I recently attended an online class given by a large human resources company on the topic of workplace etiquette. I thought it would be good to get a wider perspective on this topic that could potentially be applied to the fire service. I expected to come away from the class with some new information and insights about how to increase civility and cooperation in the workplace that would benefit those who work in emergency services.
Those expectations were not met.
The majority of the class talked about how to develop and enforce dress codes at work and how it might be helpful for managers to “dress down” when dealing with those who work in jobs that focus on manual labor. There was some talk about how to manage last-minute time off requests. There was a self-congratulatory discussion about how to make the employees’ handbook more appealing, including a discussion about how one organization created a meme named Polly C (Polly C = policy; get it?) to introduce new HR policies.
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In other words, this class had zero applicability to fire and emergency services. In fact, I could see firefighters gagging (or worse) in response to the course content. And that is often the reaction to HR by people in those fields.
Working in HR can be tough. The job, which often doesn’t pay very well, has expanded dramatically in the past decade with attention to infectious disease protocols, workplace violence prevention, remote work standards, changing laws, and backlash against DEI initiatives. One attendee at an HR conference said while most HR professionals go into the field to be helpful, “a lot of employees look at us as inherently evil.”
In my experience, this is certainly true among firefighters. And if not evil, then simply irrelevant and annoying, like a buzzing fly that must be dealt with before more important work can begin.
This is unfortunate for several reasons. First, HR is not going away. They fill a key role legally and functionally within organizations, government and other entities. Most HR professionals are well trained and a valuable potential resource. But they are also by necessity generalists, and that does not work well when coordinating with more specialized workers such as emergency responders.
I have had experience with HR staffers who did not know what shifts firefighters worked, or how they scheduled time off. They had no idea of the stresses they faced or their unusual working conditions. This basic disconnect led to a credibility gap that made any further interaction essentially useless.
Can this gap be bridged? I believe it can, with effort on both sides. HR professionals need to understand the working conditions and needs of all their constituents. They need to reach out to all departments under their purview and take the time to comprehend the unique challenges those workers face. Training and onboarding for HR personnel should include personal contact with all departments they oversee and clear understanding of the different working conditions and challenges that workers face.
But such outreach cannot be unilateral. Fire service leaders need to welcome HR individuals into their workplace to better understand fire department members and their needs. This can happen on several different levels, but just having an HR staffer do a full day ride along would probably be enlightening and increase communication and empathy. Assigning a higher-level officer as the HR liaison would establish a known communication route that could be used for both routine information sharing as well as crisis intervention. Having firefighters at all levels participate in committees or work groups as equal members with others from different departments can provide an opportunity to get to know people in a less formal and potentially adversarial setting.
The bottom line is that fire departments need to have a good working relationship with HR. There will be times when members need expert advice or support, whether it be for resolving a workplace dispute or unraveling employee benefits. HR professionals have some expertise (and power) that most fire service members do not have, and having access to that knowledge in a collaborative forum can be invaluable. It benefits no one when interdependent agencies continue to have adversarial relationships – both sides of the equation are responsible for doing better.
