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Copyright 1998 by Walter G. Green III.
People are an emergency services agency's largest, and most expensive, resource. An individual's compensation package in a given year does not match the cost of a new $400,000 fire truck of $100,000 ambulance. However, the combination of pay, benefits, administrative costs, training investment, and management time means that the average crew of skilled service providers for the vehicle are as expensive as the vehicle within three years or less. Therefore managers must understand how to maximize the performance of their personnel investment while minimizing costs. This includes direct costs, but more importantly the indirect costs of a poor working environment, unequal opportunity, harassment, and lost chances to use diversity to strengthen the organization.
Training is a major component of the personnel puzzle. The agency's training program not only prepares individuals to do a job, but it also socializes them to the organization's culture. Proactive training keeps a department current on the latest tools and techniques, making members more effective in their public safety role. As threats become more complex and, in the case of law enforcement, better armed and equipped, training helps counter them by ensuring disciplined, standard performance of hazardous tasks. And a good training program is a first line of defense against litigation.
At the end of this session each student will be able to:
(1) Identify basic principles of routine personnel procedures and apply them to a specific situation.
(2) Describe specific procedures for management in a union environment.
(3) Describe appropriate disciplinary procedures for paid and volunteer services.
(4) Analyze a training need applicable to their agency and design an appropriate strategy to meet the need.
(5) Identify principles of adult learning and how they could be applied in agency training.
During this session read the following material:
(1) Chapter 13: Fire Service Personnel Management in Carter and Rausch (2nd edition) MANAGEMENT IN THE FIRE SERVICE or Chapter 9 in the 3rd edition.
(2) Chapter 14: Training as a Management Function in Carter and Rausch (2nd edition) MANAGEMENT IN THE FIRE SERVICE or Chapter 11 in the 3rd edition.
(3) For students with the 3rd edition of Carter and Rausch MANAGEMENT IN THE FIRE SERVICE also read Chapter 10, Labor Relations in the Fire Service.
Everyone answer three of the following five questions (one E-mail to the Listserver per question, and make sure you include a subject line that identifies which question you are answering). You may answer them in any order you wish. Remember also to read and comment on at least two answers to questions by your fellow students.
(1) Review a copy of the application form your agency uses to gather information about potential new personnel. Does it comply with the standards Carter and Rausch suggest? If not, is there a defensible reason why your agency is asking questions that appear to otherwise be prohibited?
(2) Are unions a good thing or a bad thing in the public safety services? If you are a supervisor or manager argue this from the perspective of the union. If you are a worker argue this from the perspective of management. If you are not a union member argue from the perspective of being a member. If you are a member argue from the perspective of being a non-member.
(3) A new member of your agency comes to you to complain about harassment based on any of the following: race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, or just the fact of being new. How would you handle a complaint on any of these issues? Do you think it is reasonable for new members to be subjected to hazing? Do you feel someone should be thick skinned enough to handle harassment? Where do you think you should draw the line as a manager, and how would you enforce that?
(4) Identify a training need in your organization. What is the need, for how many people, on what technique, and by when? What is causing the need? What do you think is the best way to address this need?
(5) How do you personally learn best? Based on the training and education you have had what makes for a good learning environment and what is an example of something that makes it hard for you to learn?