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?

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Permalink Reply by Christian Delisio on December 10, 2010 at 9:30pm

I my dept, we ahve no moral, it is not a fire dept anymoreit is a social club that might go to fires

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Permalink Reply by Nate on December 10, 2010 at 11:38pm

Our morale has been pretty good for a while now. This is due to the Chiefs coming over in the mornings to share a cup of coffee and chew the fat, our equipment being maintained pretty well, and a lot of other little things that have been addressed recently. However, the single biggest improvement in morale has come from a simple gesture after calls. Our officers have made it a point to thank everyone personally, and then share tips and tricks as to what they saw. It has helped not only make people happy, but it has made us a better department all together. After all, if it doesn't feel like you are in a brotherhood, then you probably are in the wrong place.

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Permalink Reply by Raymond J Dunsavage on December 11, 2010 at 8:51am

How about a thank you. Firefighters may state they don't need it or don't expect it but it is good to hear. As a chief officer, I always thank those who assisted on any 911 call, training, or any activity. I believe it goes a long way when our people are shown appreciation for the time they invest. On the other side of that, if there is a problem with a firefighter, I try to discuss the situation in my office on a one on one. There is no need to be negative or put someone down in front of the whole crew. Yes there are times in the heat of battle when an officer raise his voice to keep someone from hurting them self. We all have bonehead moments. I believe all firefighters should get a thank you for a job well done. Let me know if this works for you as well as it does for our station.

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Permalink Reply by Brad MacMillan on December 11, 2010 at 12:52pm

We have just bought a bench and plaque for the neighbour to the fire hall because for almost 20 years he's cleared the parking lot of snow and this is our thank you. It makes us all feel pretty good

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Permalink Reply by dano martinez on December 11, 2010 at 5:28pm

First and foremost, our Chief or any other officer on a call thanks everyone who shows up. Second, we train every Tuesday night (we are VFD) & the months w/ a 5th Tuesday, we have a food & movie night. One of the other things we do is at our annual awards dinner, we give out the "Broken Truck Award", for the person who did the most damage to a truck (w/o hurting anyone)! Luckily no one has ever been hurt this way. We also tease eachother a lot & the Chief has a "NO RUMORS" policy.

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Permalink Reply by lutan1 on November 12, 2012 at 4:14pm

Mike, you've got too much free time on your hands now!

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Permalink Reply by Drew Carter on November 15, 2012 at 11:28am

Right now one of the things we have been doing is getting together every Wednesday night to watch Chicago Fire. It's funny because we enjoy the show but we also nit pick every single thing on the show and eventually about half way through we are all yelling at the tv about one thing or another. It's been a nice weekly thing to have since the show started to give us all something to do together.

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Permalink Reply by Timothy John Dodson on November 15, 2012 at 5:54pm

Your department is very similar to ours. We meet & train on Tuesdays as well, and just like yours, if it's a 5 Tuesday month, we have a nice dinner. October was surf & turf (steaks and fried seafood). Except we don't do the movie thing. Our department is a small volunteer department with only about 10 active members, so we don't have a morale problem. Quite the contrary, since we are so small, we are like a family and help each other in a time of need. And our officers from the chief on down do give us a big thanks after every call. It goes a long way towards making our efforts appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by Derek J Sinesi on November 15, 2012 at 9:43pm

We don't have a moral problem our self's. We have practice 3 Mondays a month and 1 meeting a month. You can normally find several of us at the fire house on the weekends cleaning or practicing. I personally make sure i thank everyone of our firefighters after every call and our chief does to. Every so often me and one of the other guys will drag his grill over to the firehouse and run down to the store and grab some meat and chips and cook for everyone. We do address every rumor and all us officers keep a open mind for any suggestions or comments anyone on the department has. We always let our guys know they can come to us anytime one on one and anything said is not going any further then us. We have a great mayor and village board that works well with us and they pull no crap. They tell us just what they want and ask if we can do so or if it can be done another way that is better for all involved. We have our problems; but they get solved and everyone moves on.

I have some good friends on paid departments. I can say after some of the stuff they have to deal with when it comes down to the politics of the whole thing; i can say i'm glad to volunteer.I can see why moral is down and i wish you all good luck if you are having this problem.