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VDF Recruitment & Retention: Understanding and Meeting the Challenges

Professional Military EducationBasic NCO Course

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Fit For Duty

REFERENCE

• FEMA 310 Retention and Recruitment for the

Voluntary Emergency Services; Recruiting, Training, and Maintaining Volunteer Firefighters

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Overview

1. Retention and Recruitment Challenges: Lessons from Volunteer Firefighters

2. Retaining Volunteers through Effective Leadership

3. The “Volunteer Viewpoint” of Effective Management of Volunteer Programs.

4. Recruitment: Looking in Right Places for the Right People for the Right Jobs.

5. Retention: Meeting the Challenge

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Overview

• VDF has more characteristics of volunteer organization than a professional military force.

• Individuals with prior military service more comfortable with military environment

• VDF volunteers receive monetary compensation if on State Active Duty – a rare occasion that is outweighed by the hundreds of hours dedicated to company drills and weekend training.

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Overview

• VDF overall retention rate between 2012 and 21013 was 45%

• Lowest retention rate was 32% of enlisted

• Commissioned, Warrant, and Non-commissioned Officers rate was 55%

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Overview

• No published recruitment and retention policies although many units have successful practices

• No published the results of analysis or report on the effectiveness of its current recruitment and retention practices.

• FEMA FA-310 on Retention and Recruitment for the Volunteer Emergency Services: Challenges and Solutions

• Deals with volunteer firefighters but may be instructive to the challenges faced by the VDF

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Challenges

St. Joseph’s University study: Reasons for leaving volunteer fire department (more than one reason):• No time to volunteer 92.3

%• Conflicts in organization 47.8 %• Organizational leadership created 46.7

%• Too much training 45.6 %• Attitude toward newcomers 39.1

%• Criticism from officers/older members 38.0 %• Lack of camaraderie 19.5

%

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Challenges

The Two-Income Family:

• Very little time to volunteer

• Time is spent at work, with the children, and house

• Time available too little for active fire service

• Volunteers discover that time requirements, particularly the startup demands associated with initial training, are too great

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Challenges

Less Emphasis on Social Aspects of Volunteering:

• Loss of the social aspects

• Volunteers want to serve community and develop social relationships

• Constraints of everyday life left no time to spend time outside of the station with other firefighters

• Many fire departments closed firehouse areas used as social centers for many volunteers.

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Challenges

Urban and Suburban Transience:

• People who move often are less likely to become involved in a volunteer fire department

• Fire departments do not want individuals who spend a year getting trained and then leave

• Acute in resort areas or communities with military populations

• Surge in transience when farms and ranches are subdivided into housing developments

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Challenges

Changing Rural Communities:

• Time demands and focus on self are similar to the changes experienced in urban areas

• Replacement of small main street businesses with large, multipurpose department stores

• Managers are less willing to let employees leave when the alarm sounds.

• Large corporations less willing to give employees time off to volunteer.

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Challenges

Poor Leadership and Lack of Coordination: -

• Lack of direction given to members, particularly new members in the area of training

• New recruits often become frustrated and quit

• Mentoring and coaching needed

• Engaged departments have easier time with recruitment and retention

• Members take more pride in the department

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Challenges

Authoritarian Management Style:

• Dictatorial leaders drive members out of volunteer fire departments.

• Volunteers are given orders in day-to-day jobs, and not want actions dictated around the station.

• Participative management styles attract and retain members.

• Volunteers want a sense of worth and feel using their talents to contribute to the overall good.

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Challenges

Failure to Manage Change:

• Change is inevitable in any fire department and can be painful if it is not managed properly.

• Major changes that are not well-managed usually will lose members.

• Most common causes of management problems is poor communications.

• Poor communications sign of an authoritarian manager who is a weak leader

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Retaining Volunteers through Effective Leadership

Recruiting, Training, and Maintaining Volunteer Firefighters: essential to retaining members:

• The program must meet individual needs.

• The program must provide its membership with reward and recognition.

• The program must provide adequate supervision and leadership.

• The program must challenge members.

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Retaining Volunteers through Effective Leadership

• Ability to retain volunteers has direct relationship to its ability to manage its people

• Many problems can be traced directly or indirectly, to inadequate or misguided efforts of managers

• Effective leadership helps retain members as well as reduce dissatisfaction

• Ineffective leadership is perhaps the leading reason for a decline in membership

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Retaining Volunteers through Effective Leadership

• Most volunteers agree that effective leadership can resolve retention and recruitment problems

• Leadership qualities and skills are not simply acquired, they must be learned and practiced

• Bylaws, rules, and regulations also are important.

• Leadership’s responsibility to maintain discipline and carry out departmental regulations fairly

• Clear, measurable standards of performance and conduct should be developed and enforced

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Effective Volunteer Leadership

Volunteer Viewpoint: If you want my loyalty, interests, and best efforts, remember that...

1. I need a sense of belonging, a feeling that I am honestly needed for my total self, not just for my hands, nor because I take orders well.

2. I need to have a sense of sharing in planning our objectives. My need will be satisfied only when I feel that my ideas have had a fair hearing.

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Effective Volunteer Leadership

Volunteer Viewpoint: If you want my loyalty, interests, and best efforts, remember that...

3. I need to feel that the goals and objectives of the organization are within reach and that they make sense to me.

4. I need to feel that what I’m doing has a real purpose that contributes to human welfare--that its value extends beyond my personal gain, or hours.

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Effective Volunteer Leadership

Volunteer Viewpoint: If you want my loyalty, interests, and best efforts, remember that...

5. I need to share in making the rules by which, together, we shall live and work toward our goals.

6. I need to know with some clear detail just what is expected of me--not only my detailed task but where I have opportunity to make personal and final decisions.

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Effective Volunteer Leadership

Volunteer Viewpoint: If you want my loyalty, interests, and best efforts, remember that...

7. I need to have some responsibilities that challenge, that are within range of my abilities and interest, that contribute toward reaching my assigned goal, and that cover all goals.

8. 8. I need to see that progress is being made toward the goals we have set.

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Effective Volunteer Leadership

Volunteer Viewpoint: If you want my loyalty, interests, and best efforts, remember that...

9. I need to be kept informed. What I’m not up on, I may be down on. (Keeping me informed is one way to give me status as an individual.)

10. I need to have confidence in my superiors--confidence based upon assurance of consistent fair treatment, or recognition when it is due, and trust that loyalty will bring increased security.

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• Recruitment should be focused on filling specific billets with capable volunteers rather than just boosting the numbers of recruits

• VDF units have high turnover and low retention because volunteers were recruited with expectations that did not match reality.

• The key is looking in the right places for the right people for the right jobs.

Recruitment

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1. Assessing Needs: Identify what jobs need to be filled and qualities are required.

• Compare your unit’s Defense Support of Civilian Authorities (DSCA) Playbook assignments to your current Manning Table of Operations (MTO.)

• Discuss career goals with your current troops to determine where they would like to go and what training they will need. This will give you a sense of your current and future personnel needs.

Recruitment

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2. Targeting: Select and reach the right people.

• Most effective approach is through referrals

• Local groups that train citizens for emergency management, such as CERT and police auxiliary

• Work with local National Guard recuiter

• Other civic service grous: Elks, VFW, Knights of Columbus, Neighborhood Watches and churches

• Community events and county fairs are often good sites for recruiting efforts

Recruitment

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3. Orienting: Hold prospective volunteer events

• Do not ask potential recruits to show up at a regular drill when people are too busy to talk

• Set up special informational sessions at specific times in the year.

• Every recruit should be interviewed for background, interests, skills, aptitude and potential placement in the VDF unit.

• Only then invited to attend a regular drill

Recruitment

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4. On-boarding: Process paperwork, create professional development track, and assign mentor

• A recruit should take oath after at least two drills

• File the paperwork to determine rank and billet

• Discuss training schedule for the next two years, including regular drills, military training (IET, PLDC, and BNCOC for enlisted), and specialized training for their team assignments.

• Assign mentor such as the 1SG or Team Leader

Recruitment

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Emphasis on Social Aspects of Volunteering:

• Allow for more social time and interaction.

• Examples during drill: extended group meal times during regular drills; special group training such as survival and land navigation

• Outside drill: picnics and parties that include spouses, significant others, and other family members.

Retention: Meeting the Challenge

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Poor Leadership and Lack of Coordination:

• Each commissioned, warrant, and non-commissioned officer should be a role model

• Make recruits feel welcomed and useful.

• Drill schedules should provide activities for each individual though the entire drill time.

• Individual career development and training goals should be reviewed on a regular basis.

Retention: Meeting the Challenge

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Authoritarian Management Style:

• Build volunteer management skills

• Volunteers need to understand reasons for orders and feel as if their input has been considered.

• Rank does not equal experience.

• Many senior VDF officers and NCOs lack the management expertise of their troops

• Commanders and other unit leaders may succeed better by tapping the experience of their troops.

Retention: Meeting the Challenge

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Failure to Manage Change:

• Change is inevitable and it can be painful if it is not managed properly.

• Units that do not manage change well will lose members.

• Improve communications.

• Redoubled efforts are required to retain the current troops, as well as the new recruits.

Retention: Meeting the Challenge

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DISCUSSION: Provide suggestions for retention:

• Making the VDF experience rewarding and worthwhile

• Making the time demands adaptable and manageable.

• Rewarding VDF troops with sense of value.

• Encouraging good leadership that minimizes conflict.

Retention: Meeting the Challenge