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A Method for Engineering Resilient Organizational Workforce Systems

Authors:
Clayton Hutto
Dennis Folds

Keywords: organizational resilience; workforce; human systems integration; systems thinking; complex adaptive systems

Abstract:
At its core, resilience refers to the ability to resist and/or respond to a shock (internal or external stressor, disruption, disturbance, or challenge), and recover from the event once it has occurred. Organizations are complex adaptive systems whose capacity for resilience is embedded in a set of individual-level Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other attributes (KSAOs), as well as a blend of organizational system-level cognitive, behavioral, and contextual capabilities. This paper applies complex systems theory and a Human Systems Integration (HSI) perspective to present a conceptual approach and computational model called simpathē (an acronym for Systems Integration of Manpower, Personnel, and Training for HSI Evaluations). The simpathē model aims to help assess organizational workforce resilience in two ways: first, it facilitates planning and preparations to help build organizational capacity to resist undesirable effects from system shocks; second, it enables rapid workforce trade-space evaluations to aid in developing situation-specific responses (and ultimately, transformative activities) that capitalize on disruptive events. This paper illustrates the simpathē model with a use case example that characterizes organizational workforce resilience in the face of a major technological perturbation within the system—namely, the large-scale (organization-wide) conversion to operating and maintaining a collection of new communication technologies.

Pages: 54 to 59

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2018

Publication date: June 24, 2018

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2519-8351

ISBN: 978-1-61208-648-4

Location: Venice, Italy

Dates: from June 24, 2018 to June 28, 2018