Staff Infection

For decades, the volunteer fire service has been struggling with staffing issues.  Decreasing numbers of volunteers have been the topic of fire service discussions across the country.  The reasons are plentiful: the economy, the changing domestic profile, other worthy causes biding for our time, the increasing risks, the elevated training requirements, etc…  

While these reasons have some degree of validity, there are plenty of solutions to help relieve them as valid excuses.  We are just too lazy to give the effort it would take to solve those problems.  The sad truth is that we have a manpower problem because we don’t know how to manage people!    Situations can be managed, things can be managed, time can be managed, money can be managed, and even groups of people can be managed.  But I am not talking about TEAM management here; I am referring to the management of a single person.  Also known as, “how to treat people”

Sadly, many of today’s fire service leaders do not have the skills to properly manage themselves, let alone another individual.  Most develop an image of exactly how their “soldiers” should be; make a plan that utilizes those soldiers, then cast off anyone that doesn’t fit their mold.  A baker who uses a cookie cutter will always gather the leftover dough, re-roll it, and make a few more cookies.  Sometimes the leftovers can be molded into some other culinary treat, but nothing ever goes to waste.  Not in the fire service, however.  One by one, we cast off perfectly good “dough”, and discard it without any thought of what that one extra “cookie” could mean to the organization one day.  Those with pet dogs know that once the scrap hits the floor, you simply aren’t getting it back. 

Today’s leaders lack the ability to nurture, develop, and utilize the variety of people that come in the door, willing to help.  They wastefully discard people like they are an endless commodity because it is much easier than “dealing with” the challenges that some people present.  Worse yet, these leaders are breeding an entire generation of like-minded thinkers.  These little bullies are pushing away great people… smart people… dedicated people… people whose only weakness is the unwillingness to tolerate the bullshit that gets flung around a fire station.  I’m not just talking about the narrow-minded veterans who only know one way to get things done.  I am also talking about the 2/20 guy whose duffle bag is still swinging on the hook. 

I would love to staff a fire department with all the individuals who left the fire service because of the way they were treated.  I think of all the years of training and experience that are being wasted because we simply don’t know how to treat people right.  I have had several long conversations with former members of the fire service, and the underlying theme is interesting.  They feel abandoned, under-appreciated, and unwelcome.  These men and women still have the desire to serve, the willingness to sacrifice, and the ability to be great assets to the organizations that left them behind.  Sadly, the leaders of those organizations have done little or nothing to reel them back in; they never investigated the problem, therefore they didn’t need to execute a solution.  They just kept spinning the revolving door, wondering why their staffing levels aren’t a robust as they want them to be. 

THESE past members are the people who should write the books on recruitment and retention.  Their wisdom and experience could go a long way toward solving the staffing crisis.  Here are a few of the topics they would likely suggest:

·         Be fair to everyone.  If you make a rule, make it for everybody.

·         Don’t make rules that hamper your effectiveness.

·         Communicate, communicate, and communicate.  Secrets demoralize troops!

·         Understand that individuals have lives outside the firehouse; support that notion.

·         Not everyone has to be the nozzleman, if you have a happy hydrant man, be happy to have him.

·         Politicians should not dictate fire service operations, despite how powerful they think they are.

·         What motivates some doesn’t work on all.  Be flexible, be creative.

·         A dangling carrot nets better results than a prodding pitchfork.

·         People like to be lead, so if you are a leader of the organization, LEAD already!

·         Take notice of the positives, and stop dwelling on the negatives.

·         Give everyone the opportunity to achieve the greatness they seek.

·         Everyone is an expert at something.  If you don’t think so, you are missing out!

·         Honor, respect, appreciate, and encourage.

Take notice that most of these suggestions are about how to treat people, not how many certificates you have.  Firefighters are people first, and if we keep forgetting that, all the wisdom in the world won’t help solve our staffing issues. 

Finders Keepers

Two very important words in the vocabulary of fire service leaders today are recruitment and retention.  I don’t care if you are a career, volunteer, or combination station, finding quality people, and subsequently keeping them is one of the greatest challenges we face.  In fact, the old grade school axiom “Finders keepers, losers weepers” is the basis for today’s blog post.

To begin, I researched the word “recruit” and was reminded that it is both a noun, and a verb.  We need to recruit recruits!  How catchy!  There are other interesting words that come up with that definition: enlist, draft, enroll, strengthen, supply, recover, replenish, renew, restore.  I never considered the “re-“ to be a prefix, since as a prefix it means “to do again”.  Then I thought, “Of course, we are always re-casting the net for new members”, or, I suppose, “CRUITS”.  But what bait do we use to catch these “cruits”? 

If they were fish, we would study what they eat, where they eat, and when they eat.  Then we would tempt them with their favorite snack attached to a barbed hook, and snag them through the lip and reel them in.  I suggested this at our last staff meeting, and we collectively decided this would not have any positive long term effects on our membership ranks.  Not literally, anyway.  I wanted to focus on young men and women and the volunteer fire service, so I set out to study these little guppies to see what “lures” them to join.  Like puppets, they said all the correct canned answers: help my community, be a good citizen, yada, yada, yada.  I immediately called “bullshit”!  Young people join the fire department because they are the leftovers, the outcasts, and the visionless who have not been able to carve another social niche for themselves.  They know the fire service, in general, is starving for warm bodies and willing souls.  Let’s face it, we pretty much believe we can mold any of these bewildered humanoids into mean lean firefighting machines, so we sign them up, and take them in.  We attract them with bright shiny trucks full of really cool tools, promise to dress them up in an awesome set of protective equipment, and take them “beyond the yellow tape” where mere mortals seldom trod, and let them break stuff in the name of public service. 

THEN, they discover they actually need to learn stuff… lots of stuff… hard stuff.  Science and physics and math and reading and all the other things they loathed in school are all part of the business.  Then there is the discipline!  In school, they were herded around in groups of people very similar to themselves, and the teachers and school officials made and enforced rules made popular by guards at a reformatory.  Discovering that the fire service is a very diverse group of ages, races, educational levels, shapes and sizes, and is run by several sets of rules (emergency rules, and non-emergency rules) is enough to scare away the weak-hearted.  This is why retention begins immediately after recruitment.

Retention: to continue, keep, hold, and preserve the ranks.  After learning that “re-“ in recruitment meant to do again, I tried that same rule with the word retention and immediately realized how messed up the English language really is.  Why can’t we just use “Obtain and Retain” or better yet, “Finders Keepers”.  Retention of the ranks is an ongoing tactic that we sadly do not put enough effort into.  I could staff 2 or 3 good-sized stations with the quality people I know who have left the fire service for one reason or another. Sadly, I am sure that my actions or even my mere presence may have contributed to one or more of those departures, but I digress.  The best way to retain an individual is to continue to satisfy that individual’s appetite for what bait got him hooked in the first place.  That’s right, every individual needs a bit of specifically designed, personalized “atta boys” or “atta girls” to maintain their desire to continue service with the department.  On a larger scale, a clear and precise departmental vision must be developed, defined, and communicated.  Clear organizational goals must be shared with every member so they can each feel like an important part of the whole puzzle.   It is leadership’s responsibility to outline the specific points of that plan and steer the group’s actions toward the accomplishment of that pre-planned greatness.  THAT is what will help retain membership.

So, to review:

FINDERS:  Look everywhere, discount no-one, open your doors, sell your organization.

KEEPERS: Once you begin to invest in them, protect your investment so interest is compounded.

LOSERS: Passing up a potential piece of the puzzle is a mistake.  Don’t let the big one get away.

WEEPERS: Those who failed to focus on recruitment and retention as a vital resource. 

Your turn… GO FISH!