On demand: Changing the narrative around engagement in Fire and Rescue

Catch up on the replay, slides and Q&A below.

***Hot off the press: Phil’s answers to your burning questions***

Great news – although we didn’t have time in the webinar to pose all of our attendees’ questions, kindly Phil has since provided some brief responses.

Q: What was the biggest challenge in developing an understanding of “culture” when engaging with staff?

Phil: Knowing what culture exists – this means being honest with yourself, appreciating how that impacts the service and being clear on the culture you want to create – challenging it when you don’t see it and being relentless in its pursuit.

Q: Has an increase in the turnover of staff due to retirements, assisted with the changes?

Phil: It has certainly created opportunities to diversify the workforce – I fundamentally believe that the more diverse we are, the better we understand our communities, the kinder we are and the more compassionate these are really important traits when you are a public service

Q: Have you adopted the Code of Ethics or are you using your own values?

Phil: The Code of Ethics is great – Personally I use the Nolan principles a lot it grounds your decision making – but the values are your own, those of the Service and the people who work within it – I would encourage any Service to find their own as they will drive what you do – live them, breathe them, own them.

Q: How have you communicated to staff the changes that have been implemented as a direct result of surveys? We still get a frustrating result against “do you think action will be taken as a result of this survey”

Phil: You said – We did – But the most important part of that is that it has to be true – so simply listen, hear and act – then evidence it (show staff that you have done what they asked – and keep showing them).

Q: How did you navigate the Trade Unions and any perceptions around speaking with their members?

Phil: The people who work for Mersey FRS are represented by a number of trade unions – and trade unions have a real role to play but all of those members and those not represented by any union are FRS employees first and foremost – so it is absolutely right that the Service speaks to its employees about its plans, aspirations and how that may affected them – some of our best ideas have come from the frontline – you just have to listen.

Costa: At some other services, we engage in pre-survey discussions with Trade Union reps in order to ensure they feel included in the process and help highlight anything we have may have missed from the questionnaire design perspective. Also – when the results are ready and an Exec Pres has been delivered, sometimes we present the same results to the Trade Union reps in order to illustrate full transparency.

Q: What is the best way to demonstrate that surveys and engagement is to help improve working experiences for all staff?

Phil: Act on what has been said – don’t dismiss it – if someone has taken the time to share their view it is important to them – so it should be important to you.

Costa: Always keep it on the agenda in meetings, small or big.

Q: It would be good to understand how engagement is successful with On-call staff. Also, where does engagement responses align in post covid world? it is as important?

Phil: Leadership is a contact sport – you just need to work hard to make everyone’s views heard.

Costa: People Insight hope to run a webinar focused on on-call staff.

Q: What do you think are the top things that firefighters care about to make their experience at work better? What was your experience of finding this out and acting on what staff said?

Phil: Being good at their job – particularly from an operational perspective – a high level of professionalism bleeds into every part of a firefighter’s work

Q: How can you assist those involved with staff networks to develop their members and enable the networks to operate effectively in order to improve equality, diversity and inclusion.

Phil: Ask the Networks, give them their heads – but be there to support them – you need to genuinely believe in the power of diversity and the value in the quietest voices – be that champion don’t be superficial the networks will see right through you

Q: How do you incorporate health and wellbeing questions into surveys whereby people a) complete the question and b) completely honestly without it sparking a ‘why do management want to know about my health & wellbeing’ bite back?

Phil: Explain why you are asking and what you will do with the results – if you can’t explain don’t ask the question!

Q: I am broadly looking at how we not just communicate with the staff in our FS but also how we create meaningful engagement that promotes understanding and commitment. We have a lot of complex strategies and projects- any thoughts or advice on how to effectively share this information promoting engagement would be gratefully received to keep comms varied.

Phil: Keep it simple – a complex strategy needs to land on a fire station or within a department – you want to know the time not how to build a clock.

“Since the development of our first survey in 2014, People Insight have assisted and supported us with the development and delivery of the survey. As well as providing detailed confidential reports, they deliver clear concise presentation of the results, along with suggested achievable plans to improve, develop and build on the results. These suggestions have helped MFRS to build our staff engagement plans and have seen our overall engagement score improve from 55% in 2014 to 88% in 2020.”

Phil Garrigan, Chief Fire Officer, Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service