HARRY R. CARTER, Ph.D., MIFireE
Over the past several weeks, we have been looking at the impact of staffing on life here in the United States. Normally, I limit myself to issues relating to fire protection. However, events over the course of the past several weeks have shown me that staffing, or lack thereof, is a serious issue in the world around us.
Recent trips to Idaho, Florida and Iowa have given me an even deeper concern. It seems that management in general, in a wide variety of industries, just does not seem to understand that the concept of providing people in sufficient numbers to do an efficient job is the key to keeping customers happy.
The first contrast I noticed involved staffing for airport security. Since it is the responsibility of the airlines to provide this now-critical service, I shall portray the differences by airline, and by terminal.
I am a long-time member of the Continental Airlines President’s Club. So I fly with them as often as location and conditions permit. Their Terminal C operation at Newark has improved greatly. They have added a number of new security checkpoints and provided enough people to get the customers through the screening in a timely fashion. Maybe I was just lucky, but I whizzed through security there both times I traveled with them.
Conversely, the operations at Terminal B have not been improved at all. They still have the same checkpoints that they had prior to the September 11 tragedy. I guess they are just looking a lot closer at us than they were on September 10. They could use some more people to speed up the individual checks. A few more people and a few more scanners would do wonders.
The same conditions existed at Salt Lake City and Orlando. There are no more scanners in Orlando than there were on my last trip a few years ago. The same situation occurred in Salt Lake City. More people would have sped the job along. However, the worst conditions of all existed at the airport in Cedar Rapids Iowa. The long lines there were caused by the fact that although there were two security checkpoints, they only had staff for two.
Just like the fire service. The vehicles were there, but there was no one to operate the equipment. As many of you are well aware, I have made it part of my personal mission to create a deep and abiding awareness of the dangers inherent in not having a sufficient number of people to conduct safe and effective firefighting operations.
The statistics have been out there for a long time. But far too many people have just ignored them, and me. I have been telling the story of how firefighters have been dying because of inadequate staffing and deployment patterns, and it seems to still fall on deaf ears.
Similar conditions existed at the convention hotel in Cedar Rapids. During my interviews with hotel staff at that facility, I learned that they had just suffered through a twenty-percent cut in staff. Apparently business was down and in the private sector that means staff cuts. The result of this was a situation where the remaining staff had to work a lot harder to cover the difference.
My waitress was a particularly good interview subject. She told me that the fact that she had to work harder to make up the staff difference had hurt her. She said that she had to rush to get her customers served, and that she felt like she was shortchanging people. Part of her success, she said, came from making each of her customers feel special. She wanted them to depart with a smile on their face, and said that the rush-rush attitude did not allow her to do her job as well as she would like.
What a tremendous statement. She felt that her ability to provide good service was hindered by the short staffing practices of her hotel chain management. Does that sound familiar to you?
In our own world, the evidence has been mounting. With the release of each successive National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) report or each National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) investigative report, the weight of the evidence grows. The findings are becoming ever more onerous. I seem to have been right and the fire chiefs who think that I am a heretic seem to be wrong about how they approach staffing.
A fire responds to the immediate actions of firefighters. They either win the game or lose the game. The fire either falls victim to their efforts if there are enough of them doing the tasks that need to be done, or the fire wins if we do not send enough personnel. It is just that simple. This is what an understaffed, ill-equipped fire department brings to the operational table.
This is not a complicated issue gang. Firefighting is a labor-intensive field of endeavor. If we are to hang out a shingle in front of our garage that says Fire Department, then we had best be ready to supply those many services that people have come to expect from fire departments. Fire suppression is a team-oriented effort.
Over the past several months, I have come to believe that the minimum number needs to be a bit larger. I can hear the shrieks of horror from fire chiefs, administrators and politicians throughout North America. But let us take a look at those things not mentioned in the NFPA minimum recommendation of twelve firefighters operating two engine companies and one truck company, or a company capable of performing truck work operating under the command of an incident commander. What about these people?
- Safety officer
- Rapid intervention crew
If you think about it, this should add five more people to the number. This would provide us with a crew of seventeen people operating under a command officer.
Therein lies the primary fire service quandary. We can tell you how many people we need, but we cannot forecast when their services will be needed. This allows politicians and fire chiefs to say, "… well we will cross that bridge when we have to." That leads to a staff low and pray heavy approach to fire protection.
Those politicians and fire chiefs may be referring to the crossing of a bridge, but that journey comes at great experience to those of us who actually make the trip. It is our people who are dying, to balance their budgets. In a service delivery equation, it is my opinion that we must pay greater attention to the actual tasks that we will be expected to provide.
Once we establish the normal task levels for our community, we need to build our case to achieve the necessary force. But since this requires a great deal of work, many will simply throw up their hands and surrender to the politicians and administrators.
Like the proverbial journey of 10,000 miles, your trip to better fire protection must begin with a step in the right direction. Own up to your agency’s operational shortcomings and call your neighbors to see if they can help. Look to form regional partnerships. Begin to develop joint-response policies that will broaden the response capability for each participant in the group. If money is in short supply, sharing the burden can help everyone. But remember to be a full partner.
Whether it is the waitress struggling to serve people in a restaurant, an understaffed security force attempting to keep us all safe, or a fire department working with two people on shift, the result is the same.
People might shop at another restaurant or build more time into their traveling schedules. Those things can compensate for poor service in those arenas. How does the public compensate for our delivery of a weak and anemic level of municipal fire protection? Even people with automatic sprinklers and full alarm systems need us when there is a fire.
I say we must dig in our heels and fight for what we know to be right. Maybe you will wear out a few sets of shoes, but in the end, you may well end up with a better level of fire protection in your community.
My research has identified needless penny-pinching as a causal factor in the deaths of firefighters across North America. If you are to pry more money out of your local government, you will have to build a strong, task-oriented, fact-filled case, one with viable alternatives.
Knowing that many politicians are basically cheap by nature, the wise Fire Chief will have to form alliances to get the job done for their citizens. Joint dispatch facilities, regional automatic aid, and interdepartmental training are ways in which you can stretch your resources, and those of you neighbors. You can ignore my recommendations to help your people and your community. However, you do it at your own peril.
As fate would have it, just as my web master and I were preparing to put this commentary up on the web, I received a plaintive email from a young lad in a southern fire department. He wrote of how a new chief had been hired in his department, and how that chief supported the city manager’s position that two people were a sufficient crew on a suppression fire company. It looks like my commentary was right on time and right on target.
By the way, the new chief said that they might be able to staff three to a company by the year 2006. Be still my heart. Just four years until help arrives. Not bad.
We need to work harder - NOW.
