It is with deep regret the the Firemen’s Association of the State of Pennsylvania announces the cancellation of the scheduled 2020 Conference, October 22-24, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and restrictions in place in the Commonwealth of PA.  The decision was made by those members who participated in the virtual meeting held on this date.  The safety and well-being of our members and their families is our primary consideration.  

 

A virtual meeting will be planned at a later date and more information will be given as things unfold.  Please be safe!

 

Larry Baughman, Secretary

 

Assigning Responsibility and Accountability

for a Recruitment and Retention Plan

 

Like any other task, the function of recruiting and retaining members has to have someone leading the charge. Unlike some functions though, the leader of the recruitment and retention program should not be a current senior officer. This is a demanding challenge and as a result requires commitment, which means time and some experience. As will be seen throughout this series, recruitment and retention is not just an add on job for the Chief, President, Chairman of the Board, etc. In fact you may want to reach out to the community and look for someone with human resource expertise, or someone who helps people find employment.

In today’s world, we cannot rely on previous recruiting and retaining techniques by relatives and friends joining to help their neighbors. While this may work in some smaller communities or rural areas, it is not sustainable in suburban communities. Therefore the first task of the Recruitment and Retention Coordinator is to determine

• What skill sets and knowledge sets does the organization need?
• Where can I find individuals who have or want to obtain those skills and knowledge?
• What will it take to incent those individuals to join?
• What will it take to keep those individuals engaged once they join the organization?

These critical questions serve as the basis for developing your plan and requires engagement with officers, members, and the community. As can be seen very quickly, this can be time consuming and complicated and thus cannot be another task of current leadership, but requires a leader in its own right.

In addition, recruiting is different today than it was a generation ago. What motivates people is different. How people are communicated with is different. The image and mission of the fire department may be different. How will we market the fire department?

 

These all require work efforts that are focused and meaningful. This requires the organization to Assigning Responsibility and Accountability for a Recruitment and Retention Plan

We are sorry to inform you that due to the Corona Pandemic we will not be having our in-person meeting at Boalsburg FD on July 17 and 18.

We will, however be holding a virtual meeting on Saturday morning, July 18 via Zoom.

More details will be provided when the meeting is established and connection information is available.

Sorry about this but we must “practice what we preach” regarding person…

Developing a Recruitment and Retention Plan

 

With each of the subsequent recruiting and retention “tips” you will have the opportunity to consider how, if at all, that technique can help your organization. The tips should help you develop a comprehensive recruitment and retention action plan for your organization.

This tip is intended to provide you a format to develop an action plan to consider what various resources or techniques can be of help to accomplish your goal, how you would want to access those resources, to whom you should assign the tasks, and how to determine effectiveness of the effort.

RECRUITMENT

Activity	Timing	Resource, Location, Cost, and Funding Source	Responsibility	Status

 

RETENTION

Activity	Timing	Resource, Location, Cost, and Funding Source	Responsibility	Status

 

The development of such a plan assists in keeping the organization on target to perform tasks, take necessary actions, obtain necessary resources, etc. Without a plan, many times efforts become disjointed and ineffective.

Critical to the success of any such plan is a recruitment and retention coordinator. This person must

have the interest, skills, knowledge, and desire to establish the program tasks and goals and implement,

then monitor the efforts. If there is no coordinator, there is no program and the coordinator should not

be a person who has extensive responsibilities in the organization, e.g. Chief, President or Chairman.

This will be extensively discussed in a future tip.

President Ron Hereda has asked the opinion of Officers and members concerning a meeting in July and the Conference in October

Please contact President Hereda at 724 337 3308 and let him know what you think as to whether these events should take place.

 

Thank you for your input and assistance.