ISSUES FACED BY NGO EMPLOYEES DURING NATURAL DISASTER RELIEF PROJECTS Research Design and Methods By Sahan Laksitha Kekiriwaragoda 12 June 2017 Contents Introduction ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ..... 1 Natural Disasters and experiences faced by NGO employees ................................ .................... 1 Research Questions ................................ ................................ ................................ ......................... 3 Justification ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ..... 4 Literature Review ................................ ................................ ................................ ............................ 5 How do traumatic experiences affect performance of employees? ................................ ............ 5 What have high level managements already considered? ................................ .......................... 6 How could NGOs and employees benefit from resolving the issue? ................................ .......... 7 Research design ................................ ................................ ................................ .............................. 9 Framework ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .. 9 Sample ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ....... 10 Methods ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ......... 11 Analysis ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ..... 12 Limitations ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ 13 Conclusion ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .... 13 References ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ..... 14 Issues faced by NGO employees during Natural Disaster Relief Projects Sahan Kekiriwaragoda 1 Introduction Natural Disasters and Experiences faced by NGO Employees Extreme weather conditions and constant evolvement of nature causes natural hazards, which ultimately lead to catastrophic disasters. This uncertain phenomenon of nature is a major issue across the globe. Recent statistics indicate that an appalling number exceeding 210 million people suffer each year due to the cause of such disasters (Lu & Xu 2014) . However, the circumstances and the cause of such changes, projects dea ling with such disasters could be analysed through two main forms. The Proactive form, which is the first, is an analysis of a problem of interest that is carried out before a disaster. The other; Reactive form is associated with treating the disaster once it has already occurred (Camacho - Vallejo et al. 2015). Driving the focus towards projects associated with the reactive form suggests that to minimise the casualties and victims of these inevitable disasters it is important to follow through in aspects such as disaster prevention, mitigation, and preparedness measures (Benson, Twigg & Myers 2001). It is comprehensible that governments alone are unable to depl oy the said strategies and achieve positive results in these projects through the initiation of different elements (Benson, Twigg & Myers 2001). This is also because of governments being unable to station local relief workers due to paucity of availabi lity (Klappa, Audette & Do 2014). On the contrary, Non - Governmental Organisations (NGOs), with the capability in securing a higher stance in their level of importance due to strategies such as, responsiveness and flexibility, could be identified as organi sations with greater strength with comparison to governmental organisations that establishes rigid development policies and programs (Kang 2010). Therefore, to achieve significantly positive outcomes, it is necessary to place great emphasis through varying approaches that aligns with locally specific and community - based strategies as well as frameworks introduced by NGOs (Benson, Twigg & Myers 2001). NGOs often tend to work with poor and marginalised groups in Developing countries under projects wit h different backgrounds (Benson, Twigg & Myers 2001). These projects and their backgrounds may vary due to nature of the disasters, nature, and vulnerabilities of communities as well as NGOs sensitivity in involving and capability of providing services, whi ch benefit the outcome of the projects (Benson, Twigg & Myers 2001). Issues faced by NGO employees during Natural Disaster Relief Projects Sahan Kekiriwaragoda 2 Despite the greater good, NGOs also often encounter certain limitations and pitfalls. Due to these organisations being associated with international power relations, they often face issues such as criticism by world media on their development processes as they tend to transfe r the Western Development concepts to developing countries (Kang 2010). Governments in developing countries have constantly raised concerns about NGOs on their expenditure regarding relief projects due to increase in fund raising, which is directly proport ional to the number of disasters that occur each year (Storm 2006). Many of these governments are also displeased on how some NGOs spend project specifically allocated funds on different projects towards later stages (Storm 2006). Negatively managed interr elations between NGOs and divergent organisation entities as well as organisational politics could present consequences such as failure to efficiently implement strategies introduced by organisations and reduction of efficiency in decision making and manag ing processes of projects (Zhu & Purnell 2006). Despite the importance of the need, necessary information regarding areas such as recruitment, preparation, training as well as operations carried out on the field have been poorly recorded (Klappa, Audette & Do 2014). This is due to the scarcity of information regarding the employees that take part in these projects as well as the roles they fulfill under such conditions (Klappa, Audette & Do 2014). As observable, many of these identified complications correlate with high level management of the NGOs. Hence the position of questioning should elevate towards the issues associated with employees that are already involved in projects under various circumstances related to natural disasters. Though nature presents obstacles to the evolvement of human civilisation time after time with incidents such as Indian Ocean Tsunami (2004), earthquake in Pakistan (2005), hurricane Katrina (2005) and the earthquake in Haiti (2010), it has been recorded th at more professionals participate through NGOs during global disaster relief efforts (Klappa, Audette & Do 2014). Yet organisations have failed to realise that situations encountered by NGO employees could be severe due to experiences encountered by them during projects. It is obvious that clinical, environmental as well as emotional situations encountered by NGO employees are not included in the recorded historical data (Klappa, Audette & Do 2014). Since less diligent focus has been placed on issues associated with the actual experiences of NGO employees and its corollary, the idea of this paper is to raise three questions in terms of issues faced by NGO employees during natural disaster relief projects. Issues faced by NGO employees during Natural Disaster Relief Projects Sahan Kekiriwaragoda 3 Research Questions This paper intends to identify challenges faced by NGO employees while being stationed at natural disaster relief project sites. It is of utmost importance to consider the correlation between changes in environment and inc idents encountered by such NGO employees, which ultimately affect their ability to perform under such critical circumstances. These challenges could occur due to several varying aspects. Traumatic experiences lived by employees at project sites could b e identified as a major cause that leads to fluctuations in performance of employees. While referring to the above notion, the aim of this paper is to analyse traumatic experiences faced by NGO employees at natural disaster relief project sites and changes in working environments, the effects such changes place upon employees, how it affects their overall performance during the stationed period and what could be done by higher levels of authorities as well as how certain outcomes could be implemented in NGO work frame structures in order to generate successful results in similar projects in the future. Therefore, three questions would be raised to conduct research and identify solutions. These questions include, 1) How do changes in background and working environments of natural disaster relief project sites create traumatic experiences for NGO employees and what correlation does it have with their ability to perform tasks during the emergency period? This question p rovides basis to identify what employees would experience differently and how such changes affect their productivity and performance with comparison to day to day working conditions before they get stationed at a natural disaster relief project site. 2) What changes should be considered by the high - level management for the benefit of the employees to minimise the fluctuating nature of their performance when being stationed under such working conditions? This question is specifically targeted at the hi gh - level management and their capabilities in providing the employees with effective solutions before them being stationed and how the decrease in levels of productivity could be minimised. Issues faced by NGO employees during Natural Disaster Relief Projects Sahan Kekiriwaragoda 4 3) How could the findings be applied to similar NGO projects in the future for the benefit of the employees that would participate in projects? The final question identifies how the solutions could be implemented towards future projects as a framework for the benefit of NGO employees. Justification Statistics indicate that the NGO sector is estimated to be worth in Billions of US Dollars with the inclusion of different organisations covering many backgrounds in disaster related projects, which consists of employees from different work departments that ultimately contributes to larger economies and business values of governing authorities of developing nations (MacDermott 2006). It is argued that accomplishing the requirements of employees in a workforce is a fundamental aspect leading towards their level of job satisfaction. Furthermore, it is a characteristic that is of high value by the managerial staff of such organisations due to creating a direct correlation with enhancements in provision of the quality of service (George, Gow & Bachoo 2013). Identifying the issues faced by NGO workforces and employees could be a solution in develo ping competency, which forms competitive advantage in enhancing performance of the services provided by such organisations. These factors ultimately contribute towards creating knowledge banks and forming empirically important organisational knowledge that is of utmost significance (Hasnain 2015). Therefore, this particular piece of research is not only of importance to increase solutions to the challenges faced by NGO employees or professionals but also for acquiring high level decisions by these organisati ons to increase their levels of productivity. The research would also benefit the governing bodies from different social and economic backgrounds, which require the assistance of NGOs and their workforces during natural disaster relief projects. Issues faced by NGO employees during Natural Disaster Relief Projects Sahan Kekiriwaragoda 5 Literature Review How do traumatic experiences affect performance of employees? It is simply comprehensible that as human beings, NGO employees are also prone to face difficulties and challenges due to natural disasters even though their job description requires them to assist victims. Studies by Aker, Onen and Karakilic (2007) mention that psychological and mental dis turbances, which occur due to traumatic experiences, lived during natural disastrous events have been a topic of discussion for a substantial time that exceeds 200 years. Though such studies have been carried out mainly with regards to victims of na tural disaster victims, research by Sevimli, Karadas & Dulger (2016) indicates that psychological related issues and post - traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) arise not only among victims but also among employees who are deployed by various relief organisatio ns such as NGOs. Literature by Sevimli, Karadas & Dulger (2016) draws interesting parallels towards this topic of research as their discussion states that employees from local NGOs even carried out safety measures by relocating their own families with relatives in different locations. Sevimli, Karadas & Dulger (2016) further specify that even though local governments supported employees from different organizations, the employees claimed that their expenditure increased dramatically. Furthermore, as presented by Sevimli, Karadas & Dulger (2016), though employees from such NGOs were professionals with regards to their e xpertise and field matters, they claimed to have felt fear, anxiety, numbness, sense of suffocation, loneliness, and lack of confidence, which ultimately led them towards self - criticism and question the meaning of life. Sevimli, Karadas & Dulger (2016) also indicates the application and importance of ethics and regulations during such periods when considering the allocated tasks being performed by voluntary personnel and employees from NGOs. Such forcible boundaries seem to be an addition to their expected w orkloads. With reference to the discussion carried out by Aker, Onen and Karakilic (2007) in their research, evidence could be presented as to how such above mentioned difficulties and experiences lived by NGO employees generated additional accidents durin g their service periods while being stationed at natural disaster project sites, which ultimately resulted plummeting of ability to function. Issues faced by NGO employees during Natural Disaster Relief Projects Sahan Kekiriwaragoda 6 Though David and Brachet (2009) state dispensing employees with significant amounts of experience co uld improve performance while creating resilience, it raises an obvious question, which is ‘How can they perform their allocated duties as requested when being placed under immense pressure?’. Hence the literature guides observers towards a path, which portrays the lack of research between the correlation of traumatic experiences and drop - in performance rates of employees. What have high level managements already considered? According to Blake, Miller and Rampton (2017), effectiveness in preparation increases the human capacity and capability to minimise and respond towards harm during emergencies. Ali, Khan and Waheed (2015), discuss a few strategies that are already applied in precautious measurements undertaken by high level managements and authorities when deploying humanitarian aid workers and employees to natural disaster relief project sites. According to Ali, Khan and Waheed (2015), these include analysing risk - taking behaviour of employees prior to deployment, utilising health issue prevention strategies in order to maximise their ability to perform as well as providing a unique range of professional advice to NGO employees on aspects such as accommodation, financial m anagement, safety, job security and family dislocation. In terms of organisational preparation, Ali, Khan and Waheed (2015) mention that a relationship could be identified between organisational support policies and mental health outcomes. Therefore, Ali, Khan and Waheed (2015) exemplify the success rates of many NGOs, which conduct pre - departure training in stress management, conflict resolution, media handling, working cross culturally as well as team building exercises. Ali, Khan and Waheed (2015) reit erate the importance of organisations equipping employees with extensive knowledge on such aspects in order to minimise the aftermath of traumatic experiences. Research conducted by McCall and Salama (1999) has indicated compelling evidence on how NGOs, which conduct humanitarian projects related to natural disasters, tackle issues related to fluctuations in work performance by employees due to traumatic experien ces. Initially McCall and Salama (1999) describe how such organisations conduct specific selection and training procedures in order to improve resilience of employees as the literature explains how some NGOs include a minimum of mandatory six - month period to serve at a regional site office. Such Issues faced by NGO employees during Natural Disaster Relief Projects Sahan Kekiriwaragoda 7 processes consolidate the importance of preparation of em ployees for the emergency projects. McCall and Salama (1999) state that some organisations conduct pre departure training procedures for employees, but they lack uniformity. McCall and Salama (1999) then discuss the importance of consideration on workers’ c haracteristics qualities. Unfortunately, the literature proves that there is no established method of clarification for such information as they are mostly based on intuition. Though procedures are yet underdeveloped, McCall and Salama (1999) have successfully managed to identify a methodology that assists NGO employees to stabilise their performance upon facing traumatic situations. McCall and Salama (1999) have identified this as a method, which forms groups of peers for psychological support. The literature by McCall and Salama (1999) further enhances the importance of developing an experienced workforce by promoting awareness on post - traumatic stress disor der. Therefore, the analysis of literature emphasises the need for further research to discover methods that could be used to raise solutions regarding how high - level managements and authorities should respond towards the fluctuating performance rates of NG O employees due to experiencing trauma under different working environments at natural disaster project sites. How could NGOs and employee's benefit from resolving the issue? In his research, O'Donnell (2005) explains that healthy organisational practices are crucial in order to protect staff from undesirable aftereffects of stress and trauma. O'Donnell (2005) expresses the paramount nature of positive practices such as improv ing management or leadership capacity, team or group cohesion as well as support structures that bonds these aspects. O'Donnell (2005) rectifies his statements further by stating these improvements are not only for the benefit of the organisation but also for the benefit of employees as it fosters personal growth and flourishes their ability to perform well under stressful and traumatic conditions. Furthermore, O'Donnell (2005) mentions that maintaining excellent social relationships both within and outside of their stationed environments is proven as one of the most effective techniques to sustain balance in performance. O'Donnell (2005) integrates literature that comprehensively exemplifies that employee portray growth as they embrace such traumatic condi tions and PTSD due to their need to solve issues related to humanitarian projects. Issues faced by NGO employees during Natural Disaster Relief Projects Sahan Kekiriwaragoda 8 Ehrenreich and Elliott (2004) state that NGO employees suffer from many conditions including traumatic experiences and that it affects the ability of the organisation to provide an effective service. While discussing solutions to issues, Ehrenreich and Ell iott (2004) suggest that solving these issues would lead to increases in recruitment of qualified staff, decrease healthcare costs, create legal assets as well as increase in work efficiency and effectiveness. Ehrenreich and Elliott (2004) also indicate th at by resolving this, NGOs would manage to create an efficient organisation and work culture that enables ease of deployment of employees towards natural disaster projects. It is understandable that the sourced literature provides a simplified insight towa rds how beneficial the resolve of the issue would become. Even though these articles have dedicated sections on analysis towards identifying the advantages of raised concerns, they do not answer the question on whether a methodological framework could be p repared to use such benefits and lessons learnt for future projects. Therefore, the information indicates a lack of diagnos is. Issues faced by NGO employees during Natural Disaster Relief Projects Sahan Kekiriwaragoda 9 Research Design This discussion would apply the case study method in order to conduct research on the topic of how issues faced by NGO employees lead to fluctuations in work performance. As Taylor and Thomas - Gregory (2014) explain, the case study approach is an underused approach with high potential, which consists of broad research application as well as methodological flexibility. Since the case study approach has also been applied in many healthcare and psychological related research studies (Taylor & Thomas - Gregory 2014), it could be effectively utilised to investigate and analyse the issues faced by NGO employees that lead to drop in work performance due to traumatic experiences. As case study research method is capable of contemplating within real - life cont ext in a qualitative manner by comparing data through different instances (Payne et al. 2007), two case studies of the same disaster relief project and period would be subjected to analysis. Furthermore, this research would also adopt a framework related t o trauma informed approaches. Framework It is evident that a sound theoretical framework should be the basis of an assessment, which includes psychological experiences related responses (Carlson & Dalenberg 2000). This could be explained due to a few char acteristics of such related frameworks. What makes a situation a traumatic experience, what psychological responses would be observed due to the occurrence of such an event and why symptoms would repeat following these incidents could be identified as the aspects (Carlson & Dalenberg 2000). Research also indicates that the nature of the situations is to be analysed to categorise such incidents as traumatic (Carlson & Dalenberg 2000). Due to the above - mentioned characteristics, a particul ar theoretical framework has been chosen to conduct this research, which has been developed by Hercik (2016). Developed with reference to literature bases on learning theory, behavioural health trauma informed frameworks as well as a deep understanding on executive functional skills could be identified as a framework that assists research studies based on victims of disasters and traumatic experience (Hercik 2016). Issues faced by NGO employees during Natural Disaster Relief Projects Sahan Kekiriwaragoda 10 According to the selected topic of this research, the s ame theoretical framework could be positioned parallelly to conduct the studies on NGO employees and the experiences faced by them, which ultimately leads to their drop in work performance. Figure 1 - Theoretical Framework for Trauma Informed Approach (Hercik 2016) The framework is depicted in Figure 1. As the framework explains, it is actionable and adaptable in situations where support is needed through four main stages (Hercik 2016). By stages mentioned as understand, empathise, identify, and implement (Hercik 2016), the framework could assess the information necessary for the initial sub question proposed by this research. The subsections of the implementation section could be effectively utilised to extensively analyse data related to the second sub question to identify a solution. Sample Being able to carry out a comparison of the experiences faced by NGO employees could be identified as a task with greater importance for this research Therefore, two case studies would be chosen for the analysis based on a few aspects as expressed by Cardozo et al. (2012). It is crucial that the case studies for this research inclu de similarities among the facets on issues faced by employees, burnouts leading to lack of work performance, carried with regards to international NGO employees based on foreign nations after the occurrence of natural disasters and similar durations of post deployment, which would ideally be 3 - 6 months (Cardozo et al. 2012). Issues faced by NGO employees during Natural Disaster Relief Projects Sahan Kekiriwaragoda 11 While allocating priority for the reasons on wha t leads to certain situations, Ager et al. (2012) portrays a few additional variables that should be equal during the selection process of the case studies. These factors include how the moderation process of variables such as experience would be guided, co nsidering organisation cultures as well as employee living conditions, ethnic backgrounds, and levels of education (Ager et al. 2012). Ager et al. (2012) have also indicated greater focus on the type of humanitarian organisations/ NGOs to be selected when c onducting the study. Therefore, with reference to the above aspects, two case studies on the Indian Ocean Tsunami that occurred on 26 December 2004 would be considered and designed for the study. Studies like both Chaya (2005) and Thompson (2011) have much to offer for the comparison on issues faced by NGO employees and how such traumatic issues lead to fluctuations in work performance since the studies have been conducted six years apart from each other. Methods For this study , a comparison of case studies together with semi - structured interviews and document analysis would be used to gather evidence. While case study designs offer a multidimensional perspective towards a shared view of the situation (Kohlbacher 2006), semi - structured interviews present open - ended questions that allows the interviewer to formulate a discussion with the interviewee (Doyle 2017). Document analysis could be defined as the examination of the instructional documents that assist researchers to iden tify instructional needs and challenges to describe the studied activity (Weber 1990). Since the primary data collection is important, using such methods that effectively gather qualitative data within the study is proven paramount (Harrell & Bradley 2009). The methods proposed for this study could be identified as qualitative rather than quantitative. The reason could be stated as even though it is of great importance to analyse the data from a greater number of NGO employees, it would be proven difficult due to their availability. Since many employees who participated in these natural disaster relief projects after incidents such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami are international employees, it is comprehensible that i t would be difficult to contact them due to demand for personal information disclosure related issues (Chaya 2005). Issues faced by NGO employees during Natural Disaster Relief Projects Sahan Kekiriwaragoda 12 Through the analysis of case studies and documents, the experiences and related issues faced by the NGO employees would be ide ntified to guide the study towards what the management should do and how such strategies could be applied in future projects. Through the semi - structured interviews, these gathered data could be further consolidated. As data triangulation suggests and describe, having multiple viewpoints would certainly improve the accuracy of the collected data and judgments made by them in later stages (Kohlbacher 2006). Since the interviews could be formulated in a manner that allows the interviewee to discuss m atters and experiences freely, the method is highly applicable in this scenario. When being conducted a variety of interviews should be carried out with NGO employees from different organisations to acquire knowledge on performance issues. The topics for the interviews could be based on the framework by (Hercik 2016). Therefore, in terviews would be based on areas related to understanding, identifying and implementation to solve the issues of NGO employees. The employees’ insights on further elements to be implemented and how they should take place could be identified as con clusive observations and suitable strategies could be formulated. Sample questions would request the interviewees to describe experiences, support that they received, whether they would have performed better in different environments and whether the change s influenced their performance as well as what could be improved to assist them to provide a stable service during such an emergency. Analysis The usage of the methods described above would lead this study to conduct analysis on a qualitative manner. The framework defined by Hercik (2016) would be used for the analysis as it includes creating collaboration, setting goals, empowering change, and su pporting success within the section of implementation. Kohlbacher (2006) describes that qualitative analysis requires a particular framework to be carried out as an inductive approach and that it also offers a range of rule - based procedures, which assist a systematic analysis of gathered data. Being able to provide reports according to the researcher’s needs, coding would be carried out by NVivo software. The similarities as well as dissimilarities from the different NGO employees who were employed from different organisations would be investigated . The study expects to answer questions such as what generates the lack of performance among NGO employees when being placed at natural disaster sites, whether their prior training make a difference in how they Issues faced by NGO employees during Natural Disaster Relief Projects Sahan Kekiriwaragoda 13 perform, what suitable assistance should they receive from high level management and whether their involvement in different organisations have an impact on performance as well as whether each organisation performed better than the other to drive more successful campaigns. Limitations This study does not seek to solve issues related to NGO employees’ ability to absorb psychological impacts but merely tends to identify how such impacts create fluctuations in work perform ance during natural disaster relief projects. The study tends to identify experiences of NGO employees through their involvement in organisation employment at such events to propose a methodological framework to solve such fluctuations in work per formance related issues due to traumatic experiences lived by them. By no means does the study intend to exploit their personal experiences and produce false statements to tarnish the reputations of the involved organisations. The case studies cho sen would include similarities to observe variations of variables, which lead to lack of performance. Furthermore, it is to be carried out as research that would assist the implementation processes of future projects as described within the scop e of the research questions. Conclusion The increasing number of natural disasters have resulted in a rise of disaster relief projects carried out by NGOs to assist governing authorities of developing nations. Many employees of NGOs undergo fundamental pressures as well as challenges during these projects, which are issues that generate negative outcomes in terms of performance capabilities due to the scenarios in, which the projects take place. Therefore, to assist NGO employees to perform optimally, organisations should consider resolving issues that they come across during such projects under various ci rcumstances. If such issues remain unanswered, they could ultimately create ramifications such as project failures during cases related to natural disaster relief projects. Hence identifying solutions and documenting related information as well as taking co rrective action would benefit similar projects that would be carried out by employees based in different organisations under similar circumstances. 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