Although the majority of senior positions in the fire service continue to be filled by individuals who have come up through the ranks, there often seems to be distance and differences between administrative staff and front-line personnel. Far too often I have heard comments about chief officers by front-line personnel like “he forgot where he came from” or “she used to be one of us.” On the flip side, I've heard senior staff say “they don't understand what we do up here” or “the line workers are out of touch with reality.”

There's often an us-versus-them mentality and a sense of working at cross purposes rather than as a team. Effective fire service leaders need to recognize the differences and barriers that exist between the administrative staff and front-line personnel, and make a concerted effort to overcome obstacles and manage the relationship on a regular and ongoing basis in a thoughtful and proactive manner.

The term “glass ceiling” was coined back in the 1970s as a metaphor to depict the obstacles faced by women attempting to climb the corporate ladder. In the fire service we have a similar term called the “glass partition.” This refers to the separation between the administration and the front lines — the white shirts and the blue shirts. While this term, like glass ceiling, is metaphorical in nature, it is often literal as well. Front-line personnel seeking to meet with or interact with senior officers often bump into a glass partition, or even a brick partition, that separates them from the administration.

In my experience as an emergency services educator and consultant, I've had the opportunity to visit many fire departments across the United States and around the world. A great number of the departments I have visited have partitions that are tangible. Most departments that have their headquarters attached to or a part of a working fire station typically have separate entrances, and or some sort of barriers or security doors that prevent line personnel from gaining ready access to the administrative offices of the department.

I have heard a variety of explanations for this arrangement. Many headquarters stations are built in inner-city locations or rough parts of town, and it is rationalized that there needs to be some barriers to prevent undesirable people from walking in off the street. There are also issues around station security when line personnel are out on calls, which necessitates separate entrances and locked doors. And then there's the explanation that senior administrative staff members have busy schedules and can't be disturbed by line personnel looking to visit or socialize. Regardless of the reasons cited, the reality is that the glass partition — both figurative and literally — is often a major obstacle to meaningful and respectful relationships between senior administration and front line personnel.

Understanding difference

One of the first steps in developing a plan to overcome the problems with relations between administrative staff and front-line personnel is to gain an understanding of the inherent differences. In his analysis of the London Fire Brigade in Working, Graeme Salaman identified three key factors that create differences between the administration and front-line personnel: geographical, temporal, and task orientations.

Geographical

Most fire departments have a number of stations strategically located around their jurisdiction. In my former department we had a coverage area of 276 square miles and 24 different stations. Although the department headquarters was centrally located in an active station in the downtown core, there were significant geographical distances between headquarters and the various stations. This poses major challenges to communication and to regular interaction between the administrative staff and front-line personnel.

Temporal

In most fire service organizations, front-line personnel work shifts. Administrative staff, on the other hand, typically work eight-hour days with weekends and holidays off. This creates a number of challenges. One is trying to match schedules. A line officer may have an issue or concern to raise with senior administrators, but when the administrative staff receive the written memo the line officer is off. When the line officer returns on the weekend, the administrative staff member is off. Often it will take two weeks or more for the two parties to connect, which can create frustration and a perception that no one is committed to resolving the issue.

Shift work also creates additional complexity and coordination challenges. Most departments provide coverage through the use of three or four shifts or platoons. In my former department we used a four-platoon system, which meant that with 24 stations there were 96 different work groups. Considerable time and effort were required for the chief and other senior staff to meet with each work group to discuss issues and concerns.

Task orientation

Administrative staff members typically focus on basic management functions and tasks such as forecasting, planning, budgeting, purchasing, human resource management and performance tracking. They routinely interact with elected officials, other municipal departments and allied agencies. The nature of these activities is primarily administrative, and often involves formal meetings and scheduled activities.

Front-line personnel deal directly with the public and are more action-oriented. Their emergency response workload is often sporadic and unpredictable. In many departments, front-line personnel have scheduled tasks such as training, inspections and public education, but their primary focus remains on emergency response. However, front-line personnel often have unstructured idle time waiting in the station, which can foment controversy and even resentment between administrative staff and front-line personnel.

Geographical separation and temporal orientation create logistical problems. They create barriers to regular interaction and communication between administrative staff and front-line personnel. When interaction is infrequent, assumptions can lead to misunderstanding and mistrust. Task orientation tends to be a further source of misunderstanding by each of the parties about what the others really do. To respond to these challenges, department leaders need to develop strategies that overcome barriers and enhance understanding and mutual respect.

Communications strategies

Many departments attempt to overcome logistical problems through the use of one-way communication. Notices, directives and memos are frequently sent from administrative staff to front-line personnel in the stations. Most departments also have some sort of accountability system where line officers must initial or sign to confirm that a written message has been read.

The key problem with this approach is that line workers may confirm they have read written directives, but there's nothing to ensure that they have understood the directive. Seeking clarification or further information can be frustrating and time-consuming, and there may be great variation in the level of understanding by various personnel in different stations and on different shifts.

There are a variety of ways that communications technology can be used to overcome some of these logistical concerns. Some departments have their stations linked to allow for interactive video conferencing that allows for two-way communication between officers and line personnel and provides opportunities for questions and clarifications. This technology can be expensive, but the costs can be justified because it also can be used to facilitate training sessions.

While live video conferencing may be seen as a great way to overcome the barriers provided by time and distance, there are other less-expensive methods. Teleconferencing lacks the richness of the visual image, but it does allow for two-way communications, including questions and clarification. To a lesser extent, e-mail and Web-based forums also can be used to provide opportunities for questions and follow-up without the necessity of physically bringing people together geographically and temporally. In traditional written communications, there are often lengthy delays as memos work their way up the chain of command and then back down again. Electronic communications offer the potential for more timely responses.

Even with enhanced communications, however, there's a high potential for miscommunication and mistrust to develop based on the differences in task orientation. At the heart of this problem is the lack of understanding about what the other group really does. Creative ways to address this problem — in both directions — involve breaking down the glass partition and allowing movement across it.

Front-line programs

In my former department, we developed three programs to provide front-line personnel the opportunity to cross the glass partition and find out what goes on “upstairs” in the administrative office: the special assignment program, the light/alternate duty program and the succession-planning program.

Special assignments are limited-term projects that require some unique expertise or concerted effort that may be beyond the scope and the regular duties of the administrative staff. It's often possible to identify someone on the front line who has unique capabilities or special interests that might be well-suited to a special project. These projects typically involve a defined term — from one month to a year — and require the incumbent to leave his or her regular front-line position to work in an administrative role. Some examples include developing a child car seat program; writing or revising SOPs, protocols or training guidelines; and updating maps.

Sometimes the project may be identified by the incumbent. For example, a member may be a whitewater rafter who notes that the department's training standards and equipment are outdated. This observation provides a great opportunity to put this person on special assignment to learn the complexities of rewriting standards and performing the necessary background research. The department benefits from the member's knowledge and expertise, and the member gets an opportunity to experience day work and the inner workings of the administration.

Light/alternate duty programs are growing in popularity as a way to reduce the demands on disability plans and to help employees return to meaningful employment. These programs involve employees incapable of front-line duty due to illness or injury returning to work in another capacity. The challenge with these programs is to identify meaningful tasks so that employees feel they are making a worthwhile contribution and not just putting in time, such as working with the department's safety unit, assisting with public-education programs and helping with the development of department brochures. In each case the employee works day shift rather than shift work and is exposed to the inner workings of the administrative offices.

Succession-planning programs also involve special projects or assignments for a defined time period, but the tasks are designed with the intent of helping individuals develop in specific areas or gain exposure to new or different experiences. Consider a secondment to the city manager's office, heading up the United Way campaign for the municipality or developing a residential sprinkler program. In each case, the fire department personnel provide some specific expertise to the municipality while gaining a broader understanding of administrative functions.

In my experience, the overwhelming response from those who participate in these types of programs is “I had no idea that things worked that way.” In the alternate duty program in particular, there was a reluctance to begin the assignment before an observable growth in understanding and commitment over the course of the assignment. Most participants go back to the front line with a greater understanding of the administration and a great level of commitment to the organization. Participants become conduits to the front lines because they develop relationships with people in the administrative ranks. As a result, they became more willing to ask questions and raise concerns when there are problems or misunderstandings on the front line.

Of course, there are other methods to expose groups of front-line employees to some aspects of administration. For example, during budget deliberations one year we routinely invited fire companies to headquarters, and the chief would conduct face-to-face meetings to review the budget situation and entertain comments and questions. The difficulty with this approach was that it was logistically difficult to invite every fire company, and the limited time spent with each group often created more questions than it answered. Nonetheless, sharing information that had an influence on the future directions of the department served to begin to bridge the gap.

Administration tactics

Personnel often complain that senior management is out of touch with the front lines. While technological solutions may provide a partial solution, there's simply no substitute for face-to-face communication. To establish regular and meaningful interaction, senior staff should consider having meals at fire stations, implementing routine job rotation across ranks and developing a chief officer ride-along program.

Group meals are one of the longstanding rituals of the fire service. The preparation, consumption and cleanup exemplify teamwork and sharing and provide the basis for group identity and cohesion. When a chief officer joins in a meal at a fire station, it signals that the chief is one of crew.

But how many times do chief officers turn down meal invitations because of meetings or other commitments? Turning down an invitation is turning down a great opportunity to interact informally, build trust and credibility, and answer questions and provide information in an environment where the front-line personnel feel comfortable. Chief officers should make a habit of scheduling blocks of time each week to make station visits and join in meals. This is a great way to stay connected and to remain abreast of issues and concerns.

While not suitable for every chief officer, ride-alongs — as an observer or as a participant — are another great way to connect with the front-line on their own level. Riding along as a full participant goes a long way toward gaining trust and building credibility, but this requires that the chief officer be sufficiently fit and up-to-date on all the training and certification necessary to work on the front line. Riding as an observer is less effective, but it still conveys that the chief officer is interested and cares about what happens on the front line.

When I was a deputy chief, I took the initiative to do a participant ride-along on a couple of occasions. After my regular day in the office, I participated in the evening meal and stayed at the station through the night. I worked alongside the crew on medical emergencies and fire calls, including a search-and-rescue assignment during a fire in a multi-family structure. At the time of this ride-along I had been in senior management for a few years. It was a good reminder of some aspects of the job I had forgotten, but it also provided insight about some things that had changed since my days on the back of a truck. I had forgotten that even though the fire station has many of the comforts of home, it is not home; there's always a sense of uncertainty and impending danger. I had forgotten that being a phone call away from your family is not the same as being with your family. I also had forgotten that the quantity and quality of sleep you get at the fire station is nothing like you get at home in your own bed.

While I was aware from our department statistics that the number of medical calls was increasing, it was different to experience how this felt on the street. Compared with my days on the front line, the firefighters I worked with during the ride-along seemed much more comfortable, confident and professional in carrying out their duties at medical calls. There also was a stricter adherence to incident command and SOPs than what I had experienced during my tenure on the line. Overall, I came away with a much greater sense of respect and appreciation for the job that the front line does on a daily basis.

A third strategy that can be used to connect chief officers with the front line is to rotate or swap senior positions, such as deputy chiefs and assistant chiefs, with line supervisors on shift, such as battalion chiefs or district chiefs. As with ride-alongs, this requires that the senior officers have the appropriate training experience and technical competence to serve in a line position. Because line supervisors typically are station-based, this is another way for senior administrators to connect with the front line.

At the company and station level, the fire service continues to be one of the most well-developed and effective prototypes of teamwork and group decision-making. Most line officers learn early in their careers the importance of building relationships, sharing information and involving subordinates in decision-making.

Yet when we look beyond the level of the station, these same factors are typically lacking, and there's often a sense of mistrust and even contempt between senior administration and front-line employees. Effective fire service leaders must work diligently to overcome the barriers and build understanding and trust between the senior administration and front-line personnel.

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B.E. “Bernie” Williams, Ph.D., is an emergency services educator and consultant who enjoyed an 18-year career as a professional firefighter in a metropolitan fire department, including five years as deputy chief. He earned a doctorate degree in management and is a graduate of the Executive Fire Officer Program at the National Fire Academy. Williams is currently an associate professor in the Faculty of Management at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, and serves as an adjunct faculty member at the National Fire Academy.