Emergency Management Information System Support Rectifying First Responder Role Abandonment During Extreme Events

Abstract

Role abandonment once was considered unlikely by research scientists; however emergency management officials have experienced catastrophic events that counter prior assumptions. Event types such as deluges and pandemics surface as scenarios supporting one set of examples. The authors explore a different angle, focusing on individual practitioners including: (1) fire, (2) police and (3) emergency medical services. Surveys were taken by the various practitioner group types. Results suggested that there may be role abandonment issues, differing from one practitioner type to another, each with unique reasons given the event type. Although communities and individual emergency officials may never encounter such situations, it's imperative that this event type be taken into account during the design and implementation of disaster management systems. Systems developed should be designed to support and modify needs given the size and magnitude of the event, be it a routine emergency, a larger disaster or a 'once in a lifetime' catastrophic event. In this case, the authors focus on human resources. It is for this reason that the authors believe that algorithms be identified, developed and implemented so that such information be accessible to emergency officials, should this rare situation arise.

First Responders and the COVID-19 Pandemic: How Organizational Strategies Can Promote Workforce Retention

“…A willingness to work study found that healthcare workers were more willing to respond to mass casualty events (85.7%) as opposed to smallpox (61.1%) or SARS (48.4%). These results were repeated in several different studies and found willingness to work around 64% for an outbreak like smallpox (Markenson & Reilly, 2009; Noble et al, 2019). Across perception studies, there is a consistent difference between willingness to work during an outbreak as opposed to a natural disaster.…”

“…It is important to emphasize that PhotoVoice is a rarely used qualitative data collection method in public administration; yet, it was instrumental for the team to capture perishable data, including participant-driven recommendations, at a time when public safety agencies were facing unprecedented challenges. Additionally, most studies on role abandonment are limited in scope relying on a series of hypothetical scenarios (see Noble et al, 2019). This study utilized survey data on role abandonment and turnover intentions during an ongoing pandemic, providing opportunities to assess actual intentions instead of hypothetical versions which can produce an inflated sense of risk (Trainor & Barsky, 2011).…”

“…Role abandonment occurs when an employee fails to uphold the expectations and responsibilities of their job (Noble et al, 2019; Trainor & Barsky, 2011). Although there are few reported cases of widespread role abandonment, the impacts of role abandonment on public safety organizations represent a unique and important challenge that must be addressed to have an effective response and recovery in the aftermath of crises.…”

“…Although there are few reported cases of widespread role abandonment, the impacts of role abandonment on public safety organizations represent a unique and important challenge that must be addressed to have an effective response and recovery in the aftermath of crises. Activities that would be considered role abandonment may include not reporting to work (Noble et al, 2019), absenteeism (Knezek et al, 2022), refusing to accept certain work roles (Noble et al, 2019), disappearing from work, or suddenly quitting one's job (Trainor & Barsky, 2011). According to Trainor and Barsky (2011), “it is not until the moment that a responder quits his/her job and/or disappears that role abandonment has occurred (p. 9).” Thus, employee turnover can be considered a version of role abandonment.…”

“…Although the importance of organizational procedures like having access to PPE, testing, and SOPs is well documented within role abandonment literature, there is mixed evidence on which of these strategies will significantly improve willingness to work among first responders (Noble et al, 2019). This leads to our next hypothesis.…”