Emergency Services Workforce 2030: Changing landscape literature review

The Changing Landscape Literature Review collates a high-level evidence base around seven major themes in the changing landscape (i.e., the external environment) that fire, emergency service, and rural land management agencies operate in, and which will shape workforce planning and capability requirements over the next decade. It is an output of the Workforce 2030 project and is one of two literature reviews that summarise the research base underpinning a high-level integrative report of emerging workforce challenges and opportunities, Emergency Services Workforce 2030. Workforce 2030 aimed to highlight major trends and developments likely to impact the future workforces of emergency service organisations, and their potential implications. The starting point for the project was a question: What can research from outside the sphere of emergency management add to our knowledge of wider trends and developments likely to shape the future emergency services workforce, and their implications? The seven themes included in the Changing Landscape Literature Review are: 1) demographic changes, 2) changing nature of work, 3) changes in volunteering, 4) physical technology, 5) digital technology, 6) shifting expectations, and changing risk. A second, accompanying literature review, the Changing Work Literature Review, focuses on another nine themes related to emergency service organisation’s internal workforce management approaches and working environments

Emergency Services Workforce 2030: Changing work literature review

The Changing Work Literature Review collates a high-level evidence base around nine major themes related to internal workforce management approaches and working environments of fire, emergency service, and rural land management agencies. It is an output of the Workforce 2030 project and is one of two literature reviews that summarise the research base underpinning a high-level integrative report of emerging workforce challenges and opportunities, Emergency Services Workforce 2030. Workforce 2030 aimed to highlight major trends and developments likely to impact the future workforces of emergency service organisations, and their potential implications. The starting point for the project was a question: What can research from outside the sphere of emergency management add to our knowledge of wider trends and developments likely to shape the future emergency services workforce, and their implications? The Changing Work Literature Review focuses on nine themes relevant to changes that have implications for emergency service organisation’s internal workforce management approaches and working environments: 1) Recruitment, assessment, and selection, 2) Socialisation and training, 3) Work design, 4) Diversity and inclusion, 5) Managing mental health and wellbeing, 6) Leadership, 7) Change management, 8) Managing an ageing workforce, and 9) Managing volunteer workforces

Emergency Services Workforce 2030

Australia’s emergency management sector sits within an environment that is becoming ever more complex, dynamic and uncertain. This is due to factors like a growing population, changing climate, social and cultural change, and the impact of new technologies. At the same time, the nature of how we work, in both paid and voluntary ways, is also changing. Work is greatly influenced by changes in technology and lifestyle, and by increasing levels of interconnectivity and cross-boundary collaboration. In this dynamic context, planning for the sustainability, effectiveness and wellbeing of the future emergency management workforce takes on considerable importance. The workforces of Australia’s fire, emergency services and rural land management agencies (referred to in this report as emergency service organisations) are crucial to Australia’s emergency management capability. These workforces include career and volunteer members, they also include first responders as well as professional, technical, and administrative support staff and volunteers (hereafter referred to collectively as the emergency service workforce). This report provides a consolidated, overview picture of emerging workforce challenges and opportunities likely to face emergency service organisations over the coming decade. It is a first step in bringing together the wide range of research that can inform and strengthen strategic workforce planning in these organisations. The report presents a high-level summary of key trends and developments highlighted in research from beyond the emergency management sphere. It identifies potential implications of these trends and developments for the future emergency service workforce. It also highlights key Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) affiliated research that can assist workforce planners to understand and respond to these implications. The bulk of the combined emergency service workforce are volunteers. According to the Productivity Commission, there were around 212,293 fire service volunteers and 23,897 state and territory emergency service volunteers across emergency service organisations in Australia in 2017-18 (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019). Volunteers therefore formed around 91% of the fire service workforce, and 97% of the state and territory emergency service workforce in that year. Furthermore, given the geographic size, changing risk profile, and demographic shifts in Australia, a heavy reliance on volunteers is likely to continue into the future. As such, volunteers and volunteering issues form a key component of the terrain covered in this report. While focusing on the emergency service workforce, this report is also based on recognition that the emergency services are part of a wider emergency management workforce that is also diverse and changing. The complete emergency management workforce extends far beyond the emergency services to include the volunteer and paid workforces of not-for-profits active in recovery, local governments, wider community sector and faith-based organisations, government departments, private businesses and more. Increasingly, under the influence of changing community expectations, and policy goals of community resilience, shared responsibility, and clear risk ownership (COAG, 2011; Commonwealth of Australia, 2018), ‘unaffiliated’ community members and groups are also recognised as a valuable part of the emergency management workforce (AIDR, 2017). Consequently, the future emergency management workforce is not going to be restricted to the affiliated volunteer and paid workforces of formal emergency service organisations. Therefore, this report considers the future emergency service workforce within the context of how it interacts with and forms a part of the wider emergency management workforce

How asynchronous video interviews are used in practice:A study of an Australian‐based AVI vendor

With an archival data set from an Australian-based asynchronous video interview (AVI) vendor, we examined how employers implemented AVI features as a step toward understanding how AVIs can be more optimally designed. The multilevel data contained information about 2,550,105 responses from 627,999 candidates to 52,623 questions, nested within 12,105 interview templates. We found that AVIs were often used for small applicant pools (Mdn = 10 candidates per AVI) and that a majority of the AVIs comprised four to five questions, with candidates typically given 30 seconds to prepare a response, and 2 minutes to record it. Only rarely were candidates permitted to preview questions or re-record responses. Finally, we noted that the settings typically applied were highly consistent with platform's default settings

Improving Reactions to Forced-Choice Personality Measures in Simulated Job Application Contexts Through the Satisfaction of Psychological Needs

There is a wealth of evidence justifying the use of personality assessments for selection. Nonetheless, some reluctance to use these assessments stems from their perceived vulnerability to response distortion (i.e., faking) and the somewhat negative applicant reactions they elicit, when compared to other assessments. Adopting a forced-choice personality assessment format appears to alleviate the former problem but exacerbates the latter. In this study, we introduce basic psychological needs as a theoretical foundation to develop interventions to improve reactions to forced-choice personality assessments. We propose that the forced-choice format impedes respondents’ desire to respond to items in a preferred way, interfering with autonomy need satisfaction, and constrains respondents’ opportunity to show their capabilities, interfering with competence need satisfaction. In this pre-registered between-subjects experiment (N = 1565), we investigated two modifications to a ranked forced-choice personality questionnaire and compared these to traditional forced-choice and single-stimulus (Likert) formatted questionnaires. One modification, where participants could write a free-text response following the assessment, did not show significant effects on reactions. The second modification allowed participants to view all items they had ranked last (first) and then identify any the participant believed in fact described them well (poorly). That modification positively affected perceived autonomy- and competence-support, and fairness perceptions, bridging approximately half of the gap between reactions to forced-choice and single-stimulus assessment formats. This study suggests that a modification to forced-choice personality questionnaires may improve applicant reactions and that basic psychological needs theory may be a fruitful lens through which to further understand reactions to assessments

Sustaining effectiveness in global teams: The co-evolution of knowledge management activities and technology affordances

Despite the dynamic nature of knowledge-related activities and the availability of a variety of communication technologies, many global teams habitually use technology in the same way across activities. However, as teams move through cycles of accumulating, integrating, and implementing knowledge, the purposes for communication technologies change. Current theorizing and empirical work on team knowledge management has yet to develop a dynamic theory that incorporates these changes. By conducting a multiwave, mixed method analysis of 48 global teams, we develop a theory of how global teams sustain effectiveness through technology affordance processes. We found that effective teams are those that recognize cues indicating change is necessary and coevolve a symbiosis between new activities, new purposes for interaction, and new uses of communication technologies. This coevolution of purpose with technology use forms new affordances, which enable the team to move on to new knowledge management activities and sustain effectiveness. Our theory more realistically models the dynamics of staying connected while sharing, combining, and implementing knowledge across the globe

Water addition, evaporation and water holding capacity of poultry litter

Litter moisture content has been related to ammonia, dust and odour emissions as well as bird health and welfare. Improved understanding of the water holding properties of poultry litter as well as water additions to litter and evaporation from litter will contribute to improved litter moisture management during the meat chicken grow-out. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how management and environmental conditions over the course of a grow-out affect the volume of water A) applied to litter, B) able to be stored in litter, and C) evaporated from litter on a daily basis. The same unit of measurement has been used to enable direct comparison—litres of water per square metre of poultry shed floor area, L/m2, assuming a litter depth of 5 cm. An equation was developed to estimate the amount of water added to litter from bird excretion and drinking spillage, which are sources of regular water application to the litter. Using this equation showed that water applied to litter from these sources changes over the course of a grow-out, and can be as much as 3.2 L/m2/day. Over a 56 day grow-out, the total quantity of water added to the litter was estimated to be 104 L/m2. Litter porosity, water holding capacity and water evaporation rates from litter were measured experimentally. Litter porosity decreased and water holding capacity increased over the course of a grow-out due to manure addition. Water evaporation rates at 25 °C and 50% relative humidity ranged from 0.5 to 10 L/m2/day. Evaporation rates increased with litter moisture content and air speed. Maintaining dry litter at the peak of a grow-out is likely to be challenging because evaporation rates from dry litter may be insufficient to remove the quantity of water added to the litter on a daily basis

Water addition, evaporation and water holding capacity of poultry litter

Litter moisture content has been related to ammonia, dust and odour emissions as well as bird health and welfare. Improved understanding of the water holding properties of poultry litter as well as water additions to litter and evaporation from litter will contribute to improved litter moisture management during the meat chicken grow-out. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how management and environmental conditions over the course of a grow-out affect the volume of water A) applied to litter, B) able to be stored in litter, and C) evaporated from litter on a daily basis. The same unit of measurement has been used to enable direct comparison—litres of water per square metre of poultry shed floor area, L/m2, assuming a litter depth of 5 cm. An equation was developed to estimate the amount of water added to litter from bird excretion and drinking spillage, which are sources of regular water application to the litter. Using this equation showed that water applied to litter from these sources changes over the course of a grow-out, and can be as much as 3.2 L/m2/day. Over a 56 day grow-out, the total quantity of water added to the litter was estimated to be 104 L/m2. Litter porosity, water holding capacity and water evaporation rates from litter were measured experimentally. Litter porosity decreased and water holding capacity increased over the course of a grow-out due to manure addition. Water evaporation rates at 25 °C and 50% relative humidity ranged from 0.5 to 10 L/m2/day. Evaporation rates increased with litter moisture content and air speed. Maintaining dry litter at the peak of a grow-out is likely to be challenging because evaporation rates from dry litter may be insufficient to remove the quantity of water added to the litter on a daily basis