Principles of emergency management and the peculiarities of incident management system are crucial for any organisation. Unfortunately, the level of understanding of these principles in our company is rather low. Therefore, I would like to suggest the ways of improving the current situation in the present report. To do so, it is necessary to describe the principles of management, leadership, and command. Next, I shall identify the role of junior managers within the organisation. Finally, I shall characterise the principles of emergency management and the process involved in dealing with emergencies with the use of an incident management system.
Principles of Management, Leadership and Command
The major functions of management are concerned with the following dimensions: planning, controlling, directing, and organising the work within a company (Chandan 2014). These four functions are the tools employed by a manager with the aim of reaching the organisational purposes. The close relatedness and interdependence of the four constituents necessitate the close attention to their functioning, since a problem with one of the aspects may lead to complications with the rest of them (Chandan 2014). The major function is planning as it regulates the direction in which a company evolves. Planning is a logical and orderly method of decision making that impacts the company’s development. It incorporates the process of verifying the company’s objectives and choosing the ways of achieving these objectives (Morden 2016). Apart from that, planning involves the preparation for the modifications and determination of the possible action pattern. Another peculiarity of planning is that it presupposes the capability to predict the future changes or difficulties and create the opportunities of dealing with them.
Controlling incorporates the strategies employed to make sure that the course of actions does not diverge from the planned schedule. This process involves coming up with the ways of guaranteeing that the expected performance is obtained (Chandan 2014). Controlling consists of the following features: establishing the standards of work, regulating the approaches for measuring the work standards, and evaluating the employees’ performance with the help of these approaches. Also, controlling presupposes making corrective steps to remove any divergences between the expected and actual performance (Chandan 2014).
Directing involves several crucial aspects such as leadership, motivation, administration, and communication to make sure that the workers perform their responsibilities in the most productive way. The element of leadership includes giving the instructions and teaching the employees about the policies and approaches. The significance of motivation is explained by its connection to great performance. Administration or supervision enables the manager to obtain progress reports and inform the senior management team about the fulfilment of their directions (Chandan 2014). Communication should be two-way and free to provide the best transition of the information to the workers and their feedback about it.
Organising necessitates a formal authority format and the management of this authority. Therefore, organising presupposes the establishment of the activities that should be performed to attain the firm’s purposes (Chandan 2014). The principle of organising is associated with determining the duties, appointing them to the employees, and delineating the necessary level of authority to the employees.
The Role of Junior Managers
While senior managers bear the responsibility for company’s performance, they resort to help from other members of the managerial team to organise this performance at various levels. Middle and junior managers may have less responsibility than senior managers, but they express a great dedication to their work and have a lot of duties.
Junior managers work under the direct supervision of senior managers, and the major duty of the former is to assist the latter (Byrne 2016). Junior manager creates a plan for employees’ work and makes sure that each point of this plan is fulfilled. Also, junior managers monitor the progress of the plan and check the work at every stage. Finally, the task of junior manager is to report the outcomes to senior management. To do this, the junior manager makes a comprehensive analysis of the employees’ work and creates a report that illustrates to what extent the workers’ performance corresponds to the plan.
Principles of Emergency Management and the Use of Incident Management System
The job of emergency management (EM) department is not seen daily, but the organisation of its work should be extremely efficient so that in case of emergency, it could react promptly and save the lives of employees. EM deals with four types of disasters: man-made, natural, accidental, and deliberate (Fagel & Krill 2012). EM strategy involves four stages that cooperate with each other: “mitigation preparedness, response, and recovery” (Fagel & Krill 2012, 5). The principles of EM are concerned with planning emergency operations, training the employees to fulfil such plans, and maintaining the atmosphere of awareness within the organisation. The major task of EM is to save people’s lives, property, and the environment (Fagel & Krill 2012).
Incident management system (IMS) is built upon two major principles: flexibility and standardisation (Walsh et al. 2012). The principle of flexibility means that all constituents of IMS are compliant with any case, beginning with minute accidents and up to large-scale disasters. The principle of standardisation presupposes the similarity in preparedness to accidents in different organisations. The effective use of IMS involves five components: preparedness, information management, resource management, command, and continuous management and supply (Walsh et al. 2012). Preparedness is the most important feature as it allows to be ready for any situation and, as a result, respond to it promptly and minimise the losses. Resources incorporate the equipment, supplies, and employees.
Conclusion
In order to raise the employees’ awareness of understanding the EM principles, it is necessary to organise an educational campaign that would explain the responsibilities of such management and illustrate the adverse outcomes of neglecting the work of such department. By raising the employees’ awareness, we shall encourage them to participate in utilising the incident management system and take care of their own well-being, as well as of health and safety of their colleagues.
Reference List
Byrne, R 2016, World class health and safety: the professional’s guide, Routledge, New York, NY.
Chandan, JS 2014, Principles of management, 2nd edn, VIKAS, New Delhi.
Fagel, MJ & Krill, SJ 2012, ‘Introduction: why plan for disasters?’, in MJ Fagel (ed), Principles of emergency management: hazard specific issues and mitigation strategies, CRC Press, pp. 2-24., Boca Raton, FL.
Morden, T 2016, Principles of management, 2nd edn, Routledge, New York.
NYWalsh, DW, Christen, HT, Callsen, CE, Miller, GT, Maniscalco, PM, Lord, GC & Dolan, NJ 2012, National incident management system: principles and practice, 2nd edn, Jones and Bartlett learning, Sudbury, MA.