Opportunities and Recommendations

Opportunity #1: Clearly Defined Roles and Responsibilities

We need clearly defined roles, and responsibilities, decision-making structure, and CORE Team program administration to enhance emergency response.

Recommended Approach: Centralization of Roles and Responsibilities

Proposed Actions:

• Establish a Central Program Owner: the program owner should be centralized as a single entity. Currently, EMCR is most reflective of the attributes to successfully centralize and operate CORE. The attributes are as follows:

  •  Administration and Finance

    • Comprehensive understanding of emergency management-related processes, protocols, and policies

    • Able to take on administrative and coordination tasks within the domain of emergency management

    • Knowledge and authority to establish and enforce these processes to relevant emergency response groups

  • Response and Operations

    • Strong relationship with ministries' internal emergency response teams

    • Solid understanding and familiarity with their needs, processes, and capabilities

    • Able to effectively play a coordinating role during cross-ministry collaboration for surge capacity response efforts.

  • Staffing and Deployment

    • Decision-making authority for funding requests and deploying talent during province-wide emergency events

    • Well-resourced and funded to maintain a permanent, dedicated team to run the program and continuously improve the program and the product.

  • Training and Development

    • Solid understanding of orientation and specific training needs to build a more qualified roster and support ministries to develop skilled talent for emergency and disaster response.

• Allocate Dedicated Resources: a dedicated team and resources are needed to administer the program and to continue product development. There are a variety of knowledge, skills, and abilities that we will need to continuously improve the administration and management of the program. Potential roles include (see Appendix C for more details):

Preliminary estimates indicate that the program will cost $4 million annually. Costing assumptions can be found in the appendices. Further work will be required to substantiate these estimates.

Supporting Key Findings

• Ministries feel that a centralized model will establish clear decision-making structure, roles, and responsibilities, and foster strong relationships with other ministries involved in response.

• Provinces across Canada have established a centralized approach and are seeing various benefits such as improved situational awareness, better collaboration, and easier access to information.

• There is a perception that centralization can support a more consistent experience for CORE Team members through a comprehensive understanding of emergency related processes, protocols, and policies​

• A side-of-the-desk approach to overseeing the program is no longer adequate due to the increasing need for administrators to access the roster of members to respond to emergencies. Other jurisdictions have allocated full-time staff who are well-trained and available year-round to allow these centralized structures to streamline their processes and systems.

Opportunity #2: Use of in-house skills and resources

In-house skills and resources within the BC Public Service are not being fully utilized to support emergency and disaster response.

Recommended Approach: Improved Training and Skills Matching

Proposed Actions:

• Training Strategy

  • Create a training strategy that outlines the learning and development needed to support generalists and specialists, including learning modules.

• Increase Training Offerings

  • Ensure that training for general and specialized roles is available. This includes proper funding to support learning development such as job shadowing during activations. We also need to build training pathways for the roles and functions needed for deployment so that we can increase our capacity for more experienced members for deployment. Finally, we need to standardize basic training for CORE Team members across the province, no matter what type of emergency they get deployed in.

• Skills Matchmaking

  • Developing a process for matchmaking roles and functions needed for deployment in relation to the members’ current position in their base jobs. This will provide equitable compensation and a better experience for members as expectations are clear and we are meeting people where they are at. In addition, there is a need to expand the current job descriptions for deployment functions to increase clarity around the skills needed.

Supporting Key Findings

• The absence of a consistent, province-wide training plan has created regional disparities in response approaches and contributes to a shortage of specialists.​ There is a growing need for more specialists to be trained and deployed.

• During major emergencies, staff shortages often exceed our response capabilities, forcing us to outsource for expertise. We currently rely on seasonal and temporary staff, and struggle to retain experienced staff long-term. This situation highlights the need for dedicated, full-time emergency management teams to effectively handle ongoing emergencies.

• Training opportunities are limited by the high cost of specialized training and a lack of standardized qualifications and experience for critical response roles.

• In its current state, training inadequacy is leading to underprepared individuals being deployed, resulting in performance issues and fatigue over time.

• There is a need for a consistent understanding of the specific training needs to build and attract a more qualified talent pool and support ministries to develop skilled talent for emergency and disaster response.

Opportunity #3: Increase clarity and understanding of the CORE Program

Consistent marketing and communication of what CORE is to support employees’ and supervisors’ awareness of the program.

Recommended Approach: Raise Awareness About the Program and Its Value.

Proposed Actions:

Enhance supervisor support and understanding about the program

Make it easier for supervisors to approve their employees to be part of the program. This includes highlighting the benefits of employee participation, potential incentives, and providing a clear overview of the program structure. We need to increase our collaboration with them to develop strategies for managing operational needs and workload during employee deployments.

Highlight the program benefits for public servants

Make it easier for public servants to join the program. This includes creating clearer onboarding and orientation materials that highlight the program's value, how to join, and what to expect to be a member, covering the multiple phases of joining the program such as before, during, and after deployments. We need to create more opportunities for CORE Team members to engage with the program administrators; so that, members feel connected to the program. We need to recognize members for their contributions by recording their performance in their Personal Development Plans (PDP) and awarding certificates of achievement.

Refine program process for ongoing improvements

Create a more structured evaluation and feedback system to continuously improve the program that will enable us to enhance both supervisors’ and public servant’s experiences. This includes creating clear processes for conducting performance evaluations and exit interviews. We need to establish a channel and strategy on how to handle misconduct during deployments. We also need to streamline the way we acquire supervisor approval.

Supporting Key Findings

·       Supervisors do not fully understand the program’s value, its impact on their employees, and the support they can provide. They need to understand the operational impacts of allowing their employees to be deployed for emergency and disaster response.

·       We found in our research that there is a lack of engagement among CORE Team members. They often do not know what to expect from the program, the next steps, and how they can get involved.

·       Currently, the program relies on word-of-mouth for increasing awareness among public servants, along with occasional coordinator referrals. However, considering capacity issues mentioned previously, this is no longer sufficient. CORE program coordinators have expressed a need to leverage other, more creative means of obtaining interest.

·       CORE Program Coordinators have indicated the need for direction on streamlining processes for a more consistent approach to managing the program and creating a better experience for CORE Team members.