The effectiveness of humanitarian assistance often depends on the effectiveness of the resources utilized such as predictive logic, relief partners, logistics technology, and relief personnel. Analysis of the most recent yet more vulnerable disasters have pointed out that the relief workers often created a difference. Lack of appropriate access to standardized models to train the relief workers has created a need to develop a competency model that can further be validated with the relief organizations to create a standard. The current study aims to develop and test a hypothetical model that proposes a relationship between the competencies of the emergency relief workers, job performance, and job satisfaction through empirical analysis of primary data. The study reveals a good relationship between the competencies, job performance, and job satisfaction and shows a significant impact of the three variables on each other. The study culminates into recommending the key findings of the personnel to be able to improve the efficiency of the relief operation.
Purpose
This study aims to explain the importance of human resources and attempts to identify the competencies required by the personnel involved in disaster management operations.
Design/methodology/approach
The research uses a qualitative methodology to explore the competencies required by the relief workers using a content analysis approach to analyze the disaster literature and the job advertisements. The data for the content analysis was developed with the help of 23 independent coders, and exploratory inferences were drawn.
Findings
A detailed review of the literature highlighted the importance of competent personnel in disaster relief organizations. The analysis listed 34 mutually exclusive competencies and their relative importance, which were further divided into four competency clusters. The study also creates a competency dictionary that defines the competencies with the expected behaviors.
Practical implications
Deploying the right resources in the acute time frame during a disaster event can make a difference, and with lives at stake, such deployment acquires prime importance. In addition to contributing to humanitarian logistics literature, the competency model developed will also help forecast the future requirements and help the organization choose “the right person for the right job.”
Originality/value
The inferences drawn in the study are based on disaster management areas, unlike earlier research which also considered business logistics research.
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