Organisational resilience: building and enhancing capability

Natural and man-made disasters are increasing in frequency and if they are not managed well, they will continue to threaten and disrupt individual lives, communities, organisations, and economies. There is an expectation in today's society that organisations will have the capability to continue to operate during and following major disruptions. Consequently, all organisations have a responsibility to their stakeholders to build and enhance their resilience to reduce the impact of disasters on communities.

The Resilience Expert Advisory Group (REAG) forms part of the Trusted Information Sharing Network for Critical Infrastructure Resilience that was established by the Australian Government Attorney General's Department. The REAG provides strategic thinking pertaining to the development of key attributes and indicators of organisational resilience to assist the owners and operators of critical infrastructure to adopt a more resilient approach. The REAG comprises representatives from Australian, state and territory governments, critical infrastructure owners and operators, academia and research organisations.

The aim of this panel session is twofold. Firstly, the presentations from the panel will explore the key attributes and indicators of organisational resilience providing real world examples of methods utilised to measure, benchmark and enhance resilience that have been adopted internationally. With interaction with delegates the panel will discuss emerging global trends for organisational resilience and how organisations can contribute towards building a more resilient nation.

Disasters do not distinguish between different types of organisations or communities. Emergency services, not for profit, critical infrastructure, public and private enterprise organisations are all susceptible to the impact of major disruptive events. If society expects organisations that directly contribute to our way of life to have the capability to anticipate, respond and recover from disasters, we all need to adopt adequate methods to ensure that our organisations are becoming more resilient.