FHExpo17: Transitioning to Combination Departments

The demand for volunteer and EMS services continues to grow in the U.S., and Chief Ron Cheves asked how they will continue to answer the call? If not with volunteers, then by whom? The answer may be some combination of volunteer and paid personnel, according to his Firehouse Expo 2017 session, “Leading the Transition in Volunteer and Combination Departments."

As the demand for services outpace a department’s ability to deliver those services, many departments are faced with decision to transition from fully volunteer to some form of a combination system. The pace of the transition and problems encountered during the process varies and often depends on the leadership’s ability to recognize and manage change. Volunteer departments have several service delivery options before considering hiring their first paid employee. However, leaders must know when the transition process must begin.

There is no standard approach to transition from a volunteer to a combination department, but there are a variety of strategies that have been successful in many communities. Following are several successful strategies that should be employed:

• Recognize the signals of change that would warrant the transition.
• Understand the issues and obstacles from an internal and external perspective resulting from the decision to transition.
• Identify the team members who will be involved in the assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation phases of transition.
• Be aware of the common pitfalls and issues surrounding the process to transition. 

Here’s how one fire chief described the transition process: “In January 2005, my all-volunteer fire department hired its first part-time paid employee. It had taken our board of directors and officer team over a year to develop the plan, write all of the new policies, and put into place what turned out to be a very major undertaking. One would think it should be a simple task to start paying someone to do what we have been doing for many years—running fire and EMS calls. One phrase kept popping in my head, ‘I wish I knew then what I know now.’ The biggest issue was trying to keep the paid staff and the volunteer staff equal. For the most part, that would seem fairly easy to accomplish, but the real fact is that they are different and must be treated different. The expectations of job performance are different than someone you are paying rather than someone who come in at their own free will to volunteer to do the same duties. All of the duties have to be done the same, from the truck check-off to cleaning the station.”