Recruitment and Retention Plan

[Lump532]

Hello Everyone,

Does anyone have any feedback on what they are looking for in a R&R plan for SAFER? How formal does it have to be? I guess I am not even sure where to start!

I assume that the awards for FY 2010 will continue to go mostly toward hiring projects, but I am giving the R&R a shot anyway.


Thanks,

Tim

[LVFD301]

Are you losing volunteers?

Is this a problem for your community?

Why are you losing volunteers?

How do you know why you are losing volunteers?

How might you fix whatever it is that is causing you to lose volunteers?

How can SAFER help you to fix that?

You might think that the answers are all self explanatory, but are they?

Are you losing volunteers. If you are not - as in you do lose some, but always have replacements available, then why would you need SAFER?

Is this a problem? Again, if you always have people wanting to fill the slots
that are available, is it a problem? Perhaps the time it takes to train leaves you
with too many recruits and not enough qualified firefighters.

Why are you losing volunteers. This is an easy one right? Everyone knows why - demands fo time, too much work, etc. How did you come up with the answer? Well, everyone knows the reasons right?

How do you know why? Are they leaving because of recognition? SAFER can work with that. Are they leaving because of expectations of the job being different from reality? Are they leaving because they don't feel appreciated? HAS ANYONE ASKED THE PEOPLE THAT LEAVE? Do it formally. It might just open up your eyes.

You have to make your case why they are leaving, and how you can fix that.

Recruiting, same sort of thing. How do you know what will attract people, and how can you provide that.

[ktb9780]

HAS ANYONE ASKED THE PEOPLE THAT LEAVE?

Take a bow LVFD301. That just may be the most obvious question that departments almost never bother to ask their members. I have told all my clients for R&R, sit your members down and find out exactly why they are not showing up at the calls and then address that issue. I was told by several people this year that a SAFER R&R, that I assisted a client with, was used as an example at peer review this year and guess what one of the first things we did in that grant was? Sit the membership down and found out why they were not coming to the calls. The solution to their particular problem was able to be successfully resolved for less than $10K when originally they were proposing a very expensive and unrealistic project. Bravo LVFD301 on probably the most insightful piece of advice I have ever seen you post!

[LVFD301]

Thank you Kurt. Coming from you that is a great compliment!

That is the stuff that worked for us on our SAFER.