Pandemics, such as the COVID‐19 crisis, are very complex emergencies that can neither be handled by individuals nor by any single municipality, organization or even country alone. Such situations require multidisciplinary crisis management teams (CMTs) at different administrative levels. However, most existing CMTs are trained for rather local and temporary emergencies but not for international and long‐lasting crises. Moreover, CMT members in a pandemic face additional demands due to unknown characteristics of the disease and a highly volatile environment. To support and ensure the effectiveness of CMTs, we need to understand how CMT members can successfully cope with these multiple demands. Connecting teamwork research with the job demands and resources approach as starting framework, we conducted structured interviews and critical incident analyses with 144 members of various CMTs during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Content analyses revealed both perceived demands as well as perceived resources in CMTs. Moreover, structuring work processes, open, precise and regular communication, and anticipatory, goal‐oriented and fast problem solving were described as particularly effective behaviors in CMTs. We illustrate our findings in an integrated model and derive practical recommendations for the work and future training of CMTs.

The COVID-19 pandemic required the deployment of crisis management teams (CMTs) on an unprecedented scale. Due to their high level of responsibility and wide-ranging decision-making authority, the enduring resilience and health of CMT members is essential – yet, during pandemics they are permanently challenged. We tested six hypotheses based on the Job Demands-Resources model with 219 CMT members. In our preregistered analyses, we found most of the expected associations: Between demands and strain, moderated by leisure time resources, between resources and work engagement, as well as between strain and engagement and outcome measures such as evaluations of CMT members’ performance and quitting intention. Furthermore, we explore how the pandemic has changed from experts’ perspectives, describe lessons learned, and derive practical recommendations and suggestions for future research. Particularly, promoting specific resources should allow CMTs to buffer negative effects of unavoidable demands, and promote the long-term viability of these key crisis management entities.

The COVID-19 pandemic required the deployment of crisis management teams (CMTs) on an unprecedented scale. Due to their high level of responsibility and wide-ranging decision-making authority, the enduring resilience and health of CMT members is essential. Yet, during pandemics, they are permanently challenged. With cross-sectional data from 219 CMT members, we tested six pre-registered hypotheses based on the Job Demands–Resources model. We found the expected positive association between experienced demands and exhaustion (H1), which was moderated by home resources (partly confirming H2); a positive association between experienced resources and work engagement (H3), which was not moderated by demands (rejecting H4); and associations between exhaustion and engagement with outcome measures such as CMT members’ self-assessed performance, satisfaction, and quitting intention (mostly confirming H5 and H6). Furthermore, we explore how the pandemic has changed from experts’ perspectives, describe lessons learned, and derive practical recommendations and suggestions for future research.

Within minutes, an incipient fire can develop into a life-threatening full fire. Consequently, it should be fought as early as possible. But are laypersons capable of doing this? In such a situation, how do they behave and feel? These questions are addressed in the current study. Persons without any professional firefighting training (N=64) were confronted in two experimental runs with a real incipient fire in the form of a burning pillow. The results show that most participants were motivated and able to extinguish the fire successfully. However, most of them made a number of mistakes. Of central importance for extinguishing the fire was self-efficacy. Furthermore, participants improved enormously in the second round, especially regarding reaction time span and various psychological variables (e.g., stress, mood). Particularly on the basis of these exercise effects, we can derive a number of practical implications.

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