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paid vs vollies
need some advice on how to get the paid guys to work better with the vollies.here at this dept it seems like the paid guys are running off all the vollies, i have been with this dept for about 20 years and before we went paid we were aleast 50 strong on the vollies, as the years went on and we become an paid dept the vollies seem to be dropping off at an great deal,we are down to about 10 maybe 15 vollies left. can i get some oppions from others on getting the vollies back and working with the paid part of the department????.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Patti Walz on
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No worries. I think out of the group that I am with there maybe two others who take the training seriously. We have a low fire call in our area and a high medical call. So I am always willing to take classes to keep my knowledge fresh and I help with the academy.
I deal with the ruralies not wanting to train with the townies because the townies tend to bulldog the ruralies and treat us like a bunch of hillbilly hicks.
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Permalink Reply by Moose on
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I like those terms; Ruralies and Townies!! I was a member of 2 big departments with the same issues and I fell for ya.
Stay Safe
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I know what you mean. I was at a scene of a bad crash when I saw one of the vollies lie down and go to sleep while the rest of us busted butt to help the person(s) trapped in the vehicle. If you are going to do that, why show up?
Normally I hold my rants in. Been trying to work on this and will strive to do better.
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We have a new set of recruits and I am looking forward to working with them. I hope that I can impress on them the importance of continued training.
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Permalink Reply by Brian J. on
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Sorry for the conflict. I agree with you whole heartedly about the training. Training is a huge issue in most volunteer departments. We have SOG's that cover how much training you are required to make and how many calls. 75% of training and 25% of calls dependent on availability. Our officers are required to take two classes, one per year, while in their position. They have to be officer level training. Outside the department given by state instructors.
I wish you luck with getting the training program in your department up and running efficiently. We use Target Safety as another training tool as well. They offer officer level and firefighter specific topics.
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Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on
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Jeff,
"The ultimate responsibility does come for the training officer/ Fire Chief however it should be the personal responsibility of each individual firefighter to ensure the less experienced firefighters are comfortable completing the task at hand."
Do you not have a training division/officer? And what about station officers, seems to me they are the ones that both know their people the best and so are most familiar with their abilities. Sure, the SO can assign a senior member to 'mentor' a junior member but it should be the SO's responsibility to ensure that his members are appropriately trained.
In part I agree with you that senior members should be helping junior members along but I disagree that the senior members are responsible for assessing and rectifying training weaknesses of junior members. Again, that is where the station officer and training division comes in.
Yes, overall there are fewer fires and as a result, departments have less experience (and fewer experienced members) on which to draw upon. But structure fire is not a synonym for situational awareness. Situational awareness in its barest form simply means getting people to pull their head out of their ass. You don't need structure fires to learn that (nor are structure fires the ONLY place you need to have it) and sometimes, being a bit 'gruff' is the only way for some people to ever 'get it.'
"The school of hard knocks is closed due to lawsuits for harassment and it has been proven time after time that fear and intimidation for training are less effective ways of educating and leading."
Unless you're just feather-bedding your response, please show where anyone suggested harassment, fear and intimidation as a means of training.
"But to stick to old traditional forms of training, (i.e. one group training once a month and/or to basic level trainings) will be one of the quickest ways to run your volunteer firefighters off."
Congratulations, you've re-discovered the wheel. But don't try and take credit for inventing it. Once-a-month-training is nowhere near enough yet, there are (based on comments I've read in here) many departments that ONLY train once a month.
In fact (and as recruitment/retention officer you should be aware that) one of the biggest issues in VFD recruitment AND retention is what is 'perceived' to be excessive training demands being placed on volunteers. (And again, echoed in comments in FFN)
From here:
Retention and recruitment problems usually can be traced to several underlying factors: more demands on people’s time in a hectic modern society; more stringent training requirements;...internal leadership problems; ...even within States and counties, volunteer retention and recruitment is a problem nationwide. Specifically, it is a local issue and must be dealt with locally.
So what works for you may not, or will not, work elsewhere. Maybe mid-day training sessions work for your department but most VFDs train in the evening to accommodate its members who (mostly) have day jobs. I think with few exceptions, it's not the lack of good, fun, exciting or thorough training that causes members to leave but that those members are (or should be) required to meet NFPA standards, which imposes a huge time commitment from them. 'Excessive' training requirements along with internal leadership problems is what makes people leave.
"One thing that has given our department a fresh and new vision has been training."
Come on, "...a fresh and new vision..." sounds like corporate restructuring to capture a larger market share of a particular demographic. Becoming a fireman has always been an on-the-job-training trade. One is taught the basics in school and then taught how to apply those basics once they are on the job. So realizing that training needs to be ongoing (especially when many departments see less and less working fires) is only using an existing wheel, not making a brand new one.
You state that you are the Recruitment and Retention Officer, but based on what you've written here it appears that you are also the Training Officer? I know in my department we have a Training Division run by the Training Chief, who in conjunction with station Captains develop broad, departmental mandated training along with in-house station-level training. In other words, departmental training to get everyone on the same page for new equipment, materials or techniques with continued station training to keep everyone sharp. It's not rocket surgery. Again, based on what you say you are doing sounds like it would be having the Town Director of Human Resources decide what we train on and how. That's not really his area of expertise.
"The training is now taken as a personal responsibility by most members and the ones that don’t train, either quit or jump on board."
Duh! You've discovered the obvious. Of course people need to either get on board with training or quit (although, fired would be more appropriate). If you've only just now gotten them to train, then your issues go back to the NVFC comment about 'internal leadership problems."
"Last month our new volunteer firefighters put in as much and in many cases more time training then some full timers!"
The operative word here being 'NEW.' I would expect nothing less than new members putting in a lot of training hours, it's how they learn the job.
"Last year our department had 5,763 hours staffed hours of training with 40 guys!"
I did the math, it works out to be 2.8 hours per week per person. That is not bad, but it certainly doesn't rise to the level of exceptional. Any VFD that does weekly drills pretty much accomplishes that.
Jeff, don't get me wrong, I think it's great what you're attempting to do and I applaud you for your efforts but you're only saying what so many in here have been saying for a long time, that it's about training. And training regularly with the full timers is a good place to start to keep everything homogeneous.
Lack of training is endemic in VFDs. Taking a VFD to combination department where the full timers HAVE to train to keep their jobs and the vollies still see it as optional, along with hurt feelings from those not hired is where I believe most problems arise. Requiring people to train is a great method of sorting the wheat from the chaff. Getting them to understand the importance of training is what separates a fire department from a social club.
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Permalink Reply by capcityff on
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Some places are even more than the 239 hours. My fire academy was well over 1000 hours. 8 hour days/5 days week/6-8 months. So even some career departments have a lot more training than other career departments.
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Our academy is 160 hours. That in itself is why I want more training. I do not want the blood of another life on my hands becasue I lacked the knowledge to perform the job completely. I do not want to have to deal with a lawsuit because I lacked the knowledge.
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Yea we have drill time from 1000-1200 hours every tour. Unfortunately it's rare that we can go out of service for it. Because of that we can't always do it with our call volume. Last week we tried to do a mayday drill and listen to the audio from a fire the week before where three of our guys were trapped in a basement fire. We started at about 0930 and finished the drill around 1730 due to interruptions.(over 20 runs) So we try to keep doing it on our own but it's hard. Fortunately we still run a lot of box alarms and end up pulling lines for most of them. So the job itself provides a lot of training. That's definitely a pro of being on a large department.
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Permalink Reply by Loyd Dittfurth on
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I am replying to the original post not the paid vs vollie format that im sure it has already turned into.
I have been a paid firefighter and jolly vollie with a cracker light on top of my pickup. As a paid fireman I was on a combination department. There was a presence of "Im a paid guy im better than you" and I didnt like it and niether did the volunteers one came to me and asked why they hated them so much. I told him its not going to change there minds but what I would do if I was you would bee attend every training you can be the best fireman that you can. Learn more try harder and respect will have to be given.
About a month after that conversation 4 of the jolly vollies had attended every training. Spent multiple hours at the station reading and learning. They were working out twice as much as paid guys including myself mentally and physically. Every one saw this and we all realized that maybe we had lost a lil bit of that spark we started out with. In 6 months those 4 had changed the department they raised the bar and for that they gained the respect of paid and volunteer combined.
We are all firemen some work harder at it than others and some times we need a lil push from a "jolly volly" to remind us why we started this career. I personally like a challenge from where ever it comes from so bring it on push me and we will see who the better fireman.
Thank you
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Permalink Reply by Jeff Butcher on
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I think that our comments are basically saying the same things but in different prospectives. I am glad that there are places like this that two firefighters from across the country can express great view points. I think that our discussion has brought up to valuable points for considering. The first point is that fire departments need to have strong training officers with solid educational programs that meet NFPA standards. The second point is that fire departments need to promote an attitude that promotes the sharing of information and mentoring between firefighters whether they be full time or volunteer! This is probably one of the best places to start when trying to end full time vs. volunteer problems!
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Thank you!
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