I’ve identified the TEN COMMANDMENTS that you absolutely MUST follow if you want the integration to be a success. If you follow these, your integration will be successful, if not, well…remember, I told you so.

Thou shalt have only one set of rules and policies for the organization.

It is very common to develop a set of rules and regulations specific for the newly arriving paid staff. I’ve even seen agencies where certain areas of the building like workout rooms, showers and in one case the kitchen, were designated ‘volunteer members only’.

This is a sure fire way to help derail the integration process.

Also with one set of rules, anyone needing discipline, is treated equally. Do not come down with a heavy hand on the paid staff for something and allow a volunteer to slip by unscathed for the same offense.

Thou shalt have a ‘get-to-know-you’ meeting prior to the start date.

Invite the new paid personnel, the volunteers, Board members, the local responders, FD, PD, dispatchers and the community to a meet and greet. Have an open house, a cookout, coffee, anything. Try not to have people meet for the first time during a call.

Thou shalt make sure that information about the paid staffing program is open to all.

Be very open about the hiring process, the start dates, the coverage hours, and the rationale for bringing paid staff into the organization. If the program is designed to supplement sagging daytime coverage, make your case. “We’ve tried recruiting, we’ve tried begging for coverage and we’re still missing 25% of our activations. That’s why it’s time to do this.” Informed membership revolts less.

Thou shalt kill rumors immediately.

Regardless of your information flow, emergency service people love to gossip. If you are a leader in an organization and you hear a serious rumor that is false, correct the information. It is better to correct it now, before it becomes an urban legend.

In one organization, undergoing significant change we actually published a simple word-processor generated newsletter entitled “The Rumor Mill”. It listed all the rumors of the week and management’s response. Get everyone on the same page and try to keep them there.

Thou shalt remind the volunteers of their continued importance.

Everyone likes pat on the back, especially people doing hard work for free. It is also important to eliminate anyone’s feelings of failure. Often it is seen by longtime members as a failing that paid people were even needed. It can lead to premature retirement at a time when experience is needed. Show them their value, identify the hundreds of hours each year NOT covered by paid staff. Continue recruiting and always try to fill choice stand-by assignments like concerts, etc. with volunteers before paying staff.

Thou shalt keep people focused on the organization’s mission.

As the few people opposed to the change in your organization loudly voice their opinions about the fact that paid people exist, in reality there will only be a few, you need to continuously re-make your case and remind people of the mission.

“We have to take care of the community and this is necessary to fulfill that goal.”

Thou shalt allow and encourage paid staff to be on operational and planning committees.

Include your newest staff members in all committees. You hired them for their experience, remember the hiring process, and tap the potential. This is even more critical if you hire full time employees. They will actually be out in the community, in the hospitals and see more of the volunteers in a week than most of the leadership team will. Listen to their input and advice.

Thou shalt designate ONE supervisor for the paid staff to report to.

Establish a clear chain of command. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to please the sometimes conflicting requests of multiple supervisors. Unless it is the middle of an emergency situation or there might be, immediate safety concerns paid staff and other leaders in the organization funnel requests, assignments and discipline through one person. Also answer in advance the inevitable question from the volunteers, do volunteers outrank the paid on calls or do they outrank us?

The only rank on calls should be crew chiefs and officers. If a paid staff member is the crew chief, they’re in charge until a higher-ranking officer takes control. The paid staff needs to operate on calls and in the building under the same rules that existed before there was paid staff. Now, if you don’t have those rules in place, that’s an entirely different article.

Thou shalt NOT allow ‘dumping’ on the paid staff.

It is very common for the volunteers to begin relying on the fact that paid staff will be there and ‘forgetting’ to complete their chores. Suddenly ambulances don’t get re-stocked or washed after runs because “I have to get to work”, dishes pile up in the sink over a weekend just waiting for the paid staff on Monday morning. Leaders, thou shall NOT let this happen.

This is a guaranteed way to develop raging animosity that will poison the group.

Thou shalt not allow the words ‘us’ and ‘them’ to enter the organization.

There is only ‘we’. One organization that is made up of paid and volunteer professionals.

Remove any semblance of fence building, compartmentalization or segregation.

Does this sound like your service? Comments like these linger in the hallways and meeting rooms of agencies all across the country until finally a lone voice from the back asks, “Should we just hire some paid people?” What was considered a question destined to provoke bitter backlash now is becoming reality.

Regardless of the relative success of the 1,000 Points of Light campaign in the early 90′s or the resurgence of patriotism after the events of a fateful day in September, 2001, we have to face facts. In a great majority of fire and EMS agencies across this country the well of volunteerism is drying up.

Volunteers have long been the backbone of not-for-profit organizations all across the country. From ambulance services and fire departments to youth sports leagues, community support groups and even national agencies like the American Red Cross, recruiting and retaining motivated volunteers is a topic of paramount importance.

I tell community leaders all across the country that a well-run, business oriented emergency service agency staffed by as many volunteers as possible is the best bargain on the planet. There is a slightly different sense of pride, commitment to giving back to the community and of course, the lower operating costs due to the lack of significant payroll.

That being said, when the response times, coverage of duty hours, increased reliance on the goodwill of mutual aid or the quality of service begins to suffer it’s time to assist, supplement or disband the agency.

Now that statement I am sure just outraged some readers. That’s ok, someone has to say it. Emergency service agencies are entrusted with a special mission, protecting property and saving lives. When someone needs an ambulance or the Fire Department, regardless of where they are in the country, they don’t care whether the responder is short, tall, male, female, paid or volunteer. They only want the customer service mission [taking care of their emergency] to be accomplished in a timely, proficient and professional way. Protecting the sanctity of having a volunteer service is not paramount to fulfilling the trust that the community places in us. If your agency is having issues doing that, fix it.

The growing reality is the demands on double working families, more people working out of town and numerous other things impacting our time, many organizations are beginning to ‘fix’ their problems by integrating paid staff. The goal is to insure coverage during problem areas in operating schedules, typically during the daytime hours. (6am-6pm).

On the surface, this solution appears to be the magic bullet for what ails the agency. The truth is that if the integration is not done properly there will be an entirely new set of issues created.

Morale problems, additional decreases in volunteer participation, general hard feelings towards the spirit of volunteering, “this is no fun anymore, it’s becoming a business”(heard that one lately), a ‘them – vs. – us” mind set, as well as a host of other highly emotional issues that can bring an agency to its knees. You don’t have to go there. And, if you are already there, you can turn things around.

This article will discuss how to successfully integrate paid personnel into your organization while, if you so choose, retaining as many volunteers as possible.

It will also teach you how to RESET the system if it’s already in trouble.

We’ve identified four main reasons why an organization looks to hire paid staff:

Overall staffing shortages

Due to a lack of participation, attrition, retirement, morale problems or lackluster recruiting campaigns, your agency is simply short of the necessary number of trained personnel.

Increasing response times/service failures

Burnout, morale, physical distance from the building and increasing call volumes all strain the organizations ability to respond. Unmotivated or overburdened personnel move slower when responding to the building. Over time, people relocate or build in new developments and now live farther away from the station.

Adding ALS personnel

There is a shortage of ALS personnel in most areas of the country. Very few ALS personnel volunteer in the ALS capacity. Fewer volunteers will submit to 1,000+ hours of paramedic training. In order to upgrade the level of service, hiring paid ALS staff may be the only way.

Supervision of the service

Paperwork, OSHA, HIPAA, OEMS, billing all require time. Many agencies look towards hiring a paid supervisor/administrator who can handle the operations responsibilities as well represent half of the crew.

Things to consider BEFORE placing the Help Wanted Ad

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Loss of Volunteer Staff

This is governmental legislation originally passed in 1938 and amended in 1985 which provides for fair working conditions for all employees. For our purposes, it basically identifies that an employer must pay an hourly wage that is at least minimum wage and it also prohibits us from volunteering for our ‘employer’. This means that any volunteer member that makes the transition to a paid position, even for one shift, is lost to the agency as a volunteer for other calls at other times.

This means that if you are not careful, by solving the daytime staffing problem you may create a void in other areas since the personnel would be lost as volunteers when their shift was over.

As Attorney Allison Bloom wrote in an article for the Wisconsin EMT Association, “The effect of the FLSA on volunteer EMS is not to be taken lightly. The penalties alone can put just about any service out of business”.

Make sure that your hiring plan takes into account the necessary budget for hourly wages, overtime, if applicable, benefits if you’re hiring full time. One of the most common problems with hiring paid staff is under estimating the budget.

Full time vs. per diem vs. leased employees

Before you hire, develop a staffing plan. This sounds like silly advice but sadly the reality is that most organizations have not identified the hours to be staffed, added them up to actually determine how many people they need to hire.

Do you want the continuity of a few full time employees? This means benefits, supervision, the need to be able to cover vacations and sick time, etc.

How about a large group of per diem staff? Greater flexibility need to purchase more uniforms, no need to provide benefits, less continuity and potentially less loyalty to the shift if overtime came along at their full time job.

A new concept: leasing employees. Actually, the concept is not new, business and other healthcare groups have been using temporary help services for years. A company in Connecticut called Vintech ( www.vintechems.com ) has done just that. They have created, to this author’s knowledge, the first ever temporary help firm specializing in EMS personnel.

Vintech’s founder Vinny Wheeler is quick to point out the value of leasing employees. “You can outsource the headaches. Hiring, firing, handling book-offs, paying workers compensation premiums on the paid staff and having a limited depth of personnel. You simply identify the hours to be staffed, the level of certification you want and write the check, we do the rest”.

They also are quick to point out the biggest benefit, which might go unnoticed, is that this type of arrangement does not violate FLSA. Your agency is able to retain your volunteers. If members of your staff work for an agency like Vintech, while on duty, even in your station, they are the agency’s employees. Not yours. This means that when these same people are off duty, they can still be your volunteers.

Hiring process

If you choose to hire your own employees, which many organizations do, make sure that you have a reasonably stringent hiring process. Remember you are hiring people and creating jobs, make the job one worth having. Candidates should work for them.

We suggest a five part process:

1) Application with resume

This allows a review of applications. All candidates, even internal candidates, apply for these new positions in the same manner. I would suggest a member in good standing that applies be granted a 5 point bonus to their score as a gesture of goodwill.

Anyone meeting the written minimum education and certification standards on paper makes it to the next phase.

2) Written EMT or Paramedic exam

A basic knowledge exam consisting of perhaps 50 questions. Ask your EMS Coordinator or Regional Training person for help or purchase a test bank and construct a test of your own. Identify the minimum passing grade in the written invitation letter. We suggest 80% as the passing mark. Those that pass make it to the next phase.

3 & 4) Oral Interview and Practical skills station

Conduct a 20-minute interview with a list of pre-written questions. Use the same list for every candidate. Ask scenario based questions that require longer answers.

Halfway through the interview stop, escort the candidate into another room and present them with a medical or trauma practical station. Score them with a standard evaluation sheet. At the conclusion of the practical evolution, escort them back and finish the oral interview.

5) Documentation

At the conclusion of the interview hand them a blank run report and ask them to document the care they gave in the practical station.

Rationale for this system:

· The application process weeds out initially unqualified candidates based on certifications and length of service.

· The test weeds people with weaker book knowledge.

· The oral/practical test their ability to communicate, evaluates their treatment skills and also their ability to switch gears.

· The documentation process done this way tests their ability to remember and accurately chart events under stress. When was the last time a run report was done immediately after a call?

I have used this system for years and when the scoring is done, the best, well-rounded candidates have always risen to the top.

We are all in the service business.

My objective in this article is to make you think, to challenge your comfort levels and to help you develop a system to turn customers into clients. Throughout my 30+ year career as an EMS professional and a consultant I have found that this process takes hard work, dedication and consistent effort but the rewards are great.

Some un-enlightened EMS leaders will not understand and will not grasp the subtle but important difference between customers and clients. In fact, many of our colleagues have yet to embrace the fact that they are even in a service business.

In the beginning the public simply called and we came. Contracts with municipalities and healthcare facilities were simple, if we had them at all. We collected subsidies, stipends or donations from our communities. We did our job and that was enough. It is not nearly enough any more.

Response times, standards of practice, playing a very active role in the community, developing strong relationships with the local governmental agencies, mandatory system reporting, dealing with new privacy and other federal compliance regulations are just the starting point for the expectations placed upon us. And that was pre 9/11. Now the roles and expectations have increased, the readiness levels are even higher and communities look to us, the ‘emergency service professionals’ to deliver in time of crisis.

For the remainder of this article, I’ll be speaking specifically to EMS providers. But the true measure of success of any emergency service agency is when they have cultivated a sense of community awareness so great that people in the community refer to them as ‘our’ ambulance service rather than ‘the’ ambulance service. Cultivating this level of awareness is what helps turn customers into clients. How does your community refer to you?

Think about the term client. Who has clients? Lawyers, tax professionals, counselors, consultants, and financial planners just to name a few. They understand the long-term value of developing positive customer relationships. They are seeking referrals and goodwill to increase business. You are seeking to reap the benefits of goodwill and informed support for your mission by the people in the communities you serve

People ask me all the time, “Why do I care? I don’t have time for all of this ‘nice touchy feely stuff. I’ve got a service to run.” My answer is always the same, “You can educate people one at a time and develop and informed army of supporters. Or, you can try and educate them as a group at crunch time, after something has gone wrong which is a much harder job.”

Commitment to a long term program to develop client relationships will insure the operation integrity and long term viability of your service. This holds true for volunteer, municipal, hospital-based or investor owned services.

Think of any service in your area that is either in trouble now or has already failed.

I guarantee you that at least one of the factors to blame is a failure to provider proper levels of service to one or more customer groups.

Before we can discuss turning customers into clients we have to define the difference and then discuss what a good relationship should look like.

Definitions:

cus-tom-er One who buys goods or services; one with whom one must deal

cli-ent One for whom professional services are rendered (Source: American Heritage Dictionary)

These definitions couldn’t explain the way many services view the relationships any better. Many look upon anything outside the actual provision of emergency care as something that must be dealt with, and they certainly don’t see the need for a relationship ‘after the sale’ when the patient is out of the ambulance and off the stretcher.

Best practice agencies see the value in providing professional services and in servicing the client ‘after the sale’. They know that a satisfied customer can be developed into a client and become a positive voice in support of their agency. Every person who comes into contact with your service starts the relationship as a customer, it is your responsibility to turn them into a client.

A good working ‘client’ relationship should pass this Four Criteria Test

· There is a constant two way flow of information.

· Both parties see the value in the long term benefits of working together.

· Both parties view the other as a valuable resource.

· Services are tailored to meet/exceed the clients’ needs.

Reality Check

Can you name three different client relationships that you have that fit all four of the criteria listed above.

If you can’t, don’t worry. Very few emergency service leaders can. Read on, we’ll develop the foundation for the changes you’ll need to make if you want to get there.

Now that you have an idea of what’s in my head when I describe the difference, let’s talk about the different customer groups that will interact with your service and what you need to do to turn them into clients.

Eight Customer/Client Groups

I have identified for you the eight basic customer/client groups that every emergency service manager must learn to serve:

1.) Employees/staff

2.) Patients/families

3.) Other managers in your organization

4.) Community Leaders/Special Needs

5.) Healthcare facilities

6.) Other responders

7.) Government regulators

8.) Media organizations (Print/Radio/TV)

There are a variety of sub-groups that may exist in your service are but these are the basic headers for the remainder of our discussion in this article.

A successful EMS leader today must actively work to meet the varied, and often competing, needs and expectations of EACH of the groups listed above. The order outlined above illustrates my personal philosophy of the importance of each. Not that each group is not important in its own right, but given a conflict of time, I would handle an employee’s need before handling one brought to me by the media.

Employees / Staff

I firmly believe that the employees/staff are the number one customer group that leadership serves. I WANT to turn the relationship with the employees into a client relationship as quickly as possible.

Reality Check

Does the relationship with your staff meet the four criteria client test?

Very few agencies can honestly answer ‘yes’ to this question. Most are dealing with bickering, conflict, recruitment or retention troubles and unreasonable demands by employees or their representatives.

As we begin work with agencies in crisis and it is clear that no client relationship exists, the first steps to repair the damage is what we call Hitting the RESET Button.

The RESET process involves conducting a complete review of your organization, questioning everything. This means looking at the mission statement, all of the communication channels that exist with employees and other customers, business processes, hiring and other personnel issues and even some of the things ‘that you’ve always done that way’ might need to be changed.

After the review is complete and a course of action is agreed upon and communicated to the staff, the RESET button is pushed and the outdated past practices are blown away giving the organization a fresh start.

Often a series of ‘town meetings’, employee committees that allow a real voice, or

re-establishing positive relations with union leadership are needed.

A properly trained, informed and involved staff are the best ambassadors any agency can have. Conversely, employees that are treated like so many replaceable parts will turn into ambassadors of poison as they talk about your organization being a lousy place to work.

Your employees are the most important marketing tool in your company and they are directly interacting with each of your other customer groups every day. Are they damaging relationships as quickly as you’re building them?

I think consultant Tim Pelton says it best, “If you take care of the troops, they’ll take care of the mission.”

Patients / families

Obviously this is, in my opinion, the next most important group. After all this IS the reason we’re here, to provide care and transportation to the sick and injured.

Whenever we conduct customer service training for field providers, we stress that the family members are customers and often ‘patients’ also.

Reality Check

You do conduct customer service training for your field providers don’t you?

If you don’t, let me give you an example illustrating why it’s important.

I am still fortunate enough to be able to work in the field as a paramedic. On my last shift, I arrived on the scene of a 40 year old woman presenting with hypoglycemic symptoms. I also met her two young and obviously worried sons, ages 7 and 9. As I was asking her questions and it became apparent that she may need to be transported the sons became very agitated.

The youngest one asked me, “Have you ever taken care of a di-betic before?” I assured him that I had many times and he looked relieved. Then the older one asked his mom what he should do since there was no one to care for him and his brother if she went to the hospital.

While waiting for the magic juice-and-sugar concoction to work, I assured them that arrangements would be made for someone to stay with them or they could come along with mom in the ambulance. Within 5 minutes, her sugar was normalized and she opted to refuse transport.

The incident reminded me however, that we are watched every step of the way by family, friends and the public. We have to constantly remember that those watching have varied levels of understanding about what we’re doing and therefore form opinions about our capabilities, as evidenced by the young son asking me if I knew what I was doing. He perceived that I was asking too many questions and not fixing his mom.

The customer service moral of the story: while one patient may be sick there are emotional patients to care for as well. They are also our customers and meeting their needs builds the relationships and impressions to turn them into clients.

The kids were very happy with the outcome. They both wanted to shake hands as I was leaving and they were all able to enjoy a happy Easter Sunday at home as a family.

Other managers in your organization

You have to begin to look at co-workers as your customers as well. Every leader in your organization has expectations of you that need to be met so that they can do Their jobs properly.

Building internal relationships using a customer service model, forming multi-department project teams to solve business problems will both go along way towards building the elusive team oriented workplace everyone says that they want. If you don’t view your co-leaders as important customers, you’ll never get there.

Community Leaders / Special Needs

Working with community groups, church leaders, school officials on things like Project Prom or the DARE Program, allow these influential folks to form opinions of you and your agency.

The dialog about their perceptions of the needs in the community is invaluable to you from a service and a planning point of view. Do they think that there are unmet needs in high ethnic community sections? Are they hearing complaints about your service? Do they think you’re meeting or exceeding the expectations of the community? Get out there and ask! Talk and then LISTEN!

The opportunity to initiate dialog about the problems you’re facing or needs you have identified can be priceless when you need public support at budget or contract time. Educated customers turn into informed clients.

Healthcare facilities

Reality Check

When was the last time you were in any of your local skilled nursing facilities other than on a call or to visit your grandmother?

Facilities can be very fickle about who transports their patients. Even if you’re the sole source 911 provider, they can make life difficult if misunderstandings get out of control.

Don’t assume that no news is good news. Periodic calls to check on how your crews are performing, perhaps providing a speaker for the next staff meeting or helping them understand your capabilities goes a long way to building the client relationships you want while allowing you to control the market share that you need. Proactive dialogue will also help keep complaints to a minimum.

During my tenure as Manager of an investor-owned ambulance company, I used to send night crews to meet with night shifts. Our people conducted quarterly ‘surprise’ drills on various shifts to test emergency plan readiness for the facilities. We’d be let in by a supervisor and plant a manikin someplace in the facility and test the response to the discovery and subsequent code drill.

This practice helped the facility, let the people learn to work together, and made our agency more valuable to the facility helping to ward off a stronger competitor.

Other responders

Paul Maniscalco, formerly a Deputy Chief with FDNY*EMS, had one of the best quotes I’ve ever heard on this subject. “How can you expect a guy to help you out if you don’t even know how he likes his coffee?”

Treat your mutual aid and other community responders as customers. What do they need from you? How can you work more efficiently together? When was the last time you cross trained so you have an idea where equipment is located on each other’s rigs?

A quick example of meeting a simple need: When you send out street closing or construction updates, make sure you let your mutual aid services know too. They should not find out when they hit the detour signs enroute to a call. If they are going to service your community, they need to be kept in the information loop also.

Governmental agencies and regulators

“I’m from the government. I’m here to help.” This can be a true statement if you treat them like a valued customer.

Do you communicate positive and negative issues to your governmental agencies?

I recommend services provide at least quarterly reports to the leaders in the communities they service.

These reports should include, at a minimum, the numbers of responses, transports, fractile or average response times, numbers of presentations or classes completed and especially if you’re a volunteer agency, the number of calls handled between 5pm and 6am (when the politicians are home with their families) and the number of volunteer hours of service provided to the community (include calls, drills, classes and any other activities).

You will never be able to get them to move from ‘the’ ambulance to ‘our’ ambulance unless you make them see the tangible value you bring to their world.

Media organizations (Print/Radio/TV)

Do you try and run away from a camera or microphone? Or is your standard procedure to move the media back 1,000 yards and then complain that they got lousy shots of your heroic rescue?

The media can be a very valuable tool in your efforts to build your community image.

They need news to cover. You respond to news events. Work together. You both have a job to do, and God knows EMS needs the coverage.

Meet with them, feed them news, know and respect their deadlines and if an issue arises, deal with it immediately. Assign someone who is articulate, professional and looks good on camera as your Public Information Officer (PIO).

Dealing with the media could be an article in itself but in a nutshell, if you look at them as a hungry customer and feed them good solid food, you’ll develop a healthy relationship that can be invaluable when a call goes bad.

Reality Check

One of your ambulances just blew an intersection enroute to a call and killed a civilian. Would your local media get to the bottom of the story and report it fairly or enjoy the opportunity to crucify you?

If it’s the latter, then you have not been dealing with them as a client. RESET the system, get together over lunch or a cup of coffee together and rekindle the relationship.

The Seven Keys to Success

Over the 30+ years that I have been in the EMS profession, I have had the good fortune to work with a number of agencies all across the country. I have been able to review the best practices of these agencies and have distilled them into a list that I call the Seven Keys to Success.

Agencies that employ these Seven Keys, or are working towards completing the list, are some of the finest and best run agencies in the country.

So, what are these miracle keys that will unlock your future success and help you turn customers into clients?

· Customer Centered Service

· Field Staff Education

· Leadership Development Programs

· Annual technology review and upgrades

· Effective staff recruitment and retention initiatives

· Multiple effective revenue streams

· Constant relationship building with the eight primary client groups

Customer Centered Service

The best organizations base every decision on the impact that it will have on the primary mission, service to their customers. Most organizations design an agency for their own ease of operation and sense of purpose and then take that organizational model to the streets and provide their version of service.

The best organizations look at the end result first, excellent customer centered service. They design or redesign the organization to fit the needs of their clients, even if it means more work for them.

An example of this can be seen in something as simple as staffing patterns.

A volunteer agency was initiating paid daytime staffing for the first time and decided arbitrarily to staff Monday through Friday from 0800-1800, the hours convenient for them.

The community needs dictated that a crew should be on from 0500 when volunteers were not taking calls because the average of two hours per call would impact their ability to get to work on time. By thinking about the needs of their clients, the agency retooled the schedule and began the shifts at 0500. The result: they dropped their morning missed calls to almost nothing, Town Hall got fewer complaints and the mutual aid companies were able to sleep in.

This is a simple but very valid example of putting three client groups first.

Field Staff Education

As discussed earlier, I believe that THE single most important client group that any manager can serve well is their employees. By committing a portion of organizational resources to their education and treating those resources as sacred, the staff members grow in capabilities and the organization ultimately benefits from an educated, thinking work force.

Leadership Development Programs

What would have happened to FDNY on 9/11 at Noon (after the towers had collapsed killing many members of the command structure) if people were not trained to assume command? Who could take your place if you were killed in a car wreck on the way home?

Strong organizations develop strong leaders. Every position should have someone in training prepared to assume command should something happen. Succession planning, mentoring, and leadership development are all components of effective organizations.

Honestly now, how ready are you?

Annual technology review and upgrades

Technology just for the sake of having the latest and greatest new toy or gadget is a waste of money. That being said, best practice agencies continuously upgrade technology that makes operational and fiscal sense, adds value to the overall productivity of the organization and most importantly improves the level of service. If a technology investment doesn’t meet all three of these criteria, even if you really want it, pass.

Proper staff recruitment and retention

Aligning people, paper and practices or in other words making sure the right person is in the right job with the right tools is the only way to reduce job stress and have the ability to educate and develop the people side of your business.

Multiple effective revenue streams

What is the primary source of your agency’s funding? Look for opportunities to tap new sources of revenue, billing, grants, donations, subscriptions, being designated as charity of the year by a community group, receiving memorial bequests and providing training for community businesses are all important to fiscal health of your agency. Capitalism is not a dirty word. It is how you survive in all types of economic weather.

Constant relationship building with the eight primary client groups

I discussed the eight groups earlier. Best practice organizations work constantly to improve relationships with each of these groups. It will be easy with some, hard with others and due to past events nearly impossible with a few. Keep trying. Your long term health depends upon it.

When it comes to customer service remember one simple saying:

You’re only as good as THEY think you are!

As I travel around the country and talk to emergency service chiefs, the two most common questions I get asked are:

How do I bring paid staff into my service the right way? How do I fix my organization? The implementation went very badly and I’m in worse shape now.

The focus of this article is the second question. The first was the subject of a previously published article. My answer is to fall back, rethink and RESET the organization. Job number one for any leader in this situation is to get everyone together for a mandatory meeting and publicly re-establish a clear understanding of the issues that were, and are now, facing the organization that led up to the integration of paid staff in the first place. As part of that meeting it’s critical to re-gain consensus from the group on the root problems.

Once that’s done, review all of the relevant policies, procedures and issues brought up by BOTH the paid and the volunteer staff. Address them either globally or one at a time.

Once all of the issues have been addressed to the best resolution possible, set a target date to ‘RESET’ the organization and get back on track and on with the business of protecting the community.

Once the date is reached, execute the RESET. Push the big red button an p[ut the past behind you. From that date forward, violations of the the agreed upon rules, procedures and responsibilities can not bet tolerated.

Be forewarned, you might lose a few people that don’t agree with the newly applied rules. That’s ok, it’s called organizational evolution. The people that stay will make the organization stronger, more vibrant and will be rededicated to the mission which is what you really want in the long run. It will actually make your job as service chief easier.

As the 70/20/10 rule of business goes, 10% of your organization is causing you 90% of your problems. Prune the non-conforming 10% by direct action (termination) or through organizational evolution, and you’ll have a stronger 90% left.

Ask any gardener you know and they’ll tell you, pruning keeps things healthy and growing, it’s just tough to make the first cut.

As emergency service agencies evolve and communities expect more, the problem of recruiting, retaining and motivating volunteers is only going to get worse. We should all be thankful for the thousands of volunteers still responding and we should encourage others to fill the thinning ranks.

Integrating paid staff is a way to maintain the value and traditions of volunteer agencies without sacrificing the mission of servicing our communities. Paid staffing is a reality and used wisely, integrated well and managed effectively we can, in many communities, have the best of both worlds.

I’ve been in ‘management‘ positions since I was 18 years old, quite often ‘managing‘ people who were older than me. I’ve been in several different positions. In one I was responsible for several hundred employees, in another led a group of mixed union and non-union employees and in another coordinated paid and volunteer employees who worked side by side.

I have those two words in the previous paragraph in quotes specifically to call your attention to them. I actually don’t use them, others do, truth be told words management, manager, boss all really bother me.

Managers tend to protect themselves, insulate themselves and take credit if it serves them or play duck and cover when things go bad. In my opinion, if you’re going to be effective in business you can’t manage, you have to LEAD. You have to lead a team of co-workers, not boss them around. Leadership to me is actually almost an art form, in many companies it’s becoming a lost art.

What’s the difference you ask, isn’t it just semantics? Actually there is a huge difference. Management to me is simply the act of moving people around within the confines of existing policies, practices and basically maintaining the status quo.

Leadership, is a dynamic process of inspiring people, setting a good example, getting people involved in the process, creating change when necessary and empowering your team to handle things that come up. Leadership, if not claimed by the example by the owners/officers of a company, will be claimed by members of middle management or staff…people in every organization want to follow a leader…they hate being managed.

In the movie Heartbreak Ridge, Clint Eastwood plays rough, veteran Marine Gunnery Sergeant Highway who’s gone into battle with a newly minted Lieutenant Ring (direct supervisor) and an ego-centric Major Powers (upper management) who’s out to get him. His leadership saves the platoon but earns him the rath of the Major.

The background is that the Major is a manager…trying to protect his turf and get ahead at the abuse and expense of others…when questioned about what happened he tries to blame others rather than take pride in their work and give credit where it’s due…here’s my favorite exchange of the movie:
(Courtesy of the Internet Movie Database www.imdb.com )

Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: [approaching Highway] Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?
Highway: Just enjoying the view, sir.
Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Well, you disobeyed an order. I told you to stay in contact and not take this hill without me. Damn it! Get on your feet, Highway!
Highway: With all due respect, sir, you’re beginning to bore the hell out of me.
[sees the helicopter landing and Colonel Meyers getting out] (The Big Boss)
Colonel Meyers: Who’s in charge here?
Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: I am, sir. Major Malcolm Powers.
Colonel Meyers: Did you lead this assault?
Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Sir, Lieutenant Ring and Gunnery Sergeant Highway disobeyed a direct order. I told them to wait for support but they went up this hill anyway.
Colonel Meyers: [to Highway] Why?
Highway: We’re Marines, sir. We’re paid to adapt, to improvise.
Lieutenant M.R. Ring: Sir, I gave the order to take this hill.
Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Ring, this is going to ruin your career.
Colonel Meyers: Are you new to the infantry, Major?
Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Yes, sir. Just came over from supply.
Colonel Meyers: Were you good at that?
Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Yes, sir!
Colonel Meyers: Well then, stick to it because you’re a walking cluster f#@k as an infantry officer. My men are hard chargers, Major! Lieutenant Ring and Gunny Highway took a handful of young fire pissers, exercised some personal initiative and kicked ass!
[to Lt Ring]
Colonel Meyers: Good job, Lieutenant!
Lieutenant M.R. Ring: Thank you, sir!

Think about the way you handle your day to day business, do you manage or lead?
Do you assign tasks to others that you consider beneath you?
Are you dealing with personnel issues, turnover, training and morale? How many did YOU cause?
Do you take credit or give praise and credit?

So…be honest with yourself…would you work for you?

The truth about a promotion, if you’re a leader rather than a manager…is that the move up is simply a new beginning which creates an entirely new level of responsibility and opportunity.  A serious student of business and leadership NEVER stops learning, asking questions, and honing their craft.

Leadership is a craft, an art, and a noble occupation.  For some it’s a lifelong aspiration. For others simply a path to their version of success.

My wife has a great saying, “Everybody wants a paycheck, but not everybody’s willing to work!”   In the realm of leadership, the correlation is “Everybody wants the title, but not everybody’s willing to take on the responsibility.”

I’ve been fortunate, my career in leadership began more than 30 years ago.  I’ve had great mentors, role models and coaches along the way.   They all taught me their version of two extremely valuable lessons.  First, never stop learning and second, never ever forget where you came from.

I can still vividly remember when I lived paycheck to paycheck, shopped at the store for generic pasta and played the ‘which bill am I not going to pay this week’ game.   I think that even though I’m well past those days now, I take extra time to think about how my decisions will impact, staff, clients and vendors.  I do this because I feel a strong sense of responsibility and because those memories from 20 years ago are still vivid today. I remember where I came from.

What are the memories that are vivid in your past?  What critical events have shaped the way you act and make decisions?    Take a few minutes this week and think back over your career, regardless of the amount of time you’ve been in your leadership role.   What types of leaders and managers have you worked with?  What lessons, both good and bad can you take from those experiences?   How can you incorporate them into your leadership style and improve your craft?

I actually learned some of my best leadership lessons from a competitor who thought employees were a ‘dime a dozen’, treated everyone poorly and always did things the same way.  He taught me a lot about how NOT to run a company.

On to the subject of lifetime learning. Every effective leader that I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet and talk with considers themselves a lifetime learner. Common traits include being voracious readers, serious students of both world and business history and they can always be found talking to both their peers and their co-workers about ways to improve. They spend lots of time looking for the next opportunity to grow themselves and their businesses.

If you are a newly promoted leader, welcome. If you are veteran, step back and learn from those around you. Congratulations on the well deserved and newly installed plaque on your door, don’t tarnish it with lousy skills.

1. Make sure that both sides feel that they’ve accomplished something in the negotiations.

2. Don’t fight for a small point so long you damage your ability to win the large ones.

3. Know going in what your ‘must haves’ are, the rest are optional.

4. Let the other person quote a number first.

5. Always…be in a position to walk away from the table if a good deal can’t be struck.

Let me elaborate a little on each of the rules:

Rule 1
Negotiations are a give and take process. If you are trying to cultivate a relationship with someone and plan to do business with them again, be in a client project, buying a car or negotiating at a flea market, each party has to feel good about the process or it will be a one time thing. If you drive such a hard bargain every time that the other party feels as though they were taken advantage of, word will quickly spread about your business tactics and sooner rather than later you will find it difficult to find someone willing to work with you. Give a little, get a little, and everyone gets a deal that they feel good about.

Rule 2
A long time ago I was in negotiations to buy someone out of a business arrangement. Every time we would leave the bargaining table with what we though was a deal, the person would call or email the next day with ‘one more thing’ or a ‘slight change’.

To make matter worse, this person would not speak directly to me, instead they used their attorney who then contacted my attorney…driving up the cost of the process and making the lawyers rich. After this had happened four separate times, over items that were actually worth less than the attorney’s fees we were being charged to talk about it, I called a final one-on-one, lawyer-free, negotiation session where we sat for three hours, did the give and take and then agreed that no more changes could be made without the deal being called off. The result…a good deal for everyone…except the attorneys.

Rule 3
Anytime you walk into a negotiation you need to know your bottom line, the one or two things you absolutely must get from the negotiation to satisfy your business needs, financial needs or in some cases your ego needs. You will most likely have a list of 5-10 things you’d like to have…only the ‘must haves’ are in concrete, the rest have to be negotiable.

Rule 4
When you are in negotiation to buy anything, let the other person put out the number first. It’s still amazing to me that when buying anything from a car, to a house, to a television, people answer the question posed by a salesperson “so, what do you want your monthly payment to be?” or the other version “what are you willing to spend for (____)?” My answer has always been “the absolute lowest one possible, now what’s your price on the (____) ?”

Do your research in advance, know what the price points should be and wait…a number will eventually be put on the table and often it’s at or lower than you expected.

Rule 5 (My cardinal rule)
Anytime I agree to enter into negotiations, I’ve already thought through the first four rules in my head and have my benchmarks set. I am always prepared to walk away from a deal, a project, a house or other purchase if my basic ‘must have’ benchmarks can’t be met. Now let me be clear, I don’t want to walk away from the deal, otherwise I wouldn’t have agreed to sit and negotiate…but I’m prepared to if we can’t create a good deal (See Rule #1). By putting yourself in the position to walk away from ANY deal, you avoid the sense of desperation that can cloud your judgment and get you into situations that you should have passed on.

I love the fact that I can quickly review emails almost anyplace and anytime.  I love the fact that I can answer some while waiting in line, during delays at airports and the like.

I hate the fact that most people don’t take put any time at all into their use of this form of communication…typoes, mispellings (both done on purpose), incomplete thoughts, random questions all sent easily with the push of a button clogging up all of our in-boxes and schedules as we bail ourselves out from under the deluge.

It’s actually getting harder and harder to use this medium effectively to communicate, because we are all getting desensitized to it.  So how can you stand out in the minds of a prospect, vendor or client?  Go offline.  Yes, I said it.

Once a week, find a way to communicate with a client, prospect, vendor, or even a family member with a handwritten card or note.  I ordered special note cards to do just that.  Think about the impact that a smaller than normal, invitation sized piece of mail, nicely hand addressed with a real stamp will make in the daily pile of bills and magazines.

Now picture the excitement of the recipient opening this intriguing piece of mail to fine that inside is a handwritten note with a news clipping, words of encouragement or sincere congratulations.  I have used this practice for years and it’s not uncommon that during a meeting at a client’s office for the client to pull one out of their desk, years after I sent it, and say something like “do you remember sending me this?”  The impact can be so dramatic because it’s a personal connection, an indication of thoughtfulness that is so remarkably easy to do and so foreign to most people.

If you truly want to build rapport and longevity with your clients, prospects and suppliers, do things that are unique, unexpected and that will make a lasting impression.  Separate yourself from the pack…write a note.