Article [4] Operational and Customer Service Employees in Logistics Sector Training towards Crisis Management

 Introduction

 

Crisis management is a most essential and one of the most important skills and knowledge whereby the employees working in the shipping and logistics industry needs to get trained on their on the job training or HRM training session. This training sessions are a must skills development that any employee regardless of the hierarchy level ever employee should have this training being obtained while they are being employed in the company.  

 

What is Crisis Management in Logistics Industry?

 

Crisis management is one of the top most level of skills that needs to be developed in the employee’s a logistics company. To put it in simple words “Better late than never”. Crisis situation is not a single incident that occurs Once in awhile. Crisis situation especially in a logistics industry is a very usual thing that anyone who works in that field can anticipate.

Not all the incidents are being done by the human intervention. Some of the crisis those arises are of natural elements. COVID-19 is the best example in which the industry had faced major level of crisis not only in one part of the logistics sector, but the whole industry itself had this issue (Chakir, I., El Khaili, M. and Mestari, M., 2020).

 

Why is Crisis management so important?

 

Crisis and Situations are something that arises without any pre defined event, in which we could have ourselves prepared. When it comes to logistics business the number of human factor that comes is more than considering other industries.

Shipper, Consignee, Freight Forwarder, Shipping Line Staffs, Custom House Agents, Port Staffs, Employees in Vessel, Long Haulage Workers and Staffs in Stuffing Cargo are the different level of employees who are in this sector those who work to achieve a single shipment to get delivered from point A to point B smoothly. Those who are being listed working around the clock to have each of the shipment and to manage the crisis of any nature that arsis in order to give a successful logistics service.

 

Phases of Crisis Management Training

 

There are four stages in crisis management that should be trained to employee in logistics sector: (Britchenko, I., et. al., 2018)

 

• Prevention
• Preparation
• Responding
• Rebuilding

 

Methods of Training Employee for Crisis Management

 

Training employee at all levels of the company is a most important fact in crisis management (Grimmelt., 2017). There are different type of training methods that can be used to gear up the employee in the organization.

These are some of the training methods:

 

v  Communication / Alert Exercise: This means that the exercise should be given from the middle manager to all the line below them. This should be communicating the right track to have them be aligned so that the level of gearing up towards emergency situation can be handled from the middle management that can have the best output for the organization during the crisis situation.

v  Tabletop Exercise: Here not only those related to the sector but also external parties should also be part so that the level of handling the situation can be monitored thus can be able to have evident towards to the level of redemption can be assessed.

v  Command Post Exercise: This is situation where you will not have the same scenario on a day to day life, but the anticipation of getting such a situation is not inevitable. But the top management should be communicating towards this line of training where all the line in the sector should be a part of this exercise.

v  Live Exercise: During a general day of the work you have the practical exercise ( such as fire drills in an office location ). These are being done a regular time frame so that the staffs will be assessed during the training and rectification towards training will be done at that time itself. This is a very frequent on the job training for the regular crisis management of situations that anyone will overcome on a day to day life.

 

Benefits of Crisis Management

 

Gearing up yourself to the upcoming crisis that you cannot anticipate but the fact that it is something inevitable. Regardless whether you can avoid the situation or not, still you have to get yourself prepared. By doing so you can be able to have the following benefits (Braunbeck, R.A. and Mastria, M.F., 2006):

 

Ø  Rapid Response towards Situation: Getting the necessary and industry recommended training program to your employee’s, can help to get the staff geared for responding swiftly to the crisis and also to face the issue without resistance. Moreover the impact from the issue that arises can be minimized. Based on the output of the employee’s the company might have a greater reputation on the crisis managing situation that will be also a beneficial for the organization as well.

 

Ø  Reduced Downtime and losses: Timely responding capacity towards the incidents and situation is a key to the employee’s so that they will be ready to face the situation. This will help to minimize the monetary losses at the lowest levels, also the staffs will be ready to go thru the pressure of the crisis so that they can handle the situation very swiftly that will help the business to recover quicker than others. 

 

Ø  Enhanced Employee confidence: Employee being trained towards facing the crisis with confidence and full of motivation in order to overcome the situation. This is a more addition towards the organization in terms of having well trained employees who can be spearhead towards moving at the toughest times.

 

Crisis management is a more important skills development when considered with other industry to logistics. This is not only for the organization itself but also to build confidence for the employees in the sector itself who can build personal skills within themselves. That skill development can be used in the organization the employee works. Building a trained staff team can help on minimizing the crisis time that a company might go thru as well as the losses that can incur due to the issues and situations (Durugbo, C.M., et al., 2022).

Not only that the company can cope up the situation, but also such talent building and training program that are being done within an organization can have a good reputation towards the organization in the market as well as between the clients they serve. This is another fact that the new trend of customer approach towards expansion of business levels by giving them the guidance that they can be given the service that no other company in this sector can provide. Crisis management may only be a word or just a skill, but it has a great level of area that covers which gets a new change on each and every day.

 

 

Reference

Braunbeck, R.A. and Mastria, M.F., 2006. Crisis management: operational logistics and asset visibility technologies.

Britchenko, I., Olejarz, T. and Życzyński, N., 2018. Logistics management in crisis situations.

Chakir, I., El Khaili, M. and Mestari, M., 2020. Logistics flow optimization for advanced management of the crisis situation. Procedia computer science, 175, pp.419-426.

Durugbo, C.M., Almahamid, S.M., Budalamah, L.H., Al-Jayyousi, O.R. and BendiMerad, B., 2022. Managing regional logistics in times of crisis: a COVID-19 case study. Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management, 12(1), pp.54-77.

Grimmel, J., 2017. Recommendations for Crisis Management: International Union of Railway