HOW TO BUILD A GREAT FIRE OFFICER - FireRescue1

1 Winter 2016 | fire CHIEF | 1 EVERY DEPARTMENT, EVERY LEADERVOL. 2, NO. 4 WINTER 2016 POWERED BYIN PARTNERSHIP WITHHOW TO BUILD A GREAT fire OFFICERR ecruit like the pros9 traits that make GREAT officers10 ways to cultivate your crop of future leadersINSIDE2 | fire CHIEF | Winter Chief Editorial Advisor John Buckman III Editor-in-Chief Rick Markley Associate Editor Sarah Calams Editor Rachel Zoch Chief Director of Business Development Mike Natchipolsky Contents4 How fire chiefs can hire like corporate pros Getting good company OFFICER candidates starts at the point of firefighter recruitment and hiring. Here s what the recruiting pros do to land the best applicantsBY CATHY SIVAK 8 9 traits of a good company OFFICER candidate Look for these nine traits when evaluating which firefighters have the potential to move up in the ranks BY ROBERT AVSEC 14 A case for investing in fire OFFICER development With so much responsibility riding on officers shoulders, fire departments need to invest in their professional growth BY DEMOND SIMMONS 16 Disciplining fire officers Like fires, the best discipline outcomes are those that never happen in the first place.

2 Here s how to ward off discipline-worthy behavior and what to do when those efforts fail BY LINDA WILLING 2016 Praetorian Digital, Inc. | 200 Green Street, Suite 200 San Francisco, CA 94111 EDITOR S NOTERICK MARKLEY EDITOR-IN-CHIEFNew fire OFFICER development doesn t begin at the moment of their promotion any more than it ends after their first year in the new role. It s a continuum that begins when they are recruited and accepted into the department. And it carries on throughout their careers, whether that is to prepare them for a chief OFFICER s post or to make them the best leader and mentor they can be in that current chiefs who are most successful at this look for and hire the best firefighters, develop their leadership skills and identify and promote those who stand out. They also give officers the room to make mistakes and use those mistakes as a way to make them better officers.

3 They know how to prevent behavior issues yet don t shy away from appropriate discipline when an OFFICER s behavior warrants it. And they provide a challenging environment where officers can push the boundaries of their experience and knowledge. In this edition of fire Chief, we examine different stops on a company OFFICER s career continuum with an eye to identifying ways fire chiefs can grow a crop of GREAT officers. We start with a look at what top recruiters in the corporate world know about attracting the best candidates and how fire chiefs can incorporate that into their own efforts. We also look at how to identify potential officers from the firefighter pool, what a successful OFFICER investment program looks like and how to create a culture of behavioral excellence. GREAT leaders don t burst upon the world with the skills, experience and intuition to be GREAT .

4 They were mentored, nurtured, challenged, motivated and corrected along every step of their career. Your current staff, recruit class and pile of applicants must contain your department s future leaders. And those leaders can and should be GREAT ones. If your department is not operating at this level, the following pages will help get you there. Associate Digital Producer Elisabetta Silvestro Designer Peter Shumar CEO and President Alex Ford of Content Jon Hughes Video Producer/ Contributing Photographer Ray Kemp Photo: Joe Thomas/Greenbox Winter 2016 | fire CHIEF | 3 fire -RESCUE INTERNATIONALFRI 2017 IAFC s Annual Conference & ExpoNEW in 2017!Co-locating with 26-29, 2017 Charlotte Convention Center | Charlotte, NCSAVEDATE 26-29 JULYTHEC harlotteConvention Center NCCharlotte4 | fire CHIEF | Winter GOOD COMPANY OFFICER CANDIDATES STARTS AT THE POINT OF FIREFIGHTER RECRUITMENT AND HIRING.

5 HERE S WHAT THE RECRUITING PROS DO TO LAND THE BEST APPLICANTSBy Cathy SivakFire departments of all sizes face recruiting challenges, from large metro departments to smaller combination, volunteer and paid on-call departments. Adopting best practices from corporate human resources recruiters can ignite efforts to screen, hire, train and retain new firefighter recruits. And deepening that pool of high-quality firefighters is the first step in developing stand-out company OFFICER overall corporate and government job market and applicant availability vary by market and region, but in general, candidate pools are getting tighter, with certain roles in fields like software engineering that can be hard to fill, said Rodney Alvarez, a 15-year corporate recruiting veteran and vice president of talent management for computer software firm Celtra Technology in the fire service, where many spend their entire career at one department, consistent recruiting efforts are crucial.

6 In the overall job market, employee tenure across the private, public and government sectors has an average length of eight years. A recent Society for Human Resources Management survey of hiring professionals revealed that it took an average of 42 days to fill open positions at a cost of $4,129 per hire. Finding candidatesCorporate recruiters continue to tap technology and word of mouth. Referrals (83 percent), use of the company or organization website (81 percent) and social media (67 percent) are the top 2016 candidate sourcing methods cited in a SHRM talent acquisitions media and traditional job advertisements and postings continue to evolve. Corporate recruiters create profiles of the types of people who are likely to match the qualifications of roles. fire departments should embrace targeted candidate messaging, Alvarez said.

7 Best practices create a profile of people who are attracted to the role and BUILD a profile of the people who are ideal candidates, he said. For the fire service, he suggests assessment of the department s community role, the existing culture, future roles to fill and overall diversity needs, followed by listing the traits of potential firefighter candidates. Recruiters then need to determine ways to connect those attributes, Alvarez said. Create a candidate profile that describes the desired educational background college degree, community college certificates, EMT and firefighter certification, high How fire chiefs can hire like corporate prosHow fire chiefs can hire like corporate Winter 2016 | fire CHIEF | 5 school graduates or vocational/tech students rounded out with likely majors, clubs, organizations and common interests.

8 Define the quintessential firefighter, Alvarez said. Why are they attracted to this position? Consider ages, activities. Then ask yourself: Where do we find these types of candidates? Once you have created the profile, it opens up so many other venues where you can find that person. For example, fire departments can tap the millennial generation s sense of community service. Millennials are looking for jobs that are rewarding and can make an impact, something that is fulfilling to them, not just the salary. A lot of jobs don t provide that sense of fulfillment, Alvarez said. It is almost like a crusade that is a huge move to the advantage of firefighter recruiting. If the goal is to diversify, identify community events and outreach that will help broaden the candidate pool and make this goal known. One simple way is to make sure the recruiting team includes firefighters who represent the populations the department needs to reach.

9 Recruiting for the LAFDThe Los Angeles fire Department is recruiting to diversify the city s current cadre of 3,200 firefighters. The LAFD is working toward a better reflection of the city s population, including additional minorities and women to address recent allegations of nepotism and bias. Less than 3 percent of LAFD rank and file is made up of women (the same as in 1995) and nearly half are Caucasian men in a city with a 29 percent white population. California state law prohibits hiring quotas, so ongoing efforts to diversify the LAFD are designed to expand the pool of applicants and ultimately increase hiring of minority and female firefighters. These efforts include recruiting to attract a more varied pool of applicants to the LAFD and add more non-traditional and qualified candidates to the hiring pool. Political, economic and social influences will be considered, said Alicia Welch, battalion chief of the LAFD recruitment section, in an LAFD report to the Board of fire Commissioners.

10 The initiative draws on the expertise of a professional marketing firm to develop a modern marketing campaign to incorporate traditional and social media. Through social media, a recruiter can reach every ethnic grouping, fitness and athletic aficionado, faith-based group and armed forces service member, Welch said. Social media allows the recruiters to have a presence at multiple events, share news and information, and place a face and reflection of the community in all we do. LAFD also plans to use emerging technology to broaden the scope of its application process to include tools for follow-up communications after events and during recruitment cycles. The intensive year-long process can cause some candidates to lose interest, and the hope is that better follow-up will keep more applicants in the pipeline. To help develop new generations of firefighters, the LAFD recruiting plan includes a formal mentorship Best practices create a profile of people who are attracted to the role and BUILD a profile of the people who are ideal candidates.