Organizational Resilience

As FEMA develops more tools to assess and develop business and organizational resilience (e.g. PS-PrepTM, the Business Continuity planning suite), it would be great if they also thought about how to drive and develop tools to help build a culture of resilience in organizations. Standards like ASIS SPC.1-2009 are useful for BC planing etc., but orgs also need leadership, culture, and processes that enable unplanned adaptation and agility. A source of inspiration is Resilient Organisations - a public good research program in New Zealand – that has spent the last 10 years examining the factors that help organizations survive and thrive in crises. They have contributed to the development of several tools to help organizations think through the softer and less tangible aspects of resilience. These include the Benchmark Resilience Tool, the Employee Resilience Tool, and the Organisational Resilience HealthCheck (developed by the Resilience Expert Advisory Group for the Attorney General’s Department in Australia). Doing planning in conjunction with the development of positive organizational culture and robust partnerships will guide organizations toward a more dynamic approach to resilience. This is especially relevant for small businesses and organizations with limited resources for formal planning, certification programs, and exercises. FEMA could also use tools like these to evaluate and improve its own intra- and inter-organizational systems and employee resilience. Cf: one of the aims of FEMA’s 2014-18 strategic plan is to “strengthen FEMA’s organizational foundation”.