Ways to Improve the Recruitment of Minorities in the Fire Department

¶ … Recruiting Minorities into Fire Department

A Diversity Plan for the Nashville Fire Department

The major goal of this plan is to increase the application of minority groups in the Nashville Fire Department. There are three specific objectives towards this goal, namely:

To identify problems and barriers to the recruitment of minorities into the fire department,

To develop strategies to address these problems

To develop programs and other benefits to retain minority employees within the fire department.

Despite efforts to diversify its workforce, the Nashville Fire Department still encounters problems with recruiting and retaining sexual and racial minority applicants. This proposal a request for funding to study the issues faced by minority firefighter applicants with the Nashville Fire Department. This proposal also includes a request to fund programs that aim to address these issues and thereby increase racial and gender diversity within the Nashville Fire Department.

Introduction

The recruitment and retention of minority applicants in Nashville's fire service is an important element in ensuring a city's diverse workforce. Nashville has actively promoted diversity in various ways among its own workforce and within the city's private sector. Unfortunately, the work climate is vastly in the Nashville Fire Department is vastly different from the most of the city's other working environments. As a result, ensuring a diverse workforce within the Nashville Fire Department presents special challenges.

For this proposal, "minority" applicants are applicants who are of African-American, Hispanic, Asian or American Indian descent, groups who were traditionally marginalized due to their skin color. In addition, this proposal will also consider issues facing women and gay applicants, groups that have faced discrimination due to their gender or sexual orientation.

Though there are no figures on the number of minority employees with the Nashville Fire Department, research shows that in general, the field of firefighting in the United States remains largely an enclave of Caucasian men. A survey conducted in 2001, for example, shows that there were only 97 female firefighters in the entire state of Tennessee. Half of that number worked with departments in Memphis and Chattanooga. Only two out of 20 departments have female fire chiefs.

This proposal will design a research program examine the dearth of minority applicants and employees within the Nashville Fire Department, study how current recruitment practices fail to meet their needs and make create a plan to address these concerns. This is geared towards making the Nashville Fire Departments more effective in addressing the needs of the community as a whole.

Proposed Plan of Action

The primary methods for achieving the goals and objectives of this research proposal will be the creation of a Diversity Team to study the composition and recruitment policies of the Nashville Fire Department. The Diversity Team will initially be composed of three members, representing people with expertise in diversity and affirmative action, firefighting and public service.

This Diversity Team will be the focal point for gathering information through interviews and surveys of past and prospective minority applicants. Members of the team will participate in recruitment events, evaluate surveys and examination results and conduct confidential oral or questionnaire interviews with prospective and past minority applicants with the Nashville Fire Department.

Based on these results and in consultation with current fire service employees of all ranks, the Diversity Team will propose a Recruitment Plan to address the barriers faced by minorities with the current recruitment practices. The Diversity Team will also conduct Diversity Training Programs with representatives from fire departments around the Metro Nashville Area. These representatives will then be charged with sharing the new findings and policies to their own departments.

The Diversity Team will also monitor the Plan's implementation over a three-year period, to both assess its effectiveness and make recommendations to further enhance minority recruitment.

Qualifications of Staff

The Nashville Fire Department's Diversity Team will be headed by Mr. Kevin Tomlinson, with Mr. Tim Johnson and Ms. Nancy Wilson as members.

Mr. Tomlinson has 15 years of service with the Nashville Fire Department and serves as Captain of the Name Company. He has served on several affirmative action hiring committees, during student days at Tennessee State University as well as in hiring committees in Arkansas.

In addition to his three years work experience with NFD's personnel department, Mr. Johnson has worked with hiring committees in fire departments across the country. His strong ties with community leaders also assist in gathering data from and lend valuable insight to evaluating the needs of the various communities in Nashville.

Ms. Wilson is a familiar figure in Nashville's public service, having served on the City Council for four years. She has also served as chairperson for the local Inner-City Leadership Council, a group that provides job training to minority residents in the Nashville area.

Their combined expertise in firefighting, recruitment, public service and the needs of minority residents make them ideal for the task of developing a recruitment plan that encourages minority application to the Nashville Fire Department.