known about the frequency and distribution of human error at different levels of coordination during disasters. The purpose of this research was to explore this phenomenon for selected catastrophic bushfires in Australia. To accomplish this, we used the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System that has been widely applied to accidents but is untested with respect to the complexity and temporality of disasters. The results identified that decision errors made during these disasters differed depending upon the level of coordination but were associated with information uncertainty, fatigue, coordination complexities, procedural violations, and degraded personal interactions.

AbstractThe paper aims to assist emergency services organisations to learn how to learn so that managers better understand how to embed effective learning practices and systems into their organisation's culture. Learning in emergency services organisations occurs in a range of contexts. These include after‐action reviews, externally led inquiries, and practice‐led research projects. The paper outlines key themes from the work‐related learning literature and introduces a modified experiential learning framework to ground real‐world experiences. Interviews were conducted with 18 emergency services practitioners. The findings provide examples of the broad challenges that agencies need to manage to enhance and sustain learning. These include shifting value from action post an event, to reflection, focusing on the bigger picture and allowing enough time to effectively embed new practices after an emergency. No organisation can forgo learning. All experiences provide opportunities for learning to occur. A key insight for agencies interested in facilitating improvements in learning is to locate potential weak links in the learning cycle and to develop a better understanding of how to learn.