Crisis Managers’ Workload Assessment During a Simulated Crisis Situation

Abstract

Crisis situations are known to be very complex situations to manage by an organisation. Beyond its complex nature, there is a crucial need for crisis managers to efficiently cope with the situation in order to regain normal operating condition. Characteristics of the crisis situation as well as characteristics of the managers’ reaction influence psychological behaviours such as mental load and consequently the effectiveness and the performance of decision makers. Therefore, within a crisis unit, it seems relevant to assess how does the individual and collective perceived workload evolve during the management of a crisis situation. Crisis simulations have been carried out based on the approach proposed by iCrisis simulation which allows to recreate as accurately as possible a crisis situation built on both crisis situation and reaction to crisis characteristics. A subjective and multidimensional assessment of the individual and collective workload has been done with the Nasa-TLX and TWLQ tools on participants playing roles of decision makers at a strategic level. Results state that the perceived workload evolves during a crisis situation and a difference can be made whether it is from an individual or collective perspective. Crisis managers could use these findings in order to make them being aware of this constraint.