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Selection of personnel for special operations.

We are currently working on moving all our special operations into one station, e.g. water/ice, trench/structural collapse, and rope. In developing this strategy how does your department go about the selction process of personeel that will staff this station. Do you leave the current compliment of personnel in place, or, do you conduct an application and interview process.

We currently have these special operations divided among five stations. Our goal is to obtain the most dedicated and higly motivated personnel that are interested in these areas of discipline.

If you do utilize an application and interview process what types of questions are you asking during your interview process and on the application? I think it is most important to have motivated individuals that want to learn and are willing to commit the time and energy necessary for this special operations group.

Thank you,

Jim Saladin

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Permalink Reply by Humberto Vergara on April 30, 2008 at 3:11pm

Good question Jim. We have two TRT units housed in 2 seperate stations.Its hard to staff them with qualifed personnel.We have an incentive program in our union contract 1,600 a year for personnel on the unit and 1,200 for backup.We are required to have a minimum of Ops level classes. We collect letters of interest with each individuals qualifications and training and decide from their.Good luck.

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Permalink Reply by Jim Saladin on May 2, 2008 at 2:35pm

How was the level of compensation decided upon within your Department? Were personnel paid while in attendance at training/classes? How did this impact the exempt employees if they attended training during their off-duty days?

Thank you for your feedback,

Sal

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Permalink Reply by Humberto Vergara on May 2, 2008 at 8:08pm

Hey Sal,
As far as training. We receive paid school leave no matter what the training is. If our leave does not create overtime then we dont get charged. We looked at some other Local Fire Departments with a similar program(USAR) and we worked from there to add it to our contract.

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