Keeping an Emergency Management Program Balanced

When thinking of what makes an Emergency Management (EM) program thrive the below scale comes to mind. The bottom triangle is what makes up the foundation of an EM program from the ground up.

Stakeholder Support: Whether it’s an elected official or top executive, stakeholder support is an absolute must and is the true foundation of any program. This provides the program with the necessary guidance, funding, and reach.

Staff: An Emergency Operations Center (EOC) can never be operational if no one is there to staff it. Having knowledgeable, properly trained, and motivated staff ensures consistent operations and creates trust in the program.

Assets: Knowing that you have the tools you need to get the job done, whether that means investing in technology, infrastructure, or materials and supplies to ensure your program is at the ready.

A program with proper support, staffing, and assets is ready to function but needs to find a constant balance with those they have jurisdiction over. Planning and training is essential and imperative but too much of either can cause confusion and “knowledge overload”. Exercising and testing is needed to ensure said plans and training are done properly and adequately mitigate risk to the entity. Too many exercises without proper training before and after can lead to a misunderstanding of someone’s roles and responsibilities during an incident.

Both sides of the beam work to hold the other accountable. Too much of one side can cause an imbalance in preparedness and ill-equip the constituents the EM program is supposed to service.

So what is the beam that holds the structure balanced? Relationships. Having sound, reliable, and productive relationships is key to ensuring an Emergency Management program succeeds.

Relationships means having proper outreach to the program’s constituents, ensuring everyone understands that an Emergency Management structure is in place, how it functions, and how to integrate into its processes.

It also means maintaining relationships with the stakeholders in the community or entity that play an integral role in any phase of Emergency Management. This can include department heads, business executives, elected officials, volunteer organizations, religious leaders, disability advocates, etc.

By Emergency Managers having structured relationships, they create a trust with those who need to be called upon during a crisis or disaster. Stakeholders will understand why they are being asked to join in an exercise, they will know their role in the plans, and know their function during a disaster. Even if a disasters hits and they don’t know their role, they know to look to you as a trusted leader for guidance.

With all the pieces in the scale in place, an Emergency Management program can operate efficiently in a well balanced way.