Discussions

Planning for Organizational Readiness

Organizational readiness is a multipurpose construct that has implications for organizational performance from different perspectives. For instance, organizational readiness is not only relevant for facilitating organizational changes but it also determines the ability of the organization to react to incidents and changes in the external environment. Based on the viewpoint of Whitman et al., incident response and disaster management is one of the most important parts of organizational readiness. Accordingly, organizational readiness becomes extremely relevant when emergency management services are taken into consideration, in order to quickly respond to incidents and disasters.

Apart from adopting a positive approach towards organizational readiness, it is also critical to ensure careful planning. Such planning for organizational readiness is in line with maximizing the positive outcomes while minimizing the resources required for incident and disaster management (Whitman et al.). “The critical challenge is to design, conduct, and evaluate exercises in a manner that effectively tests responders’ readiness and generates lessons that can improve readiness” (Greenberg, Voevodsky, and Gralla 1). For this reason, practicing for organizational readiness is part of the planning process whereby strategies and tactics for organizational readiness are continuously refined.

Furthermore, the planning process also includes the evaluation of practice, in order to implement changes based on practical outcomes. The planning process also involves training and education of organizational members for increasing the overall efficiency of the incident and disaster management services. In addition, planning for organizational readiness may include but is not limited to forming the planning committee, developing the planning policy, identifying preventive controls, and devising a detailed incident response plan (Whitman et al.). Even he post-incident activity is also part of the planning process, as it helps in further refining the preparation and planning activities.

Works Cited

Greenberg, Brandon, Paule Voevodsky, and Erica Gralla. “A capabilities-based framework for disaster response exercise design and evaluation: Findings from oil spill response exercises.” Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management 13.4 (2017).

Whitman, Michael E., Herbert J. Mattord, and Andrew Green. Principles of incident response and disaster recovery. Cengage Learning, 2013.