TACKLING THE STANDARDS

TACKLING THE STANDARDS

TRAINING

Design and implement a current, effective training program before you find yourself making a goal-line stand.

The “standards crunch” has bombarded the fire service with so-called “mandates” from a slew of rule-making bodies. Mandates have increased pressure on the fire service manager. As one administrator put it, “With all the pressures from my demanding job, I don’t have the time or the energy to answer any more questions. Besides, I’m still trying to answer the question, ‘Why did I give up a good driver/engineer position to move up this brittle career ladder?’ ” The new standards have imposed new levels of accountability and responsibility that are felt departmentwide. The legal ramifications cascade downward throughout the entire organization and reverberate through each level to varying degrees. In light of this, the conscientious fire administrator must force himself to confront and analyze the questions, How can we establish, gauge, and maintain performance levels for each firefighter and fire officer position? What training programs will help our department to comply with the mandates? What type of training and recordkeeping will help place our department in a more legally defensibleposition by substantiating our actions as being reasonable and prudent when a lawsuit strikes?

PERFORMANCE STANDARDS

Often the answers to these questions are found in a properly designed training program. Training has long been recognized as tantamount to providing quality service to our changing communities; now it’s also one of the best ways to meet the standards crunch head-on. Such a program, particularly one with job-related performance standards, is a frontline defense in the era of mandates and legal liability, fistablishing and documenting a training phase dedicated to code and standard compliance will support your department’s stance in court and strengthen the brittle “career ladder”—or at least provide a safety net beneath it.

No matter what the size, manning levels, or response capabilities, every department should adopt training performance standards or design their own. However, remember that your original performance standards shouldn’t be in serious conflict with any standard of care that’s recognized on a federal or state level; for instance, your department’s standards for initial fire attack procedures should not flagrantly contradict NFFA Standard 1410. By the same token, your standards should reflect the characteristics of your department and the area it protects. A rural fire department wouldn’t have performance standards of high-rise operations or ship fires since there is no “real world” need for them, yet it must meet or exceed standards for rural water supply.

Many progressive fire departments already have developed performance standards that can be borrowed to fit another department’s needs. There are several benefits to such an approach: It eliminates the time-consuming efforts to arrive at a point already reached by another department; it gives you a fresh look at other training ideas; and it creates a rapport with other departments. Law enforcement has been sharing ideas for years and it often shows in consistency and coordinated efforts.

THE DEFENSIBLE PERFORMANCE STANDARD

What constitutes a strong, legally defensible performance standard training program?

• It serves as a basic skills and knowledge developer, refresher, and controller, specifically in the areas of service operations and risk management (safety level).
• Its training and drilling sessions maintain a specific, required level of job-related knowledge and skill that is measurable, with specific criteria for testing.
• The program improves service delivery capabilities by reinforcing what’s known as the “automatic skill reflex.” Time is “compressed” at emergencies; the only true way to overcome this is through effective, systematic training. The automatic skill reflex “expands” time by improving performance and making it second nature. Performance standards ensure personnel’s optimum output level by reinforcing tasks that must be performed quickly and efficiently. Safety and success are realized to a greater extent. Public relations and professional appearance are vastly improved when tasks are performed in an organized, skillful manner; it instills public confidence in the department.
• Its performance standards are specific to the duties of each department rank. Each rank should have a number of performance standards that are regularly required and tested or rated—the key standards more frequently than others.
• Its critical performance standards overlap from the ranks above and below to help prepare for temporary emergency vacancies. More important, from a long-term perspective they should prepare the emergency service member to perform effectively in the next higher rank. The critical performance standards should be the building blocks to a career path. They prepare individuals for promotions and can be used as criteria on promotion tests.
• Its performance records are a viable tool in employee evaluations. They help to eliminate subjective evaluations. Employee appraisals must be legally defensible in a court of law. Here are some suggestions to that end:
• Job performance appraisals must be based on a thorough job analysis as reflected in specific performance standards.
• Job performance appraisals only become reasonable when performance standards have been communicated to and understood by the employees.
• Individual dimensions of job performance should be clearly defined, specific, objective, and measurable rather than undefined and general. They should not be loose descriptions of overall performance. Appraisals should be behaviorally based, supported by objective, observable evidence. The language in your performance standards should not include abstract traits such as “honesty,” “loyalty,” and “attitude.”
• The appraisers of performance standards should have training in the use of appraisal techniques. They should have supervisory contact with employees and have the time to observe them in their performance of duties—more than just a few minutes in an eight-hour work period.
• The system should provide a mechanism for appeal should an employee disagree with a supervisor’s
• appraisal. It should be noted that many disgruntled employees have won litigations involving appraisals that leaned on highly subjective, opinion-based evaluations, especially when it concerns merit raises.
• Its performance standards often improve the overall morale, self-esteem, and professional image of emergency responders by enhancing the level of service delivery.

Expected service levels generally are perceived in three different ways by three different groups. The public often has a distorted view of the service delivery capabilities of its fire department; citizens may expect their local department to deliver a level of service comparable to that which they see on the TV nightly news, on TV shows dramatizing emergency response, and in movies in which there are ample firefighters performing various operations simultaneously.

Local governments are usually more realistic in their expectation of service delivery, but some fire administrators quite naturally exaggerate their department’s capabilities when faced with government managers who expect the proverbial blood from a stone. And if the local board doesn’t get what it wants, it might take an unfair and unrealistic stand to the effect of, “The neighboring communities can do it—why can’t our fire chief? Maybe we should get a chief who can do a competent job.” So the chief becomes a piece of rope in a game of tug-of-war.

The firefighters have a very realistic and frightening view of their capabilities or, shall we say, limited capabilities. It occurs far too often that just a pitiful few firefighters respond to, say, a structure fire late at night when everyone else is tucked into their warm beds. They’re asked to perform the impossible and may become injured because they overextend themselves. They work their hearts out and rarely get the appreciation they deserve because of many factors that set their service delivery capabilities at an unrealistic and unfair level. Too many times they receive criticism for jobs that were too much for any mortals to handle.

The safety of the public and its responders demands that we close the gap between what public and government perceive and what’s real. Performance standards will help validate the actual, realistic service delivery capabilities. This can be equated in a time vs. fire loss formula that’s part of a budget statement which clearly and publicly expresses department capabilities in terms of citizens rescued and property saved. It will help the citizens know what they can expect and help the firefighters know what’s expected of them—and it is not putting on a Superman cape.

1. Performance standards in the training program should help to coordinate team effort and overall efficiency. livery employee drilled with performance standards will know what to expect from each member of the team. Guessing how each member will react under certain situations will be reduced.
2. The effective performance standard training program creates a safety control, increasing organizational safety by reducing the margin of error that accompanies the lack of automatic skill reflex. Safety is one of the many areas that will require departmental changes in light of the new mandates. According to NFPA statistics, firefighter fatalities while in the line of duty average about one every three days (the national average for on-duty firefighter deaths over the past several years is approximately 125 annually). Certainly, some of these fatalities are unavoidable due to the risk factor in firefighting, yet many are due to the common error of lack of training. Performance standards may help to reduce this grave number by providing an automatic reflex response during an emergency. It will allow the responders to concentrate on hazards that might otherwise be overlooked, such as downed power lines, gas leaks, potential collapse, and so forth.

DEVELOPING PERFORMANCE STANDARDS

The key to the success of any new program is to get constructive input—both positive and negative— from those who will be using the system. That way it becomes everyone’s idea in a collective group effort. It improves the program, and it’s harder for people to criticize a program after it comes into effect if they were involved in establishing it.

Here are some recommendations, in addition to those listed previously, for conceiving and building an effective training program based on performance standards:

• First decide on the objectives of the organization. The performance standards should meet the organizational goals or the immediate or longterm department needs.
• Focus on the critical areas that require immediate training in the areas of safety and efficiency. Review NFPA 1500, 1501, and 472 to make certain that you integrate those stan-
• dards into your training program. Also follow closely the recognized authorities and standards of care already established in the training field.
• Make all performance standards job-related. There must be a clearly defined purpose that is applicable to the “real world.”
• If the performance standard requires a time-qualifying type of performance, the standard time should be determined by the departmental average time at the first qualifying session; from then on it should be used as the standard.
• All variables in testing must be controlled as much as possible.
• Do not punish employees who perform under par. They need to be issued a task prescription, supported by an additional training path to improve and requalify at a later date.
• The training test must not be a harrassment session, nor should it be
• a spectator sport. Keep the test group small, manageable, and motivated.
• Company officers should be trained to administer the test. They must be fair, firm, consistent, and capable.
• Safety must be a primary factor in all training activities. Speed of performance should never override safety.

Hopefully, you can strengthen that brittle ladder you’ve felt wobbling under the weight of change. A carefully designed training program will support your ladder. It will strengthen your department’s legal defense in a liability case by demonstrating a willingness—-an active attempt—to comply with new rules, regulations, and standards. It will support your position come budget time. It will improve public perception and pride and increase the self-image of the firefighters. Most important, it will increase fireground safety by improving the performance of your firefighters. It will prove to be your greatest defense against avoidable tragedies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berlinger, William M. Managerial and Supervisory Practice, Cases and Principles, 7th ed. Irwin-Dorsey Limited, Georgetown, Ontario, 1979. “Productivity: Improving Methods and Developing Performance Standards,” Chapter 8, pp. 226-261.

Buhs, Robert. “Minimizing Instructor Liability,” Fire Command (August 1988).

Coggan, Rand-Scott. “The Standards Crunch,” Fire Engineering (May 1989).

I.C.M.A. Managing the Fire Service. ICMA, Washington, D.C., 1979 “Training and Education,” Chapter 15.

National Fire Protection Association. National Fire Codes. NFPA, Quincy, Massachusetts, 1989.

Phelps, Burton W. and McDonald, Edward J. “The Model Incident Command System Series, Performance Standards,” Fire Engineering (November 1984).