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Using the July 2012 massacre at a midnight showing of a Batman movie as a case study, the paper aims to demonstrate how emotional labor is required of responders and spokespersons and then enumerates the human resource functions that can enhance emotion work skills.

Using the massacre as a case in point, the authors demonstrate how emergency responders are called upon to manage their own emotions as well as those of victims and other constituencies. The authors then discuss human resource functions that can legitimize, enhance, and develop emotion work skills.

This case demonstrates multiple facets of emotional labor in emergency response. Special attention is paid to the case of public information spokespersons because they are the bridge between the event, the response, and the image of competency that is created in the eyes of the public. Recommendations are enumerated for how the human resource function can facilitate emotion work skills.

This paper provides practical guidance in how human resource practices can be used to hire, train, and retain first responders who are skilled in performing the emotive aspects of response work.

Despite the emotional intensity that accompanies crises, rarely so explicitly discussed is how emotional labor is a required aspect of the work. Also less known is what measures can be implemented to develop emotion work skills.

Rarely is emotional labor explicitly discussed as a required aspect of crisis response work. While the gender inequities in withdrawal from the workforce emerging from the pandemic are well documented, we know little about the emotional toll of managing the ongoing disruption of the pandemic for women with different degrees of membership in organizations.

This research uses a dynamic mixed-methods approach in studying emotional labor among women during times of disruption. Specifically, we explore with surveys, daily diary entries, and semistructured interviews the emotional experiences of women working at a California-based nonprofit organization during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. With our data, we are able to compare the emotional expectations and experiences of full-time (FT) and part-time (PT) employees.

Results show differences in emotional experiences and labor by group membership, with FT employees reporting higher rates of surface acting: FT employees suppressed (28%) and inauthentically expressed (12%) emotions more often than PT employees (23% and 5%, respectively). Qualitative evidence suggests socialization is occurring more formally for FT employees and informally for PT employees, influencing perceived emotional expectations and subsequent emotional labor.

The contributions to this volume focus on an understudied topic in nonprofit management: emotional experiences in times of disruption. Novel evidence on differing emotional experiences, particularly surface acting, as a function of group membership may motivate other research to disentangle issues of change management during crises.

These differing rates of surface acting have meaningful implications for burnout and retention of employees in a sector that is heavily reliant on voluntary and PT engagement. Thus, this work serves to provide organizational leadership and management insight on mechanisms shaping employee outcomes.

The findings here have important implications for employee well-being and are crucial to the way individuals across society manage the stress of working during times of crisis.

PT work is subject to different emotional norms than FT work. These novel findings provide value to organizational leaders who oversee a workforce with varying degrees of group membership.

This paper aims to call for change in disaster research through a metis-based approach that values practical skills and knowledge (vs technical knowledge) derived from responding to ongoing changes in the natural and human environment.

This paper is based on metis from Miami-Dade County that is prone to an array of climate-related disasters. Metis is supplemented by a review of secondary sources (e.g. newspaper articles, government reports).

There is a need to reconceptualize disaster phases in disaster research—preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation. For many members of marginalized communities of color, this paper depicts preparedness and mitigation as luxuries and response as a time of worry about financial obligations and survival after the disaster. It suggests that even communities that are not on a hurricane's path could have post-disaster experiences. It also highlights ongoing risks to marginalized communities' physical and mental well-being that are in addition to the mental health impacts of the disaster during the recovery phase.

This paper's originality is twofold: (1) underlining the importance of metis, a less studied and understood concept in disaster risk reduction, prevention and management literature and (2) questioning disaster researchers' technical knowledge with respect to each of the four disaster phases in light of metis.

This project specifically aims to examine (1) the individual impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on first responders, (2) the organizational impact of COVID-19 on first response agencies and (3) policy and organizational response and support efforts to mitigate potentially harmful effects of the pandemic.

The authors' conducted a mixed-methods analysis, including a review of secondary sources (e.g. government documents, organizational policies and news pieces), state-level policies, encompassing surveys, in-depth semi-structured interviews and PhotoVoice focus groups.

COVID-19 compounded many of the inherent risks facing first responders and added new stressors. First responders assumed added responsibilities during the pandemic which increased workloads, job-related stress, burnout, distance from the community and first responders' feelings of frustration. Even with personal protective equipment (PPE), first responders faced greater exposure to individuals with COVID-19 and were primarily concerned with transmitting the virus to family members, or other members of the first responders' support networks. State-level COVID-19 policies that were geared toward first responders aimed to improve the first responders' personal lives outside of work and mitigate burnout within the profession. First response agencies adapted to the pandemic by implementing a wide range of measures.

First responders also identified several weaknesses in the first responders' agencies' approach to the pandemic. To prepare for the next public health emergency, first response agencies should proactively train employees, build up the first responders' supplies of equipment and PPE, implement policies to strengthen their workforce (e.g. increase hiring for understaffed positions, reduce turnover and mitigate role abandonment), allow for greater employee autonomy, improve communication between leaders and employees and prioritize employees' mental health, as well as other factors relating to departments' informal culture.

This is one of the largest studies conducted on three types of first responders (police officers, fire firefighters, emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics) across the United States of America during a public health crisis.