While many fire chiefs want to enhance and maintain organizational morale, there's no doubt that just as many have followed the age-old advice, “You can't please everybody, so don't even try.” Such chiefs haven't given their absolute best in fostering an atmosphere where all members enjoy coming to work.

Why should the fire chief care? All chiefs worth their salt should want their firefighters happy at work. When employees are happy, customers receive better service; accidents and injuries decrease; and grievances, discipline and absenteeism are minimized. And of course, a working crew is a happy crew. Satisfaction is directly related to commitment. Committed firefighters become advocates for change, and change agents facilitate organizational transformation and job satisfaction.

Job satisfaction, or morale, determines the attitude that employees have toward their job. To fully understand a fire chief's role in influencing morale, it's important to recognize a few key truths. Department morale is never as good as committed fire personnel say it is, and it's never as bad as the whiners and complainers make it sound. These two groups usually represent the distal ends of a bell curve, with most personnel falling somewhere in the middle — hopefully toward the positive end.

In addition, dissatisfaction is costly for fire departments. Dissatisfied personnel encourage dissatisfaction in others. The old saying “misery loves company” is never more true than in a work environment where personnel are together for 24 hours at a time. Reduced work ethic, violence, sabotage, desire to quit, and absenteeism are generally associated with fire departments where poor morale festers. Customer complaints increase. Employees begin to turn on one another.

Firefighters will place most of the blame for poor morale squarely on the shoulders of the leadership of the department — primarily the fire chief. However, individual department members, to a large extent, also bear responsibility for their job satisfaction.

Individual differences

Morale is affected by individual differences; personal and professional relationships; organizational values, motives and needs; personal values, motives and needs; and satisfaction of senior members of the department. Fire chiefs must understand each of the factors and effectively analyze the impact of their leadership on each.

Individual differences suggest that some variability in job satisfaction is due to an individual's tendency over time to enjoy life and what he or she does for a living. In every fire department there are personnel who are enthusiastic about every job assignment, those who constantly whine and complain, and those who fluctuate between the two.

There are firefighters who have always enjoyed work and life. They enjoyed their early jobs while growing up, such as bussing tables and washing dishes; they had fun with friends; and they participated in hobbies away from the job. These people enjoy their fire service career because they have always enjoyed work and life. On the other hand, people who dreaded mowing neighborhood lawns and sacking groceries, had few friends, and enjoyed few outside activities are miserable in their fire service career because they have always been unhappy with work and life.

Genetic predisposition, core self-evaluations and life-satisfaction studies can reveal those individuals prone to being positive, committed firefighters and those prone to being disgruntled. Genetic predisposition posits that some degree of job satisfaction may be predetermined through genes. If a firefighter with a reputation for being a great employee now has a daughter on the job, there's a 30% chance she will be like her dad. Similarly, if a firefighter with a reputation for being slothful and non-productive now has a son on the department, there's a 70% chance he won't be like his dad.

Core-self evaluations are related to personality traits that determine an individual's propensity to enjoy his or her career. Affectivity has to do with our outlook on life. Self-esteem is our view of self-worth. Self-efficacy is our ability to make a difference. Locus of control is the degree to which we feel we influence our destiny. Most fire department personnel with good morale have been found to have high positive affectivity, high self-esteem, high self-efficacy and a strong internal locus of control.

Life satisfaction is the extent to which a person is satisfied with all aspects of life. Generally, when firefighters are happy with their home life; personal relationships with friends, family and loved ones; as well as their shift and station assignments, morale will be high. Firefighters with marital problems, broken relationships and undesired work assignments will bring poor morale into the workplace more often than not.

Job satisfaction is correlated with life satisfaction. Employees who are happy in life are happy at work, and vice versa. Most firefighters who are unhappy in life and unhappy at work won't leave the organization. Being unhappy has become as much a part of their psyche and ego as any other influential element in their lives. They're “dark clouds” in both their organizations and personal lives, with no constant other than misery.

Tests administered during hiring increases the chance of identifying those traits determined most desirable for a fire service career. Psychological tests can be developed and validated specifically for this purpose. Job orientation programs, rewards policies and fair corrective actions can be quite effective in transforming individual differences to conform to the organization's values and needs.

Discrepancy theory

Satisfaction with a job is determined by the discrepancy between what we want, value and expect and what the career actually provides. What firefighters want and what the job provides affects morale, but the differences between expectation and reality can be minimized by job orientation and basic training programs for new hires and working test periods for newly promoted members. Such programs increase proper communication and clarification of expectations over a prescribed period.

Establishing expectations up front and measuring performance and behavior accordingly are vitally important to job satisfaction. Discrepancies between what firefighters expect and what the job provides often lead to lower job satisfaction, decreased organizational commitment, increased intent to leave and intentional spreading of dissatisfaction to other fire personnel. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Herzberg's two-factor theory and McClelland's needs theory are all useful in analyzing morale and the fire chief's role.

Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory suggests that when a fire department provides for basic needs, the organization has maximized its potential for high morale within the ranks. Of course, fire chiefs influence and control many of the resources that contribute to these needs being met. These needs can include:

• Biological, such as food, water and shelter.
• Safety, such as PPE, secure firehouses, well-maintained apparatus and equipment.
• Social, such as friendships, social activities and camaraderie.
• Ego, such as recognition, rewards, praise, promotions and salary increases.
• Self-actualization, such as purpose, personal growth and achievement.

Henry Herzberg's two-factor theory postulates that satisfaction and contentment are based on hygiene and motivator factors. Hygiene factors are those that result from but aren't part of the work itself, including pay, job security, working conditions, policies, work schedules and supervisors. Motivator factors are related to actual tasks and duties, such as responsibility, growth, challenge, stimulation, variety, control and interesting work. When hygiene factors are met, firefighters are content. When motivator factors are met, firefighters are satisfied. Because of organizational challenges, the amount of control possessed by the fire chief and individual differences the degrees to which the two factors are met vary.

David McClelland's needs theory identifies three needs of employees that determine job satisfaction: achievement, affiliation and power. The desire for challenging job assignments under an employee's control describes the need for achievement. The need for affiliation refers to the desire to work with and help those who are fun to work with and help. Having the influence and authority to tell others what to do to accomplish assignments is the driving force behind the need for power.

Fire personnel who have control over their work and coworker relationships and the authority to accomplish job assignments are happier at work. Chiefs can create an atmosphere where achievement and power can be ascribed or achieved by the department members. However, they can't guarantee relationships with fun coworkers. Camaraderie can't be legislated by rules, policies or orders. When these needs aren't met, morale will be low.

Equity theory

Equity in rewards, discipline and resource distribution plays a significant role in the assessment of organizational morale. Job satisfaction and motivation are closely related to how fairly we believe we're treated in comparison to others. If personnel believe they're treated unfairly, there surely will be attempts to change their behavior until the situation appears fair. In many instances, the assessment of inequity is based on the member's perception of fairness regarding some job-related tangible.

A significant portion of dissatisfaction comes when firefighters compare what they contribute at work and what they gain from their effort to what other personnel contribute and what they gain for their efforts. The contributions, or inputs, are those things fire personnel put into their jobs, such as time, effort, education, experience and seniority. The gains, or outputs, are those elements personnel receive for the job, including salary, benefits, challenges, responsibilities, promotions, and travel or training opportunities.

The ratio of inputs to outputs is a continuous subconscious — and in some instances, conscious — comparison of the inputs and outputs of one individual or group to those of another. Employees can derive their ratios by comparing their output values to their input values. Having done this, they then can compare their current working situation to both past jobs and other employees. If they conclude that they're better off than they were previously or in comparison to their coworkers, they're satisfied and have high morale. Obviously, the opposite conclusion results in dissatisfaction and low morale.

This aspect of human nature is extremely difficult for a fire chief to influence positively, as most situations within fire departments are not true apples-to-apples comparisons. Many variables determine equity. Additionally, perceptions often are so strong that even the facts can't dispel perceived inequities. Dealing with misconceptions of equity between division/staff personnel and line/operations personnel is an ongoing challenge for a fire chief.

Successful strategies

Although there's no panacea for establishing and maintaining high morale, there are many successful strategies for enhancing morale that are within the leadership and management control of fire chiefs. Fortunately, the majority of fire department members are happy at work and enjoy their careers, but this content group is usually less vocal than those who are dissatisfied. Because the satisfied majority is less likely to influence the dissatisfied minority, the contented can be vulnerable to conversion by the disgruntled over a period of time.

A fire chief's greatest desire is the happiness and success of fire personnel. Never stop pursuing 100% satisfied personnel. For years, the biggest mistake of many fire chiefs has been assuming that the job should satisfy all of a firefighter's needs taking personal responsibility for that satisfaction. Instead, departments should work diligently toward fulfilling the needs they can and then empowering firefighters to find avenues to meet other personal needs.

---

Kelvin J. Cochran is fire chief of the Shreveport (La.) Fire Department. A 25-year fire service veteran, Cochran is a member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs and currently serves as chair of the Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Section and as chairman of the Fire-Rescue International Program Planning Committee. He holds a bachelor's degree in organizational management and a master's degree in industrial and organizational psychology.