How you refer to your staff can motivate them either positively or negatively, so you may need an adjustment in your thought process. Whether your members are career, volunteer, part-time or paid per call, they are a staff. Staff members perform basic operations in every organization that include training, building upkeep and equipment maintenance. If the person working on that $400,000 fire truck isn't a professional, why would you let him or her touch it?

As a fire chief you commit to the community that your department will respond at all times. The key phrase is “all times.” There are no excuses allowed in the contract for services. The people who perform at the fire department at those times are the staff members. How they are compensated is immaterial. Staff members have ongoing responsibilities to the department and the community they serve. However, the department and community have an obligation to the staff members as well.

Whenever I speak with fire chiefs, I listen for that one word, the problem word. That word is “professional,” and it's used this way: “We have four professional staff and 40 amateur volunteers.” OK, they may not use the word “amateur,” but the meaning is there. Think about it. What does it say? Are the only professionals in an agency those who are paid? I have never had a volunteer who wasn't a professional. Each volunteer has skills, knowledge and talents that allow him or her to perform at a professional level. I know that the person using the term “professional staff” doesn't mean it as a demeaning term, but it might sound that way to the volunteer.

If you value your staff members and select them carefully, you should consider them all professional. Apply the correct label to your valuable help. Refer to them as “members of the staff” when introducing your firefighters. Don't get confused by this. It's true that being a volunteer is an honored title, but today the term “volunteer” doesn't adequately describe the duties associated with being a member of a fire department staff.

I realize that we have a varied level of professionals working in all organizations. Some people hold degrees, some are licensed by the state, a few are certified and so on. I'm not attempting to undermine the accomplishments of these hard-working members of your team, but everyone on your team is there to support each other, and they all deserve the title of staff member.

At times your volunteers might even wish to be called volunteer firefighters. I've never had a volunteer firefighter object, but deep down I believe most volunteer firefighters would just like to be referred to as “firefighters.” However, using the term “volunteer” in an award may be an appropriate way to honor the work and effort of the volunteer. It's a simple way to show the value of the volunteer staffing component to the fire department and community.

At times, your career staff members might object to this new title of staff being applied to the volunteers. Career firefighters have several grades in pay classification, such as first-class firefighter or probationary firefighter, but in everyday exchanges there is no reference to first class or probationary. They are simply called “firefighters.” They may see it as a degradation of their paid positions. In that case, you need to discuss openly at a meeting of all unpaid and paid staff members the important purpose of the volunteers at your place.

Volunteers are never hired to replace paid staff. You hire paid staff, who are selected and retained based on their ability to perform a critical, specific task. But we all know that in many combination departments the paid staff believes that if the volunteers went away, the community would be required to hire additional paid staff. That may or may not be the case today with tax caps in place in many states. If the volunteer staffing component went away in combination departments, it might be that we have less staff to respond and assist on the incident that requires large number of staff.

In most combination fire departments the volunteers came first, and because of community growth a career staff was hired to supplement the volunteer staff. A mutual respect for the two staffing components is critical to long-term continuity. Most fire departments, just like communities, do not undergo large, rapid staffing changes. It's a critical skill for the leadership to value and respect both of the staffing components.

The staff of a fire department needs to understand the purpose of the combination staffing component. They need to recognize that the fire department leadership and the community honor and respect the staff. While a combination department is almost always in transition, one of the staffing components is usually there to support the other staffing component.

Another reason to always address your volunteer staff by the term “firefighter” is that it helps the volunteers build self esteem and allows the volunteer staff to feel that the agency values their contributions by assigning them a meaningful title. They will begin to feel like a cohesive member of your department.

It's important for chiefs to consider the volunteers as staff members if their selection process is professional. Don't you work as hard to locate volunteers as you do paid employees? You select both members of your staff after a search based on a job description. You look at each person's capabilities, skills, knowledge and attitude. Each person is “hired” in a probationary status, is trained to improve performance, and is evaluated on a regular basis. You don't accept anything but top performance from your staff, and you reward outstanding performance and coach toward continually improved performance. If this is true, and all members add to your organization's bottom line, then why not consider all personnel as part of your staff?

John M. Buckman III, CFO, is the special projects manager for the Indiana Department of Homeland Security's Division of Training as well as the chief of the German Township (Ind.) Volunteer Fire Department. Buckman is co-author of Recruiting, Training, and Maintaining Volunteer Firefighters, Third Edition.