Australia’s strategic outlook features a forecast increase in rate and severity of natural disasters. With a relatively small population dispersed around a large land mass the challenge for generating effective response by Emergency Services is increasing. Demand pressures, a declining ‘propensity to serve’, community expectations amplified by social media and escalating workforce costs are undermining the traditional Emergency Service business models.
Non-fulltime workforces can facilitate access to more sovereign human capital for disaster response in several ways. They include cost effectiveness when compared to full-time staff, access to pre-existing skills, enhanced workforce diversity and persistent presence in communities across the nation.
However, despite the potential of non-fulltime workforces there are organisational obstacles to the full realisation of their value. These obstacles include a bias for solutions optimised for full time staff (the ‘ideal worker paradigm’), pre-existing skills that skills are invisible or devalued by Emergency Services and the imposition of ‘one size fits all’ employment standards. This means that organisations may not be making the most of the non-fulltime workforce they have as well as limiting their access to additional human capacity in the wider population.
My research proposes that a crucial enabler to enabling a non-fulltime workforce is a human capital mindset. One that seeks to make the most of the human capital available in the organisation already and to seek ways to attract citizens to service through relevant and exciting non-fulltime pathways.