Sensemaking and Resilience for Human Resources in Crises: Lessons From Crisis-Purposed Organizations

Abstract

Reviewing the best practices in crisis-purposed organizations is useful to help organizations better react to crises. The purpose of this research is to use the COVID-19 pandemic to better understand sensemaking and resilience by carefully studying crisis-purposed organizations for insights. We find that labor market myopia interferes with an organization’s crisis response. An organization may overcome labor market myopia by leveraging HR strategies that emphasize agility and resilience and by adapting to technological changes. We focus on military special operations as the primary example of crisis-purposed organizations, but also refer to wildfire fighters and other emergency responders. These organizations differ in how they recruit and qualify participants, but they all suggest approaches for organizations whose primary focus is something other than crises, but who will face crises in any event.