The first fire department in the United States to use Culture Shield is Cheyenne Fire Rescue.

Culture Shield was created for the particular operational environment of fire, emergency medical services and law enforcement agencies, in contrast to conventional employee engagement solutions. The tool enables departments to measure organizational culture, spot trends over time and make data-driven decisions regarding their workforce by gathering entirely anonymous feedback on a regular basis.

“Culture Shield gives our command staff insights into the organization in a way that we haven’t been
able to get before," said Deputy Chief of Emergency Services Don Wood. "It creates meaningful data points that help inform the decisions we make about our department. And just as importantly, it gives the members of Cheyenne Fire Rescue a protected way to communicate their experiences and perspectives.”

The platform combines quantitative measurement with qualitative insight to identify emerging issues, organizational strengths and areas for improvement while upholding stringent anonymity protections. It does this by using specially designed artificial intelligence to analyze anonymous feedback and deliver results through a leadership dashboard.

The Kitchen Table Index (KTI), a composite number intended to measure corporate culture and give departments a quantifiable baseline they can monitor over time, is at the basis of Culture Shield's fire service platform. The firehouse kitchen table, one of the fire service's most significant cultural institutions, is reflected in the name.

“The kitchen table is where all of the world’s problems get solved. Firefighters spend roughly one-third of their careers at the firehouse, and so much of that time revolves around the kitchen table," Culture Shield's vice president Noah DeHond. "Department problems and successes, new ideas, personal stories, random jokes, card games — you name it — all get discussed there. It’s where people speak freely and honestly. The issue is that leadership doesn’t always have a seat at the table. Culture Shield creates that connection while protecting the firefighter’s identity.” 

The implementation will create a baseline assessment of department culture for Cheyenne Fire Rescue, which will be followed by periodic evaluations intended to monitor changes and spot trends over time.

“Data drives nearly every decision we make in the fire service. We collect data on response times, turnout times, staffing, training, EMS performance, apparatus, hose loads, and almost every other operational metric imaginable," DeHond stated. "But historically, we haven’t had the same ability to generate meaningful, recurring data about our people and organizational culture. Culture Shield changes that.”

PowerEngage is already used by Cheyenne Fire Rescue to collect regular feedback from outside parties after their interactions with the department. The same recurrent, data-driven approach is brought inside the company with Culture Shield, which provides CFR with an anonymized, organized method for tracking employee experiences over time. By recording both internal organizational culture and external stakeholder experience, the platforms collectively give leadership a more comprehensive picture of the department.

“We already have tools that help us understand how the public experiences our department," Wood said. "Culture Shield gives us that same type of consistent feedback loop internally. It gives our firefighters a protected way to tell us what they are experiencing and gives command staff meaningful data we can track over time.” 

Additionally, Culture Shield will assist Cheyenne Fire Rescue in its continuous efforts to obtain certification from the Commission on Fire certification International (CFAI) and the Center for Public Safety Excellence (CPSE). Continuous improvement, organizational self-evaluation, stakeholder engagement and the use of data to analyze department performance are all prioritized in the accreditation process. CFR may now create baselines, track changes and assess how organizational efforts are impacting its staff over time instead of depending on recurring surveys or one-time evaluations.

“Accreditation is ultimately about continuous improvement," stated Wood. "Culture Shield gives us another way to understand our internal stakeholders, evaluate our organization, and identify opportunities to improve. Instead of taking a snapshot once every few years, we can continuously listen, measure, and understand how our organization is changing.”

Cheyenne Fire Rescue is now an early adopter of a new, data-driven approach to corporate culture in the fire service, and the adoption is the first use of Culture Shield in a United States fire department.