PARTICIPATION IN THE PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE
BY WILLIAM L. BINGHAM
The organizational function of human resource management is more important today than ever. Participatory management needs to become more than a 1990s buzzword and must be allowed to evolve into realistic and practical application sufficient to deal with relative fire department problems. Consistent with other manufacturing and service industries, there has been over this same period of time a tremendous lack of interest in soliciting the input of employees and a comparably high regard for authoritarian control and power. The process of understanding the tenets of participatory management and empowerment include familiarization with associated terms, an appreciation of the fact that two centuries of antiquated management theory will not disappear overnight, and a mechanism for implementation that emphasizes communication and respect.
To allow the progression of the fire service into the 21st century, we must overcome traditional barriers to certain managerial theories that have evolved over the years. This is going to require the following three elements: the courage to occasionally make unpopular decisions, a keen sense of vision with emphasis on the mission of the organization, and the understanding that no organization will effectively survive without allowing input from all of its members. John F. Kennedy said, “The problems of the world cannot simply be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men (and women) who can dream of things that never were.”1 The collective principles of courage, vision, and participation apply as much to the fire service as to any other organization.
It is imperative that fire service leaders incorporate a plan of action relative to the demands of the service that includes a method of soliciting input from all employees. Inaction, reactionary response, and autocratic leadership are not choices when facing the problems of tomorrow. Contemporary problems place new demands on leaders. Innovation and participation will go a long way in solving these problems.
The world is now changing more rapidly than ever. The “protected- species” designation of the public sector emergency service provider is losing credibility in times of economic instability and subsequent service cost and tax increases. Today, governmental subdivisions such as police and fire departments are being closely scrutinized and held to an unprecedented high level of accountability. Rapid change and growing unpredictability are making it necessary to throw out old assumptions and traditional ways of doing business. We no longer can count on the past to guide us through the present and into the future.
Increasingly, organizational success will depend on being held accountable, fiscally responsible, and in touch with effective human resource management. The challenges for fire service organizations will continue to be quality enhancement, cost reduction, innovation, and rapid response.2
EMPLOYEE PARTICIPATION
One important component of effective human resource management deals with employee participation and empowerment. Participatory management is defined as a formal management practice that allows all employees an opportunity to participate in the organization`s decision-making process. Empowerment is defined as an enhanced form of participatory management that gives employees the authority, freedom, and responsibility to make job-related decisions.
From the vantage point of a fire service executive, this is an issue we all must recognize. As the role of the manager is constantly changing to meet the demands of the fire service in the 21st century, it is essential that “people issues” become a priority. The time is right for a sense of awareness of human resource principles and for implementing programs that enhance employee input and empower employees with the responsibility, freedom, and authority to assist in the organizational decision-making process.
Important to the task of developing participation among coworkers is motivation. Firefighters know what it takes to get a spark going, and they know what will douse a flame. All are not possessed by the same combustibility but with either high or low ignition points. They need an environment that motivates them. They need constant stimuli and encouragement from outside to thrive. Like all human beings, they are not self-sufficient.3 The previous statement emphasizes the need for encouragement, a void that can be appropriately filled by allowing an employee to participate in the decision-making process.
Greater involvement in workplace decisions is a growing trend. Organizations seeking to improve the quality of their products and services get their employees involved.4 In a chapter titled “Exercising Authority,” under the subheading “From Control to Commitment,” author Linda Hill in Becoming a Manager, Mastery of a New Identity, states that a primary aim of managers when they started in their new positions was learning how to exercise and gain control over their people. They were eager to exercise their formal authority and to implement their own ideas about how to run an effective organization. Hill goes on to explain that the primary reason for exerting control was to influence results.5 Ultimately, the managers found that while they were good at giving direction, few people seemed to be following their orders. The managers soon discovered that when subordinates were permitted to offer their thoughts and reactions to decisions, they were much more likely to do as they were asked.6
Based on a research project I conducted, there is an inverse relationship between the number of respondents indicating agreement with a participatory style of management and the actual number currently applying it. I think this underscores, to a large degree, a fundamental problem that exists within many fire organizations–specifically, many fire service leaders understand contemporary principles of managing; but for reasons both internal and external to the organization, they cannot effectively implement the process of empowerment. These findings correlate closely to findings in the literature reviewed, which tends to stress the importance of attitude readjustment and education relating to human resource refinement in the fire service.
When evaluating the result of participatory practices currently in effect, a majority of organizations are experiencing favorable and even exceptional results. This is encouraging and should serve as an incentive for organizations that do not apply this concept. It is also interesting to note that many of the obstacles to implementation are exactly those concerns that many experts claim will disappear once programs such as those advocating employee participation commence.7
As the economy continues to change, as “downsizing” and “rightsizing” continue, and as public service entities such as the fire service continue to be held more accountable to the people they serve, it is going to become more important than ever to empower employees with the authority, freedom, and responsibility to continue to get the job done in the most economically feasible way possible.
BENEFITS OF EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT
Employee participation and empowerment promise improved quality, productivity, employee morale, and motivation.8 It is possible for employees to initiate change. “Empowerment means giving everyone, instead of just people with certain positions or job titles, the legitimate right to make judgments, form conclusions, reach decisions, and then act,” notes Judith Bardwick, a management consultant, in Danger in the Comfort Zone (AMACOM, 1991).
Organizations need to recognize that employee participation is now at center stage and offer more democracy within the workplace.
The benefits the fire service can derive from empowerment programs are endless. Following are two examples of how such programs can enhance an area and foster a feeling of responsibility and self-worth among employees:
Safety. Input into and development of procedures that assist in providing a safer working environment, such as recommendations for equipment/vehicle modification, protective clothing/equipment specifications, personnel accountability systems, training safety guidelines and procedures, and issues dealing with bloodborne pathogens and infectious-disease control.
Incident command procedure. Input into and development of safe and effective operating procedures for all types of responses. Incorporation of applicable sections of NFPA 1500 to the greatest extent possible. Also, suggestions may relate to response plant that guarantee adequate personnel and allow for backup as well as a mechanism for rehabilitation and stress debriefing.
An important component of any participatory process is assurance of complete commitment from management, without which this valuable means of sharing information will fail.
I have attempted to identify some existing issues, both perceptual and real, regarding the assimilation of employee participation techniques into the workplace. The time has come to put our egos on the shelf and begin to use our most valuable resource, our employees. n
Endnotes
1. Cleveland, Edward A, “Viewing Your Vision: Paths of Leaders and Manager,” The Voice, International Society of Fire Service Instructors, Mar. 1992, 8.
2. Schuler, Randall S. and Vandra L. Huber. Personnel and Human Resource Management, 5th ed. (West Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minn., 1993), 77.
3. Casey, James F. The Fire Chief`s Handbook, 4th ed. (Fire Engineering Books, New York, N.Y., 1987), 59.
4. Schuler and Huber, 47.
5. Cox, C.J., C.L. Cooper. High Flyers, An Anatomy of Managerial Success. (Basil Blackwell, New York, N.Y., 1988), 59.
6. Hill, Linda A. Becoming a Manager, Mastery of a New Identity. (Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass., 1992), 106.
7. Bingham, William L. Analysis of Employee Participation and Empowerment. National Fire Academy Resource Center, Emmitsburg, Md., Oct. 1993, 10-11.
8. Schuler and Huber, 48.
WILLIAM L. BINGHAM, a 19-year veteran of the fire and emergency medical services, is deputy chief of the Sunrise (FL) Fire-Rescue Department. A nationally registered paramedic, he has associate`s degrees in fire science technology and in emergency medical services, has a bachelor`s degree in political science, has completed the requirements of the executive fire officer program at the National Fire Academy, and is pursuing a master`s degree in public administration at St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida. He is a paramedic instructor at Broward Community College in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
