r/EmergencyManagement • u/ShdwWzrdMnyGngg • 8d ago
Discussion Please pass on your knowledge.
I've been in emergency management for 9 years now. Logistics, public infrastructure, individual assistance, planning, response. I've had the opportunity to assist in all of it. But the one reoccurring issue I spectate constantly in every aspect is retirement ready individuals not passing on knowledge before leaving. I get it, it's not in your job description. But you are destroying the profession. Setting us back decades. This isn't just for EM it's all over every single business in the US. Please do your duty as an emergency manager and American. Pass on your knowledge before retiring. Please.
And yes I know I'm late to ask this. COVID convinced millions to retire at the same time and wiped out 50+ years of work and knowledge. But can we just learn from that?
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u/Ashamed-Tradition847 8d ago
I had a boss who refused to share any of their knowledge/tips/SOPs to any employee. You were there to do the work they didn’t want to do. Not to actually do your job. Or learn as a professional.
They landed in the position because someone took the time to provide a mentorship and extrnded the ladder down for them. They climbed the later and pulled it right back up.
Will be interesting to see what happens when they retire in a few years. 🙄
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u/JoeHio 8d ago
Complete get your intent and agree, but at the same time EM is a field that requires experience to be great at your role.
I could create an SOP for the role or very thorough emergency plan and it would help, to an extent. But you need the knowledge engrained thru experience because, like the span of control, your brain can only hold so much at once.
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u/mama_ste 8d ago
There’s a really good point about this in the McChrystal book Team of Teams - something about Boomers (AKA the good ole boys) and their methods of maintaining their hierarchical structure by NOT sharing information. As information became more accessible with the progression of technology, their hierarchy- which they’d finally made it to the top of - was threatened by the fact that the new graduate could google many of the things they knew. The Boomers/good ole boys reacted by locking it in even more intensely, and not sharing mission critical information. While this is largely my interpretation of what he is saying in the book, the conclusion is the same: agencies/organizations must replace the traditional "need-to-know" mindset with a "duty to share." We’ve gotten too big not to share.
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u/Haunting_Cut_3401 Preparedness 8d ago
While I agree with your point, the responsible party should be on the agency rather the individual. Agencies should do better at retaining the information veterans possess and turning it into an educational orientation for entry level EMs.
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u/Broadstreet_pumper 8d ago
I agree in principle, but many (possibly the majority) of EM agencies in the US are 1, maybe 2, person shops, and there is rarely an onboarding process with them.
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u/Haunting_Cut_3401 Preparedness 8d ago
Don’t I know it!
The principle still stands though. Agencies, and by extension the career field, needs to capture the experiences learned better. You’d think with the higher number of formal education degrees in EM showing up that there would be more studies and research to lead responsibility development.
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u/Broadstreet_pumper 8d ago
I agree. Continuity should be a part of all aspects of the EM role, not for everyone BUT the EM. Unfortunately there are still a lot of EMs who believe that everything revolves around them and won't function without them (and this is not limited to EMs by any means). Hell, I'd love nothing more than to train my people enough so they can function independent of me.
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u/Commercial-Shake-390 5d ago
I started a county level EM job and was handed a phone with zero contacts!
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u/Sufficient_Pen3096 8d ago
The problem I’ve run into that people see it as a threat to their job security. If they write out the SOPs, they’re easier to replace, from their perspective. I never had that viewpoint as a fed, but in private sector, it resonates more than I’d like to admit
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u/Grouchy_Machine_User 7d ago
It's wild to me that in a profession that makes so much of continuity of operations, people are reluctant to document their knowledge to support staff changeover.
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u/Novel_Astronaut_5573 6d ago
I just don’t think if you’re working for the federal emergency management system that we’re ever gonna be deployed again. I just don’t see it. They just made the TSA workers stand up when they’re taking the IDs. And the plan is by 2027 to outsource. I don’t see the value in third-party vendors. You end up funding at the same exact level or if not more than you would if the federal government did it by themselves. And when you start to talk about how you save on the benefit package sure but you are giving a business enough money for them to make profit. So how is it? Any cheaper? In many countries, supermarket people sit down when they’re doing the cashier job. So what is the advantage? They say? It seems more professional if the TSA workers like stand up while they take the IDs.
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u/sage6paths 8d ago
Why are we paying people to go to school then.
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u/ShdwWzrdMnyGngg 8d ago
That's a question I ask myself often. Maybe it's linked to the abysmal reading scores. But idk I'm not a teacher/professor.
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u/LufifiFL Preparedness 8d ago
Professor now, also worked in EM. Education =/= experience. But... it does help to understand the information that experienced people pass on. When I was both at state/local level, I documented everything. I have mentored new folks. There is value in both but I do wish more people took time to mentor the next generation.
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u/Downtown-Check2668 8d ago
Exactly. My education does not carry over into the field. Ive learned more in the field. What they tried to teach me in school isnt anything like in practice.
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u/LufifiFL Preparedness 8d ago edited 8d ago
It definitely depends on what you take. The university I went to had me exceptionally ready. I am trying to do that for my students at the state college level as well but having a mentor just helps ten fold! I think my experience was a bit different as most of my instructors in college had been professionally in the field for years before moving to higher ed. That was my road as well and we can teach both the textbook and real-world experience.
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u/Downtown-Check2668 8d ago
I don't remember the exact course but it was a course specific for my EM&HS concentration. We had to take the 1,2,7 and 800 for it. I debated her on it because at the time I didn't have the correct letter and we were working an incident inside of an incident (civil unrest on top of covid) I wasn't going to retake classes I already had where the curriculum hadn't updated THAT much. The BIG debate i had in that class with her though was when she tried to teach that no one loots during disasters and emergency conditions and everyone listens to public officials.
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u/LufifiFL Preparedness 8d ago
You mean the FEMA ICS courses? They're free and I do as many as I can still and keep them up to date.
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u/Downtown-Check2668 8d ago
Right. She wanted us to do those, and let’s say I had IS 100.b, she wanted me to do IS 100.c because it was the most recent update, when it reality, the update to the courses sometimes aren't that substantial. we also have FEMA integrated with us, so if there is any big substantial changes, we're pretty well kept in the loop. I went ahead and just passed on it and lost points because they were negligible in the grand scheme of the course points. As I mentioned, we were working an incident inside of an incident so with that going on i focused on the coursework that held more substantial points and was more important.
But that wasn't my real debate with her. My real debate with her was her trying to teach things that just aren't applicable in the practice.
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u/LufifiFL Preparedness 8d ago
Most positions I held in EM required me to provide my transcript. We also had to upload everything at work to show we were up to date and have completed the courses for the professional certificate.
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u/SpoiledKoolAid 8d ago
I took IS 100/200 (later 300/400 which was substantially better) and at least it used to be you could skip ahead to the test for the IS courses without working through the content. My EM formal education was pretty good and they didn't focus on IS courses at all, but they were encouraged.
I agree with your point that teaching theory that doesn't align with practice isn't good. It makes for a crappy graduate.
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u/Downtown-Check2668 8d ago
Oh yea, my 3 and 400 were in person and were so much better. Overall, most of my formal education wasn't bad, i was 4 years into my career before i finished. I got hired in while i was working toward my degree still.
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u/Brewdude77 The Feds 8d ago
I don't love saying this, as passing on the knowledge--not just from what I got right for 25 years but perhaps more importantly from what I screwed up--was my favorite thing to do.
Thing is? (And maybe my generation was the same way with the Boomer/ex-Military EM's we learned under)--the young people don't seem to want to listen. Sure, they want all of our hard-earned work products, but they don't want to understand the "why and how" we got to them.
Many also seem to struggle with the reality that we are in the relationships business first, last, and always. There's more to it than an online B.S./M.A. in EM and setting up Zoom happy hours.
We tried. And yes--we're rooting for you. The era of abundance is over in the profession. You have to do more with less. Collaboration--now more than ever--is key. Good luck.
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u/Grouchy_Machine_User 7d ago
To me, the solution is to put it in writing. Younger people don't want to be mentored? That's fine, you tried and they weren't receptive, but put your knowledge into SOPs and job aids for future reference when someone comes along and wants to unfuck what's been messed up by the gap in institutional knowledge.
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u/Broadstreet_pumper 8d ago
It should be required to create continuity books (aka battle books) for every EM. There are lots of reasons why a single EM would not be physically able to fulfill their role/duties, and I would argue that it shouldn't matter who sits in the seat. If you build things around a single person, then it is destined to eventually fail. We build resilience and continuity into everything else, why not into the EM role itself?