Introduction to Personnel Management for the Fire and Emergency Services

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Welcome to Personnel Management for Fire and The Emergency Services! Personnel management, or human resource management, is a vital topic in the education of emergency service leaders.

Organizations have five critical resources with which to operate and with which to accomplish their mission and goals: customers (clients), people (employees and/or volunteers), technology, capital, and time.

While it goes without saying that the emergency services would not exist without their clientele, from a manager's perspective, the organization's most critical resource is its people.

And while some might think that only city or county human resource departments or chief officers of any agency need be concerned with personnel management, the reality is that every person in a supervisory position, from the company officer in the fire service, the sergeant in the police department, or the first line supervisor in any organization to the chief or executive director, is a human resource manager.

Therefore, this course is important for you! Your textbook and many of your required readings will focus upon the fire service. Understand that while there are differences in the specific services provided, terminology, job descriptions, etcetera, the realities are that personnel management principles as presented apply to virtually any organization.

The study of personnel management is also important to you for risk management. You must work within the legal framework to protect your agency and avoid successful lawsuits by complainants. You need a good understanding of personnel / employment law to avoid making mistakes.

While there are specific laws governing specific aspects of personnel management and specific charges, there are any number of categorical liabilities associated with personnel management: Discrimination, harassment, negligent hiring, negligent retention, negligent supervision, negligent training (or failure to properly train), negligent assignment, negligent directions, negligent entrustment, negligent investigation, negligent infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, false detention, defamation and wrongful discharge to name but a few.

So, studying, understanding and applying sound personnel management principles and practices is no longer an option for fire and emergency services personnel and especially so for the supervisors and managers of those organizations.

An excellent online resource for the latest developments in employment law can be located at http://www.katzmanlaw.com/new/index.cfm. The law offices of Katzman, Logan, Halper and Bennett provide a variety of newsletters at this website that may be of interest to you. Two especially helpful for emergency services personnel and officers are the Firelaw, EMS and Safety Newsletter and the Employment Law newsletter.

While some laws, executive orders and court cases will be discussed, this course is not intended to be on employment law per se, but rather on principles and practices which will help the supervisor / manager deal with employment issues in a way that does not violate employment law.

Now, utilizing appropriate personnel management processes and techniques cannot prevent law suits from being filed, using appropriate processes and techniques will most likely minimize your liability and demonstrate to the courts, the media and the public the professionalism of your organization.

Your textbook is well written and contains numerous examples of topics discussed. Additionally, for virtually every chapter you will find review questions, a case study, and electronic resource sites. While online response is not required for the review questions nor for every case study, you are strongly encouraged to look at them and work through them for your own benefit.

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