Creating a universal brand is the new avenue the Alberta Fire Chiefs Association is pursuing to better recruit and retain volunteer firefighters.
Increased marketing efforts will help departments attract more members as well as educate the community of what these men and women do, said Peter Krich, Camrose fire chief and co-chair of the Recruitment and Retention Committee.
“If we’re not selling ourselves, then nobody is going to come to the door and buy,’’ he said Tuesday at the AFCA conference at the Capri Hotel.
The essential service is just one of many organizations struggling to attract and keep volunteers.
But finding new ways to fill departments with dedicated workers is imperative for community safety as volunteers account for 10,000 of the 13,000 firefighters working across Alberta, Krich said.
Current challenges departments face include people who work outside of the community they live in and the fact that individuals are moving more, said Ponoka fire chief Ted Dillon, who is also a member of the Recruitment and Retention Committee.
While Ponoka has been fortunate to have low turnover, many of the department’s 25 members work away in communities such as Red Deer. This means fewer volunteers are able to respond to daytime fires or accidents.
Recruits are needed to remedy this, Dillon said.
Branding volunteer firefighters is latest step the Recruitment and Retention Committee is taking since forming three years ago.
It also produced a best practices tool kit, which was given to members last year.
“It is giving them a tool to start with, it’s getting a thought process going,” Dillon said.
“It gets their creative juices going.”
The document includes recruitment ideas like setting up a booth a career fairs, create a junior firefighting program and always having application forms available.
The retention part largely focuses ways to recognize not only volunteers but also members’ families, and employers who allow their staff to leave work to respond to an incident.
The living document will be updated to include all of the different efforts departments are making to attract and keep volunteer firefighters.
The committee received an initial $50,000 provincial grant to create the document.
This year it received a $36,000 provincial grant to help create a brand, which Krich hopes will be finished by next year’s Alberta Fire Chiefs Association conference.
ptrotter@reddeeradvocate.co