On Thursday, February 1, FEMA Deputy Administrator Richard Serino introduced a vision of a FEMA, aimed at transforming the total FEMA workforce into a more professional and deployable organization. Under the theme, “every employee is an emergency manager,” the organization aims to harness the dedication and expertise of every employee.

• FEMA Disaster Workforce Transformation (PPT 756KB)

Deputy Administrator Serino reminded us that: “FEMA’s fundamental goal, and the inspiration and motivation for many FEMA employees, is to serve the Nation by helping its people and first responders, especially when they are most in need.”

Throughout 2012, FEMA will be placing significant resources and emphasis on developing and implementing a number of key initiatives to improve and enhance the work experience of the total disaster workforce. Whether a part-time, full-time, permanent or temporary employee, this disaster workforce transformation will benefit the agency in many significant ways, to include:

• Focusing on training and certifying the entire workforce for incident management and incident support positions in the field—disaster assistance employees or DAE, on-call response employees or CORE, permanent-full-time employees or PFT, and our Partners—to ensure we are all prepared to conduct and support FEMA’s emergency management missions—this is the core concept behind the “every employee is an emergency manager” theme;
• Preparing and planning for expected disaster work so that employees will be aware of their role and contribution when activated to assist field operations, headquarters or regional command centers;
• Ensuring that there is ongoing, two-way communication with all employees, including the reserve workforce, even when not deployed. This includes weekly email communication on agency activities and a dedicated employee focused web-site that is accessible to everyone; and
• Providing defined career paths within FEMA and fostering a talented, trained pool of emergency management professionals to meet our Nation’s needs for the future.

Beginning February 6, we will hold town hall meetings at the regional offices, joint field offices and other FEMA facilities for employees to discuss the disaster workforce transformation and to directly contribute their views and ideas.

To assist with questions regarding the workforce transformation initiative, a call center has been set up and can be reached by calling 1-855-377-FEMA (3362), hours are from 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. (EST) Monday - Friday. We also encourage you to submit your thoughts and feedback to the FEMA Employee Communications mailbox at FEMA-Employee-Communications.