Be Aware and Prepared: Emergency Management Preparedness for Communicators

Communicators take heed — there’s a difference between emergency management preparedness and crisis management. Crisis management is an in-the-moment reactive response to a disaster. Its focus is on reputation protection, maintaining stakeholder confidence and minimizing long-term brand damage. That’s insufficient in a world where disasters can strike anywhere and at any time.

Emergency management is a proactive, broader and community driven response to a disaster. Its focus is on the past, present and future: preparing for, responding to, recovering from and mitigating the damages of disasters.

David Whitely, managing director at the global firm FTI Consulting, states that preparedness is the best response to this post golden hour age. Having a robust and tested crisis communication plan to manage the initial communications in a crisis may lack flexibility. It may result in fitting a round response into a square crisis.

Now’s the time to shift your crisis management plan to emergency management preparedness. The first step in grasping the basics of emergency management preparedness is to learn how it’s structured, as structure drives strategy.

Emergency Management Preparedness

Most emergencies are local in nature and initially managed at the municipal level. As an emergency grows and more resources are required to scale up for a more robust response, provincial, territorial and federal assets are called in to fight the disaster.

Emergency management is an all-hazards approach to managing emergencies. That’s a comprehensive emergency preparedness framework that considers the full scope of the emergency when planning the response and, later, the risk mitigation efforts.

The effectiveness of an emergency management approach is dependent on the incident command structure. That’s the headquarter structure led by the incident commander who is responsible and accountable for the command, operations, planning, logistics finance and administration of the entire emergency response. Within the incident command structure, the public information officer and the liaison officer report directly to the incident commander. These two positions play key roles in managing, controlling, integrating and disseminating information to internal and external stakeholders. The importance of these positions is reinforced by their reporting directly to the incident commander. 

The public information officer’s responsibilities focus on controlling what information is released to external stakeholders, news and media outlets. The public relations officer works closely with the incident commander to establish what information leaves the incident command center, prepares press briefings and organizes media interviews.

The liaison officer is someone communicators will want to connect with. Their responsibilities focus on being the point of contact for agency representatives. They assist in setting up and coordinating interagency contacts.

Three Cs of Emergency Management Preparedness

Emergency preparedness is a strategic approach — prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. It consists of processes, procedures and tools designed to minimize the impact of a disaster and facilitate a swift recovery. Its success depends on the core communicator competencies of communication, coordination and collaboration.

Communication

At all times and especially during an emergency, timely communication is essential for disseminating accurate information, addressing concerns and maintaining transparency. This is critical, especially when many first responders — police, fire and paramedics — have their own unique communication platforms and trade acronyms. Communicators who recognize that emergency management personnel use different professional languages are better prepared for multidisciplinary collaboration. Having a basic understanding of professional terms allows communicators to speak with confidence and to understand clearly the status updates they are receiving.

Coordination

Coordination between and among services requires a structured approach. A hierarchical, structured approach ensures that all relevant parties receive accurate and timely information that permits them to move forward on common initiatives.

Well-structured coordination among stakeholders helps to streamline efforts, prevent duplication and optimize response strategies. It provides assurances that shared information is timely, accurate and pertinent.

Collaboration

Emergency preparedness is grounded in collaboration. Collaboration fosters a collective response to an emergency. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a multitude of professionals and first responders to successfully combat a disaster with a unified, collective response.

To foster collaboration the incident command center provides the space and resources where first responders and other professionals come together, share information and work jointly on selecting the next mitigation strategy and tactics. Communication among participants must be seamless, and document sharing must be easy.  The command center technology must be flexible and be able to flawlessly integrate different communication platforms. 

Collaboration promotes knowledge sharing, problem-solving and the development of innovative solutions. By breaking down information silos and encouraging open communication, organizations can harness the power of collective intelligence to navigate through an emergency successfully.

Shift From Crisis Management to Emergency Preparedness

Communicators who are familiar with emergency management preparedness better equip their organization to handle an emergency. The three Cs of emergency management preparedness — communication, coordination and collaboration —serve as the foundation for a robust emergency response strategy.

Organizations that work symbiotically with their municipal emergency preparedness teams build trust before the emergency. They better serve their constituents, protect their reputation and maintain stakeholder trust.

Communicators who nudge themselves and their organizations toward emergency management preparedness respond swiftly, make informed decisions and recover more effectively from any emergency — manmade or natural — that comes their way.