Crisis Management In Practice ...

The venue has a staff of 120, with facilities comprising of competition, diving, utility and leisure pools; gymnasium; cafe; childcare; spa, sauna and steam rooms; and health lifestyle services.  In addition to these programs and services the Centre is home to the state's swimming, underwater hockey, diving and water polo associations.

With the fire having an immediate effect on the entire range of  the facilities activities, we highlighted six key areas of crisis management: human resources, business operation, public relations, insurance management, the critical incident plan, and contracts and partnerships.

On the day of the event, the Council was quick to implement key factors of the City's disaster plan and created an inter-divisional project team, chaired by the general Manager to oversee and co-ordinate the management of the incident.  It must be also noted, that at this stage, it was not evident that the Council would be facing a closure and restoration period of nearly six months.

Human Resources
Of course there was an immediate concern for the staff, their morale, their short-term needs and longer-term support.  Critical factors involved the establishment of staff counselling services, accommodation (administrative) of staff teams, access to personal property, provision of remuneration details, family notification, and industrial matters clarified that related to venue/business closures.  In addition, the team went about researching redeployment opportunities within the organisation and relocation of the administration base.

Here it was important to have had enterprise/workplace agreements that catered for an unexpected situation and to ensure that the staff well-being was maintained.  Team rosters for all casual staff had only been released the day before the closure, and as staff had committed to availability, it was agreed that the organisation would also commit to remuneration for this period.

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The impact of the incident and the subsequent closure was difficult for a small number of staff who accepted counselling opportunities provided.  The overall management of staffing issues was well managed with all staff returning following the six-month closure.

Business Operation
The impact on our day-to-day business can be broken into three key areas.  The first area included member and guest servicing and management; detailing programming and timetables; access to databases; notification to tenant and user groups; and servicing and reporting to our sponsors and partners.

Access to the Centre's database was managed on the day of the fire with assistance from the Fire Services as the venue was still holding toxic fumes.  Even though a full back up was maintained off-site it was agreed that by being able to access and use the database as quickly as we could was a better arrangement than loading the back up and testing the integrity of the data.  As the assistance from the Fire Service was easily available, removal of the server and some hardware was the preferred option.

Within 24 hours, an appropriate press release and letter from the General Manager was prepared and delivered by mail to over 4,200 staff, members, enrolments and visit pass holders.  In addition, personal contact was made to all sponsors and partners.

On the ground at the venue, access to telephones; information services; hardware and software; signage for all patrons, including contractors and safety personnel; temporary lighting and power; isolation of all power and electrical services; and site security became a second key issue.

All these operational matters also present serious OH&S related issues, which were accompanied with the need for occupational hygienists due to the levels of contamination experienced throughout the venue.