Tough times test our values. And these are tough times! When departments are faced with staff reductions, station closures and wage concessions, recruiting and retaining diversity goes way down the list of priorities. For some departments, it may completely disappear. Likewise, prevention, which is under-funded and under-staffed in the best of times, suffers a similar fate.

On behalf of FIRE 20/20’s Board, I asked Larry Sagen our Executive Director why it’s important for the fire service to stay focused on diversity. I also asked Larry to share how his background and experience shape his perspective.

                                                Chief Robert Oliver, Redmond Fire Department
                                                Vice President, FIRE 20/20 Board

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Why we should stay focused on diversity

The compelling reasons for a qualified, diverse, inclusive and safe Fire/EMS workforce don’t have a time expiration that says, ‘Disregard when there’s a recession.’

Economic conditions may alter some of the workforce decisions we make but the underlying reasons for these decisions are more important than ever. Nothing is changing our country’s path to becoming a minority-majority country. While we don’t cross the actual threshold until 2042, economic conditions are impacting many of the multicultural communities at an even higher rate. Before the recession, we documented how language barriers, few proactive relationships, trust issues and knowledge gaps were threats to the safety of both first responders and their multicultural communities. These are now growing.

The diversity picture in the fire service is on an inverse trend compared to the diversity picture in our country and in our communities. Men of color and women are significantly under-represented, and more importantly, within the next five years, a large percentage of them will be retiring. We don’t seem to have learned the lessons of affirmative action. Diversity-related law suits are still happening.

These are just a few of the reasons why we believe that fire departments that respect, reflect and represent the communities they serve, especially during these tough economic times, are going to be more effective and ahead of the curve in both emergency services and prevention.

What ‘respect, reflect and represent’ mean

Respect does not mean treating everyone the same—respect is treating people the way they want to be treated. This has to do with the language we use, how we take into account people’s customs, how we accept those who are different from us. Respect means valuing one another in the department and in the community. Respect means understanding what’s important to different people and then providing them with services that meet their needs.  

Reflect is about the numbers of people of color and women in fire departments. Do these numbers reflect the same percentages in the community we’re serving? It may not be realistic to think that the percentages can be the same but it’s still incumbent upon departments to do a better job reflecting their customers—particularly with regard to increasing their number of qualified women.

Represent means that women firefighters and firefighters of color are actually coming from a department’s customer base. This is incredibly important. When firefighters represent the community, they know the local problems, they’re invested in keeping their neighborhoods safe, and they bring with them their social networks. This direct connection improves communication, trust and the development of proactive relationships. It’s also a powerful element during these tough economic times to ensure more support for local funding.

Staying focused on diversity has paybacks now that will also extend to the future

FIRE 20/20 is currently developing the training program, Recruiting & Retaining Diversity in The Fire Service^TM, which we plan to launch in 2010. One of the program’s mantras is: Relationships, relationships, relationships!

Relationships take time to build. Even though many departments have delayed their hiring because of budget cuts, relationships can still be developed. Time can be spent now educating and informing women and people of color so when the economy rebounds the fire service is in a great position to hire the most highly qualified candidates.

Identifying and developing relationships with both the formal and informal leaders in multicultural communities is a way to improve and increase both recruitment and prevention efforts.

FIRE 20/20 links targeted recruitment and prevention. We’re convinced that prevention is one of the best and most cost-effective recruitment strategies. Many departments struggling with a lack of financial resources are cutting non-emergency staff and unfortunately that ends up being those working in prevention. In reaching out to multicultural communities, fire departments can build partnerships for prevention and educate multicultural communities about fire department services and career opportunities. Successful partnerships for preventions help prevent emergencies from happening in the first place. Trusting relationships support recruitment efforts.

How my background and experience in social work and marketing shape my perspective

In my education and experience as a social worker, I was taught to look at problems using systems thinking. A system—whether it’s the fire service, a specific fire department or our family—is made up of component parts. When there are problems, a systems thinking approach requires understanding how each part relates to each other and to the whole. The goal is to get to the root issues and root causes rather than seek simple cause and effect solutions that tend to get us putting band aids on symptoms.

Let me use the example of testing to explain a systems thinking approach. Testing is very important and is a real issue. We have to be fair and we can’t lower standards. Some tests are better than others. Some have more adverse impact. Some have been around for a long time and are commonly accepted. But systems thinking opens our exploration and has us consider what’s happening to potential recruits before they ever come in to test. Likewise, it has us follow recruits after they’re hired. Is the environment welcoming and inclusive? Are there unwritten rules that are different from the written rules? Are job expectations in alignment with the actual job? Are we testing people to deal with problems today and ten years out, or are we testing people to be firefighters of the past?  

Another aspect of my social work background is community organizing—bringing people together to identify their commonalities and to act on these. From my perspective, community organizing goes hand-in-hand with recruitment and prevention. The power in community organizing comes from unifying around a project or cause for the common good and at all times respecting and appreciating others’ differences. Effective community organizing gets people to have ownership in the solutions. Effective community organizing is also empowering. FIRE 20/20’s programs for partnering for prevention and recruiting and retaining diversity model community organizing.

After I left the field of social work, I did marketing and sales. I carried over my systems thinking approach to problem-solving and found parallels between market research and community organizing. These experiences brought me to social marketing.

Marketing in the for-profit world involves the activities that get customers to value products and services so they’ll buy them. Central to the process is identifying customers’ needs and wants. The end result: Customers’ needs and wants are met and businesses make money. While social marketing may use the same activities as commercial marketing, its end result is to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good. Programs for getting us to wear seat belts, quit smoking, or eat healthier are examples of social marketing. Fire departments reaching out to their multicultural communities and building relationships is community organizing. Using those relationships to partner for the development of more effective prevention programs is social marketing.