Succession Planning 101: Are We Doing the Best We Can for Our Personnel?

BY STEVE PRZIBOROWSKI

It is not uncommon to hear the term “succession planning” thrown around in today’s fire service, but is it truly occurring or is it just lip service? It’s quite possible that some of you may not know the term because it is not occurring in your fire department. I thought the concept was universally understood and practiced in the fire service until I taught a class on it and a number of fire service personnel asked, “What is succession planning?” Even after I explained it, it seemed like a foreign language to them based on the follow-up questions and “deer in the headlight” looks I received. Those reactions only reinforce the need for understanding fire service succession planning.

Further discussion revealed that departments of these firefighters were doing nothing even close to succession planning. In essence, succession planning is preparing our department’s future leaders to actually do the jobs we expect them to do and to fill the spots we need them to fill, which may occur sooner than they or the department may expect because of numerous factors that may be out of everyone’s control. Private industry has been practicing succession planning for years to ensure the next leader is always ready to step into a certain position, not just the top position.

I bet I could ask someone from every fire department across the country the following three questions and get at least one “yes” answer:

1 Does your department face decreasing numbers of personnel who are qualified for and interested in promotion or going into staff assignments?

2 Does your department face (or is it at least considering) hiring company or chief officers from the outside because there are not enough interested or qualified individuals from within your department interested in moving up the ranks?

3 Does your department respond to fewer fires or significant incidents?

Fire departments across the country appear to face decreasing numbers of personnel who are qualified for and interested in promoting or going into staff assignments. Why? Well, there are a variety of reasons I hear consistently that include, among others: They do not want to leave their great fire station assignment and their great crew; the extra headaches and responsibility are not worth it; they like being on a shift schedule that offers more time off than a 40-hour week does; they can make more money in overtime at the lower ranks than at the higher ranks; they enjoy the union representation that the lower ranks provide; and more.

Because of many of the above reasons, more fire departments across the country are forced to hire chief officers and even company officers from other fire departments because there are not enough internal candidates interested in and, more importantly, qualified and ultimately prepared to participate and succeed in the promotional process or to excel in the position for which they are applying.

Consider that the firefighter you bring on the job today is the company or chief officer of tomorrow. If that sounds strange, you are not completely aware of the benefits of succession planning. If a firefighter aspires to be a chief officer, it is critical that that member start out preparing for that path at the beginning of his career. We should not rush them through the process; it should be a steady pattern of growth and preparation. The department should also provide such members with a road map they can use to prepare and to determine where they may be the best fit in the future years of their career.

Does this sound familiar? We bring someone on the job as an entry-level firefighter. We put that person through a probationary period that typically lasts anywhere from one to two years when we routinely evaluate him. Then, he gets off probation and really never gets any more training and education (except for the handful of mandated training items that need to occur or have the box checked on), unless he is proactive or the supervisors are dialed in. Unfortunately, this seems to happen more often than not, and it does not always lead to success in getting personnel prepared for future promotional and lateral assignments.

What is succession planning? Per IFSTA Chief Officer (second edition), it is “a proactive approach that ensures that personnel hired, trained and promoted today will have the skills to meet the challenges of tomorrow. It involves matching the job requirements with the skills of the applicants for the position.”

Why is succession planning so critical? Succession planning is critical for a number of reasons that have been mentioned above but also for the following reasons: It allows a fire department to promote interested and qualified personnel from inside the department and not to have to go to the outside; it increases morale; it ensures you can fill key roles and positions, such as chief of department, fire marshal, training chief, assistant chief, deputy chief, battalion chief, company officer, engineer, and so forth; it reduces the chances of promoting unprepared or unqualified individuals; and it decreases the “great badge giveaway effect” that many departments have when they have more positions than people on an eligibility list (meaning everyone gets promoted whether you are the top scorer on the list or just barely squeaked by with a minimum passing score).

If you’re still not convinced that succession planning is so critical, I’ll share two tragic events that have occurred and let you make your own decision.

On April 10, 2010, a Polish government plane carrying most of the key officials crashed, killing all 96 people on board. The dead included the Polish president, the former president, the chief of the Polish General Staff, senior Polish military officers, Poland’s deputy foreign minister, 15 members of the Polish parliament, senior members of the Polish clergy, the president of the National Bank of Poland, and other government officials. What a leadership vacuum that tragedy caused! How does an agency make up for such an immediate loss of leadership? It’s one thing for the president to suddenly die or announce his retirement and then the next-in-line official steps up on at least an interim basis until someone else can get appointed to the position. It’s another thing to lose a significant chunk of your leadership and expect the bus to continue rolling down the street (without the wheels falling off), following the preestablished route to ensure the goals and objectives of the organization or agency continue to be met, at least in the short term.

On September 11, 2001, the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) lost 343 members on that one tragic day, including more than 80 company or chief officers. These numbers don’t even take into account the thousands of other FDNY members from all ranks who have since retired, especially soon thereafter. Normally, it is not a problem to have to replace a chief or company officer who is retiring under normal circumstances, especially since most fire departments typically have a current list of eligible individuals ready to step up to accept the promotion. However, in this case, something tells me there were more badges than individuals on eligibility lists, which may have required a lot of field promotions, unplanned promotional examinations, or promotions of individuals who may not have necessarily wanted the promotion under these circumstances or at that time in their career. That is in no way meant to discredit or demean those individuals who received either acting or permanent promotions based on the tragedy that struck the FDNY on 9/11. Some of those promoted individuals may have wanted to spend more time in the lower ranks before pursuing a promotion, but that may not have been an option, given the immediate need for leadership in various ranks. Who would have ever expected such a significant loss or impact to a department? The point is that most if not all fire departments could not have ever forecasted such a significant loss to their department and their leadership at one specific point in time.

Who is responsible for succession planning? Many fire service personnel seem to think that the chief of department or the fire administration is responsible to ensure succession planning. Although there is some truth to that, in reality it is everyone’s responsibility to perform, practice, and accept that succession planning is a critical part of their daily operations. Even the newly hired firefighters are obligated to mentor and guide those who will be hired after them, which could be as soon as six months or one year in many departments. Most fire departments today are so short staffed or find themselves with such limited funding that they are barely surviving and doing the bare minimum just to survive.

To many, succession planning is a waste of time, costs too much money, requires too many staff members, or just doesn’t have a place when considering all of the other duties and responsibilities most of us are just barely completing. Although it is true that it takes time, energy, and effort (and sometimes money) to ensure it occurs, there are many creative ways to accomplish succession planning-many of which may not require any additional funding.

Below are 17 keys to succession planning any fire department can use to ensure its personnel are properly prepared for the challenges they may be faced with in the future.

• Ensure senior staff support. By senior staff, I mean the chief, the assistant chief, the deputy chief, and any other member at or above battalion or district chief who is one of the key decision-making members of a fire department. The senior staff members must be willing to support succession planning 100 percent by walking the walk and talking the talk and, more importantly, by continuously mentoring, training, and educating the personnel in the lower ranks. Additionally, it is critical that they do not put all of their eggs into one basket. They cannot focus primarily on one person to be the next chief or the next assistant chief; they must have at least three personnel in mind who are interested and, more importantly, qualified to step into the senior staff ranks. If we put all of our eggs into one basket, what happens when that person suddenly retires, has a change of heart about getting promoted, or drops dead? Or, even worse, what if that person no longer appears to be the “best fit” for the position because of some inappropriate actions or situations he may have become involved in?
• Create a starting point. Now that you have senior staff support, the next key is to create a starting point. Although one person’s plan may sound like a great idea, it is best to get key stakeholders involved early. Such persons include, among others, personnel of all ranks and years of experience, from those recently hired to retired personnel, who have valuable years of experience to share. Ensure there is buy-in with your labor organization or firefighters association, and allow it a voice in the process from the start, since they can make or break the process. Ensure you have support from elected/appointed officials, especially if they need to ultimately approve any plan created and budgetary requests the plan requires. Once you have identified the key stakeholders, have this group define succession planning so everyone is on the same page. In addition, determine the advantages and disadvantages of succession planning to help encourage and drive the brainstorming that will lead to the beginning of an extremely valuable tool that can provide tremendous value to your organization now and in the future.
• Do your research. Before you dive headfirst into this process and possibly waste everyone’s time, thoroughly research the process to ensure you’re not reinventing the wheel. Be careful, though: Don’t just take someone else’s succession plan and place your logo over it; that defeats the purpose of the whole process. Find out what other fire departments have done and are doing; look outside the fire service to other governmental agencies as well as private industry, and you will find plenty of information to learn from. The Internet is an incredible tool, especially since many agencies may provide information about their plans and additional contacts for follow-up. The National Fire Academy (NFA) Learning Resource Center Web site (http://www.lrc.fema.gov/index.html) can provide you with countless resources in the form of related articles and applied research projects other fire service professionals have completed. Once you have completed your research, you can then begin creating your succession plan with the help of a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis. You can focus your SWOT analysis on where your department is and where it needs to be in the future.
• Create a career development guide. A career development guide can help define the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) for every rank and position within your organization. Chances are your organization already has job descriptions for each position, so you don’t have to start from scratch. Take this information as a starting point. A career development guide should give any employee a road map of sorts of how to get from A to Z. If I am a newly hired firefighter who aspires to the position of chief, training officer, fire marshal, or company officer, what do I need to do to get there? More importantly, how can I succeed once I get there? The problem is that a job description by itself usually states the minimum education and experience qualifications and lists the KSAs that may not mean much at my current rank. The International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) Officer Development Handbook (ODH) is a great starting point. It identifies the four levels of fire officer (supervising fire officer, managing fire officer, administrative fire officer, and executive fire officer) as determined by National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1021, Standard for Fire Officer Professional Qualifications, and offers suggested areas of education (including courses), certifications, experience (on and off duty), and self-development. A career development guide should cover every rank, recognize that there is more than one path to follow to attain a specific rank or position, and be a living document. Too often, documents are finalized and end up in a binder on the shelf and are never updated. A document like this needs to be updated regularly since information can and does change.
• Locate future leaders. Although this can be challenging, it is sometimes obvious. Although some personnel will make it known through their actions or what they write or say that they aspire to a certain rank or position, some personnel keep their career aspirations secret. For those who have not passed previous promotional examinations, try to find out why. Now, what they say vs. what the examination results and notes say may be different (there are always two sides to every story). Find out what type of individual and career development training they feel they need to succeed at the next promotional examination.
  Ask those who have not even taken promotional examinations or lateral assignments (such as a fire station company officer working as the company officer assigned to the training division on a 40-hour week) but whom you feel may perform well in another rank or position what’s keeping them from getting promoted or taking that lateral assignment. I’ve heard some people say they took a promotional examination or a lateral assignment because someone of a higher rank took interest in them and inspired and motivated them. These senior members took the time to ask these firefighters to put in for the promotion because they had faith that these members would be a great fit for that position. Sometimes, people need a little nudge to get out of their comfort zone. Be careful, though: If senior staff is going to encourage the lower ranks to take promotional exams, they must encourage every eligible member, or such encouragement may be perceived as playing favorites. On the flip side, neither do you want personnel taking promotional examinations only because the chief asked them to do so and they feel obligated, though they don’t want the position. They could be jeopardizing themselves and others.
• Create individual development plans. Once you have created a general career development policy that any department member can use as a starting point or as a road map for success, you must now work with and guide that member in the right direction. Every firefighter has a slightly different life experience, on-the-job experience, education, training, and challenges in their personal lives that may take away much of their off-duty time and not allow them to properly prepare for future department opportunities. Individual development plans can include working with a member of a higher rank to practice managing potential emergency incidents through simulations; managing potential personnel problems through role-play exercises or video vignettes; mentoring and coaching from other fire service professionals of higher ranks-from inside and outside of the same fire department; targeted training and education coursework specific to a certain discipline or subject area in which the individual may be weak; and specific job-related assignments that are provided to increase the individual’s knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) in an area he may be deficient in.
• Create experience opportunities. There are numerous experience opportunities an organization can provide. Some examples include riding along with other fire departments, especially those in larger cities that may respond to more incidents and offer more experienced individuals to serve as mentors; job shadowing-i.e., doubling up with someone in a higher rank so you can actually “walk a day in their shoes” to learn what they do; lateral assignments or job rotations where personnel are brought in from the fire station to the administrative office for a certain time (three months to two years) to diversify their KSAs and make them more well-rounded; assigning special projects to manage and see from start to finish under the guidance of a higher ranking individual; promotional opportunities; and undergoing regular performance evaluations where a higher ranking individual (typically the direct supervisor) can sit down and provide feedback for improvement and assist with goal setting for the next year.
• Create or inform others of training and education opportunities. Numerous training and education opportunities are available to fire service personnel of all ranks. Examples include college coursework toward a two-year (associate), four-year (bachelor’s), as well as graduate (master’s) degrees; local, regional, state, and national officer academies; and fire service conferences such as the Fire Department Instructors Conference. Local leadership academies many city and county governmental agencies participate in provide students with the opportunity to meet and work with other students who may not be in the fire service but will interact with them in their day-to-day operations such as law enforcement, public works, and senior city/county staff members. The NFA offers numerous courses for all ranks of personnel; more importantly, students only pay for the meal ticket. Command Training Centers assist fire officers of all ranks with obtaining experience in managing the emergency scene and practicing for the next “big one” in a controlled setting. Even if your department doesn’t have access to a full-blown Command Training Center like those in Phoenix, Arizona, and the Sacramento (CA) Metropolitan Fire District, there are many ways to practice incident management skills. It can be as simple as watching videos or viewing pictures from the Internet or the latest training videos from Fire Engineering to viewing simulations on the Fire Engineering Web site to building simulations with software.
• Ensure personnel are involved with associations and organizations. This doesn’t mean paying your dues to get a card that says you are a card-carrying NFPA member. Encourage personnel to read the organization’s membership newsletters and get more involved by attending meetings, joining the executive board, or at least writing articles for the newsletters or assisting in some capacity to make the association better. Associations are typically in place to do something for the greater good of their area of expertise. Involvement can provide valuable education and training, not to mention developing networking, mentoring, and leadership skills.
• Ensure personnel subscribe to e-mail lists and related publications. Although I use the words “e-mail lists,” realize in today’s world of technology there are numerous outlets for information besides e-mail, such as Twitter and Facebook. As a fire service professional, use as many means as possible to stay up to date. For fire service publications, Fire Engineering contains a wealth of information every month that is a valuable resource to fire service personnel of all ranks. For e-mail mailing lists, Fire Engineering offers a free service that provides multiple e-mails per week of fire service news and events. Other great fire service-related e-mail lists include those offered through the United States Fire Administration (www.usfa.fema.gov/), which provide firefighter fatality notifications, training and education information and opportunities, and public educational items; Firefighter Close Calls (www.firefighterclosecalls.com), which offers training- and safety-related information; the Firefighter Near-Miss Reporting System (www.firefighternearmiss.com), which offers training and safety information; and the Daily Dispatch (www.dailydispatch.com), which provides daily fire service news items from the states you choose and includes a highlight of the key national news stories from all 50 states. Local media outlets such as newspapers and television stations also typically offer free information delivery through a variety of technologies.
• Encourage credentialing. Credentialing can typically be found at the state and the national levels. Some examples typically found at the state level include firefighter 1 and 2, fire officer 1, fire instructor 1, and fire inspector 1. At the national level, you can complete the company officer (CO) designation, the chief fire officer (CFO) designation, or the chief medical officer (CMO) designation through the Commission on Professional Credentialing or complete the Executive Fire Officer Program at the NFA in Emmitsburg, Maryland. In California, there is the California Incident Command Certification System (CICCS) based on the Federal “Red Card system” of certifications and qualifications for wildland fire responders. For example, through CICCS, many departments encourage and require their company officers and chief officers to be certified and qualified in various incident command system positions such as strike team leader, safety officer, and incident commander because it is common for resources to travel throughout the state through mutual aid when significant incidents occur. Additionally, there is the Blue Card system that has been created by Chief (Retired) Alan Brunacini, along with his sons Nick and John Brunacini, to address the type 4 and 5 incidents that make up the majority of responses for departments across the country and to ensure that local responders are provided with initial and continuing education in managing an incident.
• Encourage participation in promotional processes. Some of the best experience I have gained to be better at my current position or to help prepare me for a future position has been by participating as a candidate in a promotional examination or as a rater for a promotional examination. Every time I have been a candidate going through a promotional examination in my fire department, I have learned more about my strengths and weaknesses, not to mention how to be better at my current position and the position I aspired to. Why? Because participating in a promotional process forces the candidate to study and prepare for the rigors of the process and be prepared to handle any situation thrown at him. When a fire department has a promotional examination, it is not uncommon to ask neighboring or out-of-the-area fire departments to provide personnel at least one rank above the rank being tested for to serve as raters or evaluators. It’s one thing to be in the hot seat as a candidate taking a promotional examination; it’s another thing to be a rater or proctor on a promotional examination.
• Create a mentoring program. Regardless of whether your fire department has established a formal mentoring program, mentoring, at least informally, is always occurring. In mentoring, someone typically of a higher rank takes someone of lower rank under his wing to provide guidance, answer questions, be a listener, and basically be a resource during that person’s career. Think of the terms “father figure” or “big brother” or “big sister”; that what a mentor is.
• Create position task books. The task book is a tool that evaluates an individual in specific competencies necessary to function in a certain position. It can be used for all ranks of fire service personnel. In the past, when students of a class such as emergency medical technician (EMT) passed the course with the minimum required score, they were considered “certified” in that area. However, times have shown that certification alone does not guarantee competency or retention. For example, think back to many of the classes such as EMT you may have taken over the years. After the last day of class, how long did it take you to start losing that knowledge and for your skills to get rusty if you did not practice or reread the material? My guess is very soon after the class ended, you probably forgot most of the material. But wait, you were “certified,” weren’t you? Well, the old concept of “pay the fee, get the B” does not always work. The key to certification is to take it to the next step and also to get “qualified.” To get qualified, you also must complete a task book specific to the position you aspire to become certified in or promoted to. The task book comes into play because to open up a task book, the individual now has to have a person who is already qualified in that position sign off on the individual’s competency in all of the necessary KSAs for the position. For example, in my department, we created separate task books for probationary and volunteer firefighters, apparatus operators, individuals aspiring to drive and operate each of our truck companies, acting captains, and acting battalion chiefs. To open up a task book for a specific position, the individual must first meet the position’s minimum qualifications. Probationary firefighters receive theirs when they complete the recruit academy and are required to complete the task book prior to completing probation. The same goes for the apparatus operator-related jobs and even the captain and battalion chief jobs. Captains who aspire to be battalion chiefs receive the task book when they meet the minimum qualifications to participate in the battalion chief promotional examination, and a battalion chief must sign off on all of the related competencies prior to these captains functioning as acting or promoted battalion chiefs. Requiring an individual to complete the task book prior to taking the promotional exam increases that person’s chances for success since he has a road map of what to best prepare for in the position he aspires to.
• Cooperate with others. Take the time to talk to and possibly partner with others, such as other fire departments, local colleges, other governmental agencies, private industry, and even retired personnel. Reasons for partnering could include using them for their technical expertise; having them provide instructors for training and educational classes; having them as mentors for your personnel; providing them with specific services such as teaching classes for which only your department has qualified personnel-e.g., providing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)/first-aid training or fire extinguisher classes to private industry and, in exchange, they could provide you with some type of service such as classroom space to hold classes or to benefit from their expertise in a specific area you may not have access to. For example, our department routinely shares our personnel with other departments to teach classes for which they do not have qualified instructors; in return, they provide instructors we don’t have in our department. Another example is the use of an assistant city manager from one of the cities we serve to provide harassment training; in return, we provide instructional services in personal emergency preparedness training and other related emergency management activities. No one department has qualified instructors in every subject. Retirees are also typically an underused resource who can provide valuable mentoring and guidance to members of all ranks.
• Focus on the “here and now.” Fire department leaders face numerous challenges, including budgets, labor/management, community relations, community expectations, the increased use of social media, disaster planning, emergency management, and ultimately having to do what we do with less. More than likely, all of these challenges will be here for years to come; hence, incorporate training and experience for these areas into your succession plan not only to assist the future leaders but also so the current personnel of all ranks can better understand the challenges we face.
• Evaluate the plan. Many plans fail because of the lack of an appropriate evaluation. Evaluation means asking others what has worked, what hasn’t worked, and performing a SWOT analysis. There are numerous ways to do an evaluation, including using anonymous Internet surveys, personal interviews, and focus groups. Evaluation is meant to be an ongoing process, not just something that occurs in five years or within a specified time frame. It is critical to constantly revisit your succession plan and obtain feedback from all ranks of personnel on a regular basis, using their comments to review and modify the plan as needed.

Ultimately, it is critical that the fire department culture support succession planning. Culture is an interesting word and can be very tough to define. Each fire department has its own culture-good, bad, or indifferent. Unfortunately, if the culture doesn’t support succession planning, it will be very tough to sustain and succeed in the long run.

Besides being the right thing to do, succession planning ensures the success of your organization for years to come, enabling it to weather any storms or road bumps that may occur. If a majority of your key leadership positions were to suddenly become vacant as a result of retirements or a tragedy such as a terrorist attack, can your fire department survive? Only you can answer that question. Do not put all of your eggs into one basket and hope for miracles. Just remember the old saying, “If we fail to plan, then it is certain that we plan to fail!”

● STEVE PRZIBOROWSKI is a deputy chief for the Santa Clara County (CA) Fire Department and has served in the fire service for more than 20 years. He has been an adjunct faculty member at the Chabot College (CA) Fire Technology Program since 1993, is a past president of the Northern California Training Officers Association, and was named the 2008 Ed Bent California Fire Instructor of the Year. He is a state-certified Master Instructor, has a master’s degree in emergency services administration, is a graduate of the Executive Fire Officer Program at the National Fire Academy, and has received Chief Fire Officer Designation through the Commission on Professional Credentialing. He has authored numerous articles in the fire service publications and is a speaker at fire service events across the country.