How can We Improve Morale from the Ground Up?

Below is a list of ideas to improve morale. Some might make minor dents in the problem; Others might make a huge difference. Most of these will work in all types of Fire and/or EMS Departments.

Professionalism

•Look professional
•Act professional
•Be professional
•Be positive, smile, and laugh often
•Leave your ego at home

Camaraderie

•Hang out together on duty: Eat together, workout together, train together. Get together before/after morning checks to discuss local news, what everyone did on their day(s) off etc.
•Hang out together off duty: Have your coworkers over for dinner and include their families. Get together at a local park for a picnic.
•Invite another firehouse over for a friendly game of basketball, training, corn hole, or dinner.
•Be positive: Be nice, be friendly, be a friend. Not everyone has the best days every day at the firehouse…some have to ride the medic unit time to time!
•Motivate others: Be mindful of the strengths and weaknesses of others.

Company Pride

•Create a logo or mascot for your firehouse. Get patches, shirts, coins, chips, and/or stickers made. (NM-Coin.com for coins and TheChipSite.com for chips)
•Build a custom firehouse kitchen table. (examples here)
•Have Wall Shields make you a custom wall shield for your firehouse. They do kitchen tables too!
•Clean all of the tools on your rig together. Paint them up in a paint scheme unique to your firehouse.
•Check out FirehousePride.com for some other examples.
•Look and dress professional. Lose the “I fight what you fear” or “Big Johnson” t-shirt and where a uniform shirt with the rest of the crew.
•Check out “Turning a Fire Station into a Firehouse”
•Check out my firehouses custom kitchen table here
•Social Media: Create a Facebook page, twitter account, instagram account, blog, or other social media account for your firehouse and/or fire department. Share information that other firefighters might enjoy as well as the community. Show off your pride, invite the community into your firehouse. Create communication, relationships, and conversation with others. Be seen!
•Open House: Have an open house annually or each month for your community to come in and see their firehouse!

Training

•Territory: Put a map up and see how much each person can get. Then go out and drive it. Pay attention to hydrants, long hose lays, building construction, oddities.
•Equipment: Go over new equipment and old equipment. Get it off the rig and go over it with everyone. You might know something others don’t and vice versa.
•Tools: Discuss what tools you have and why. Discuss other uses for tools and identify tools you might like to have on your apparatus…then try to acquire them.
•Apparatus: Quiz each other on what gear is in which compartment on the apparatus. This will bring everyone up to speed on where things are properly placed.
•Formal Classes: Keep an eye out for available classes in your area and encourage your Brothers and Sisters to attend the class with you.
•Informal Classes: Identify topics your company wants to learn and refresh on. Then, identify different company members to teach the classes to the company. Follow through and schedule the classes on duty.
•Critiques: When you get back from the big one, schedule a critique in the firehouse of the incident. Be positive, use constructive criticism when needed, and identify areas that your company needs to train on more often.

Apparatus

•Wash the rig when it needs it.
•Clean the dash and vacuum and/or wash out the interior regularly. Fire apparatus can get real dirty real quick. The same with EMS apparatus.
•Wash out the compartments regularly.
•Thoroughly check the apparatus each day.
•Identify issues and make corrections and/or write it up for future maintenance.

Firehouse Integrity

•Don’t complain about other shifts at shift change. If there is a complaint, take it to your company officer to handle.
•Clean up after yourself.
•Clean as you expect the other crews to clean when you aren’t there.
•Leave the firehouse and apparatus cleaner than it was the day before.
•Get a subscription to fire service magazines and leave them around the firehouse for others to read.

Speak up, listen, and understand

•Speak up for yourself. Make yourself heard when you need to.
•Listen when others are speaking. Listen to other ideas.
•Understand what others are saying and why they are saying it.

Health and Fitness

•Workout together. Change up the workouts to the needs of your company.
•Eat healthy foods. Cook things that everyone enjoys, but make it healthy.
•Workout on your days off. Some of the guys in my department get together to ride bikes on our greenway, run 5k races, and workout at the local gym together.
•Be positive. Understand that not everyone is trying to kill it in the gym. The fact that some are in the gym is a huge improvement for some.

Probably the biggest thing you can do is have a positive attitude…which is also one of the hardest when morale is low.