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What Does Your Dept. Do To Keep Morale Up?
We have a bonehead award. It's a little dog tag in the shape of a bone and is passed around monthly at our business meeting to the person who has a bone head mistake. Nothing serious or life threating. I.E. we are selling x-mas trees for our yearly fund raiser which are tax deductable, but one of our LT. had his pager on his hip and was neting up the tree and the pager went along for the ride. Well LT, couldn't find it and we had our pager test and the guy who bought the tree was pulling off the roof of his vehicle when the tones drooped. He freaked and brought it back with a few words for the LT. LT, said try having that go off at 2 in the morning when your asleep, blah blah blah. Just wandering what you all do and if you all do something in the same catagory?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Gregory Borg on
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Thank you for that, I wish more Chiefs would figure that out.
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Permalink Reply by Brian Dumser on
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OMG, seriously? Sounds like more of a "Good Ole Boy's Club" than a Fire Dept.
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Permalink Reply by Douglas M. Andrew on
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at our Christmas party we also give awards for funny things that have happened as well as mistakes people have made over the course of the year. we all get a lot of laughs including the ones getting the awards. It is an absolute blast. our department is like a brother and sister hood. everyone treats each other with absolute respect. it doesn't matter if you have 10 years of service or 10 months everyone is treated the same. I love it and would not trade departments for all the money in the world.
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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The issues of cuts and reductions and so forth by the elected officials most definately has an impact on worker morale. In fact at a recent "Lunch with the Mayor" that our mayors has done and some city employees are invinted, our union president was there and asked the mayor what he was going to do about the morale issues with the workers. The mayor orginally said he didn't think there was a morale issue and then other employees started speaking up. I can say personally when I get the message from the mayor saying how we are all valued and so forth....to me is just lip service. It is so popular right now to blame public workers for all financial woes and there is always more cuts and concessions consistently being sought and yet the same people wonder why there are morale issues.
The other end of things, within the dept, a simple thank you and "good job" does go a long ways. It also definately helps for rumors to be dispelled and communications opened up. Our last chief we would get memos and so forth with "up to and including termination" attached to every letter, communications with management were non-existant to poor at best. These were things said to the new chief and even though we endurred cuts and a loss of 15 spots (called for by the mayor) , the chief was up front about this. He could have just made the cuts as he wanted, but worked with the union. The chief does come around, as well as other chiefs, in the morning to have coffee with the crews and so forth. This helps with the rumor mill and you do get a sense that your issues are heard and so forth. Keeping good communication does help.
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Permalink Reply by Capt. Chris W. Button on
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"The chief does come around, as well as other chiefs, in the morning to have coffee with the crews and so forth. This helps with the rumor mill and you do get a sense that your issues are heard and so forth."
Several years (and chiefs) ago, our Chief at the time had to put out "rumor control" memos just about weekly because he wouldn't keep everyone in the loop. When he did visit the stations, everyone would jump on him because he tended to be serving at the mayor's leisure wasn't looking out for the best interests of the department as a whole.
A few chiefs ago, was probably the worst one we've had in the history of the department. He tried to change our leave policies. (NEVER mess with a firefighter's leave. We know more ways to screw the city than they'll ever dream about!) Within one week of taking office, he publicly stated in the media that he knew more about EMS than anyone else in the state. Also his first week, he publicly stated that our department was going to start running EMS response STARTING THE NEXT MONDAY! You've never seen such scrambling trying to get equipment, trying to set up infection control policies, etc. He never consulted with the private, not-for-profit ambulance service that covers the area. Just boom, here it is!
Needless to say he got his little peepee spanked by the mayor and the implementation was delayed. He lasted about 18 months as chief. We've been doing EMS response now for a few years now and things for the most part are running OK. The administration is trying to keep open communication.
As far as my morale goes, I know that NO ONE can steal my joy unless I let them. Sure, I get a little frustrated every now and then. I throw myself a little pity party and move on. But I know deep down that I can only do what I can do and I try not to worry about the rest.
As one of our captains has said, "If they can't take a joke, why'd they hire me?"
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Permalink Reply by Paul Montpetit on
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We have the "agitator of the year" award...it is actually a painted and decorated agitator from a washing machine that gets handed out and we have joke awards...the awards are always in relation to something funny or stupid that the member did during the course of the year....its all in fun...
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Permalink Reply by Jessica J Joiner on
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Wow, that's really upsetting to hear. And the sad part is, those who go above-and-beyond typically don't expect any recognition for it...but they certainly deserve it and yet never receive it.
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Permalink Reply by Bekks on
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We have a county-wide fundraiser every year - grand prize is a brand new 4x4 ATV with trailer.
Within our volly department we have prizes for most ticket sales (our department gets a cut of the proceeds based on how many tickets we sell).
This year the top two "won" the new Bullard UST style helmets that we are slowly changing over to.
The top eight sales won a fire department rescue lockblade knife (I won one!!!!)
We have a SMALL department (at the moment, 17 active members) and we were 10 tickets (2 books) behind the BIGGEST department in the county (they have 90 members). We are convinced that we beat them and the people counting sold three last minute books just to not be beaten by our little department.
We may be small, but we have heart! :)
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Permalink Reply by Brad MacMillan on
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We have recently had a Wii night with our two halls on a training night, we also give out our firefighter of the year awards at our Christmas party. We also do push-ups after a call or in training for mistakes we made. It's kinda fun.
That bonehead award sounds like a great idea though!
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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I'll tell you one thing we don't do... and that would be taking an employee out to dinner where the restaurant does not maintain their neon sign lighting... They obviously don't pay attention to detail.
CBz
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I don't know what would be worse, the taste or the smell!
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Permalink Reply by John Dobson on
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My depts believes in the kick you when your down.
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