Action Research Plan for Identifying Effective Strategies to Organize

the Emergency Response Team (ERT) in Procter & Gamble



Action Research Plan for Identifying Effective Strategies to Organize

the Emergency Response Team (ERT) in Procter & Gamble

Introduction

This research identifies effective strategies to organize the Emergency Response Team (ERT) in Procter & Gamble in order to increase efficiency and participation of every member. The problem was that the ERT had no sufficient administrative, and support duties. All the administrative and operational works were performed by site fire chiefs. As a result, ERT's performance was not commendable. They were not as much efficient as they could have been in other cases. The purpose of the action research plan was to find out the most appropriate way for redistributing the administrative workload of ERT's.

Action research was employed in order to formulate a plan of delegation which could aid the site fire chiefs to modify and assign jobs to members of ERT. I needed to examine which jobs could be delegated to the members, the attitude of members towards taking on other roles and by keeping in view these two details how to structure ERT to enhance efficiency.

For this purpose, I conducted a survey. The survey showed that members had a keen interest in taking on further roles. Many tasks could be assigned to the members. For the workload redistribution, many structures of organization could be used. These aspects depended on the needs of the organization.

Discussion

Role of the Manager and the Volunteer Members

The role of the site fire chief is very challenging. He has complete responsibility of extending protection from fire. He is the one to implement all plans and strategies related to protection of life and property from fire, explosion or any other calamity. All the members of the ERT team are volunteers except the chief. They perform other roles as well in the company besides being a part of the ERT team. They are recruited according to the recruitment methods of volunteers. These members are given proper training according to the regulatory standard and practices.Background

The ERT evolved after the evolution of US fire service. Different ERT teams perform different roles like rescuing from water and confined space. Although ERT began providing more services, the structure of management has not changed as the fire chief does all the administrative jobs and leadership responsibilities of the teams. The site fire chief is overly occupied in administration and management duties. As he is extremely engrossed in all these job responsibilities, he can not pay attention to strategic leadership. Hardly any efforts have been done to reduce the burden on site fire chief.

Improving the teams' performance is very essential. It directly relates to objective of US Department of Homeland security which aims to strengthen the nationwide preparation for natural disasters, issues of terrorism and any other forms of emergencies (US Department of Homeland Security 2004, p. 26).

Delegation of Tasks

Campbell and Ellis (1995) have determined which tasks can be delegated effectively. Their potential sheet for delegation can guide in ...