The Issues on Human Resource Management for Fire Safety - Report Example

Managing Resources Name: Grade Course: Tutor’s Name: 10th July, 2010 Introduction Fire safety management is not only about responses to emergency calls about fires and dealing with the fires. It also entails prevention of fire cases and saving lives. In order to save lives, the people have to aware of the safety precautions or how to escape in case of fires (Furness & Muckett, 2007). Like in the case of travelling in a plane, the safe exists are always shown to the travelers before the plain takes off. The same case applies to the fire rescue service organizations. This however does not concern safety exits from fire alone but all knowledge necessary to prevent such fires, how to put them off if necessary and how to control them if necessary. Fire rescue service organizations therefore develop projects to ensure that the aims of the organization are achieved. As obligated by the Fire Rescue Service Act 2004, the organizations are to provide advice and enforcement on fire safety matters (Workplace Management Solutions, 2010). Implementation of a project that aims at improving fire safety awareness amongst primary school age children is one of the ways by which such an obligation is accomplished. The aim of this paper is to discuss the issues on human resource management and resource management for a proposed project which requires: Recruitment of fulltime staff as community safety practitioners Identification of the physical and financial costs Acquisition of appropriate resources/materials and staff Development of a model of project evaluation and Identification of how the principles of operational assurance can be applied. All these are discussed below. Employee Recruitment In order to recruit employees, the organization has to prepare. The line manager identifies the gap and informs the recruiter of the skills needed in a specific job area. In this project, the identified skills needed are for community safety practitioners. These practitioners are to educate children on fire safety awareness. It is important to first identify the qualifications, skills and experience that such a practitioner should have for the job to be done effectively. The organization should plan so that it is aware of how its objectives can be achieved without wastage of resources. If a practitioner with two years of practice cannot deliver what is expected, then such a practitioner should not be picked for the job and a more experienced one selected. After the job description template has been developed, the recruiting manager should consult the human resource department to hire the appropriate skills. In improving fire safety awareness amongst children, the community safety practitioner should have knowledge on fire safety issues, should know how to deal with children and should know what strategies are appropriate for making children aware of the dangers and how they can help others. The next step after defining the necessary skills is source planning which describes how the candidates will be found. There are so many methods that can be used to get the candidates that the organization requires. These are such as advertisements, selection from company employees, contacting employees to bring friends with necessary qualifications and so on. All these are appropriate but the cost of one method differs from the other. The most expensive way of getting new employees for a post is through agencies and search firms that look for the people with qualifications and charge the company for the service. The next is advertising in magazines, industry publications and so on (Hakala, 2010). According to Hakala, the most cost effective way to get new employees is through the search of the internal candidate database. The order of cost effectiveness from the lowest is as follows: From internal candidate database Referrals by employees Networking: looking for qualified candidates customers, suppliers and friends who may know potential candidates Getting candidates from seminars and conferences Contacting former employees of the company if they may be interested Checking from job fairs and open houses Internet sources Advertising Search firms and agencies (Hakala, 2010). These are all important to the company and the search for the right candidates will begin from an internal search of the company’s database to determine if there are employees that are fit for the job. If the company does not succeed in this then the next step of seeking the right candidates from employee referrals is taken (Hakala, 2010). All the applicants have to apply and submit their applications for evaluation. Approximated Costs Advertising (in case) ----------------------------------------------------------------£800 Search Firms and Agencies (in case) ------------------------------------------- £ 200 Salary (two employees) ---------------------------------------------------------- £ 41,000pa In order to comply with the requirements of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, it is important to view and evaluate all resumes submitted. By doing this, the company’s reputation is preserved at its state or improved as an equal provider of opportunities and an equal employer. Organizations always strive to perform better than their current performances and therefore develop different methods of achieving success. One of the methods of achieving success is through benchmarking and it was found out that best practices came as a result of benchmarking. Best practices therefore improve or maintain the performance of an organization at a certain level (McNair & Leibfried, 1997). The best practice in this case, is to be an equal employer and opportunity provider without discrimination of who to employ (Hakala, 2010). The first step after evaluating the resumes is selecting the candidates for the first screening. This is to determine the level of interest of the candidate, to determine the personality and to verify the qualifications of the candidate as indicated in the resume. This is normally conducted by phone and is the same process that will be conducted in search for the right candidate for the community safety practitioner meant for the project (Hakala, 2010). From this, a small group will be selected and from this a face to face interview conducted to determine the best candidate for the job. If the candidate is one of the company’s employees, the phone calls to determine the personality and qualifications verification is not necessary and the candidate is selected for a face to face interview. For an employee to be selected for the post to be given an equal opportunity to fight for the job position like so many others that are not employees, his/her personality must be assessed (Hakala, 2010). The selected employees will then be employed based on the period that the project will take. If the project is supposed to take two years, the contract between the company and the employees is set to take two years. If the company develops the project so that it becomes part of its permanent operations, the contract is signed for that period of time. This however depends on the terms and conditions of the company. The new employee however, has to be informed (Hakala, 2010). Other Resources needed in the Program There are other resources that are important in the running of the program apart from the community safety practitioners. The program will need management and therefore a manager though this will not require hiring a new manager. Since it focuses on children, it has to determine where to reach the children whether in schools or at home with their parents or at child centers. The most appropriate place and time to reach the children is at school since when they are out of school, they have different activities at different times and it would not be easy to reach individual children in different homes. It would require a lot of money and time to allocate each child or a group of children from a specific neighborhood time to be taught fire safety and made aware of the dangers of fire. Additionally, there is no guarantee that all the children will be available for the program. The school is the best place to get them. The community safety practitioners need teaching materials that will guide them in making the children aware of the safety equipments such as fire extinguishers. Such materials include; videos, pictures and books with literature on fire safety and equipment demonstrations like a plastic model of a fire extinguisher. With these materials, the teachers will be able to demonstrate issues about fire safety for example, what to do when there is a fire, what exits are safe to use and how to use a fire extinguisher. The cost Models of equipments-------------------------------------------------------------------$ 500 Teaching Materials------------------------------------------------------------------------$ 300 Demonstration of the use of best practice: Almost every management activity or organizational activity has an aim. In this case for example, the aim of the organization is to improve awareness to the children about fire safety. To achieve such an aim, objectives have to be set and there are practices that lead to the achievement of the objectives. Such practices determine the standard of performance of the organization in relation to the aim of the organization. The main aim of a fire department in creating awareness is for example to reduce death cases due to fires. The performance of the fire department in reducing death cases due to fires can only be measured when compared with the performance of another that performs best or by standards set by the fire department. The practices such as creating awareness therefore form part of best practice. The organization can only achieve best practice by benchmarking and therefore the activities of the new project should be compared to others that have performed well and are up to standards. Comparison alone does not mean that best practice is achieved; the project manager should ensure that the differences between the practices are eliminated and the benchmarking practices adopted (Flynn, 2009). How to obtain the resources: Literature about fire safety is available in fire fighting departments as well as the videos and pictures. Books and picture illustrations can be bought from bookshops. The models of equipments can also be bought from equipment shops. Job Description: The fire rescue service organization is an equally opportunity provider and an equal employer that does not consider an individual based on his/her race, ethnicity, color, sex or any other form of discrimination, but the value of the individual to the organization. The department therefore seeks an individual with the following qualifications: Degree or diploma in fire safety and risk management And a certificate in teaching course or A degree in a teaching course and a Certificate in fire safety and risk management Competencies: Ability to develop appropriate teaching strategies The person must be responsible for upholding the mission of the organization. The purpose of the job is to improve awareness of fire safety among children and to work within the statutory legislation requirements (the organization being under statutory obligation to the fire and rescue services act 2004) and according to the organization’s policies. Other requirements Two years experience teaching safety awareness in other sectors that require teaching Experience in dealing with primary school aged children The applicant must have CRB clearance and not just that but with enhanced disclosure details (Articlesbase, 2010). Must have a certificate showing good health status for purposes of stability in the job and not any kind of discrimination Policies to be used: Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) has statutory obligation to provide advice and enforcements on fire safety matters among other duties under the Fire Rescue Service Act 2004 (Workplace Management Solutions, 2010). As a way to accomplish its obligations it will develop policies that will guide the currently developed program of improving children’s awareness on fire safety. Policies to be used are such as; The aim of fire safety is to protect life and not to save property. Life comes first then property later Teach to ensure the children know the basics on how to control and contain the effects of fire for their own and others’ safety but not to a level of a professional fire safety practitioner of fighter (NHS Wales, 2002). Project Evaluation After implementing a project or a program, it is important to evaluate it. Project evaluation is the process of collecting data, recording and organizing information in order to determine the position of the project/program in relation to its aims and objectives (McDougall, 1999). A project is considered successful if it has met its objectives and its overall aim. The aim of the selected project is to improve awareness among children about fire safety issues. In order to meet such aims, community safety practitioners have to be hired to teach the children. This alone cannot ensure achievement of the aim. The process of evaluation will entail assessment of the community safety practitioner’s work, availability of the resources they need and the impact of their teaching strategies on children’s ability to understand and practice what they have been taught. An organization has to develop measures that will indicate if the aim has been achieved or not. The measures have to be specific, for example, measurement of the community safety practitioner’s performance, they have to be measurable, attainable, relevant and timely (McDougall, 1999). One cannot evaluate the strategies of the teacher at the end of the program if the aim of the evaluation was to check how effective the strategies are for improvement purposes. The practices of evaluation have to be done at the correct time. In this project, children behaviors and knowledge may act as the measures to determine if the aim of the organization in improving awareness has been achieved or not. How the Principles Of Operational Assurance Could Be Applied. Operational assurance is achieved through improvement of every aspect of fire rescue service operations in their quest to fulfill their aims. In order to ensure safety, the causes of fire have to be identified, the causes of increased fire spread and how to prevent it and save lives. One of the ways of saving lives is through educating people. By educating the children, the fire rescue service department will be improving its operations in saving lives. By identifying the gaps of knowledge about fire safety and involving the children in fire safety demonstrations, the fire and rescue service organization will be making use of the principles of operational assurance (Fire Magazine, 2009). Conclusion Resource management entails a lot and managers have to ensure all are covered to ensure success in achieving the aims of the organization. Resource management requires identification of the appropriate resources for the right purpose. In the case discussed above for example, there is need for two new staff members, and not just new staff members, but with specific qualifications for a specific job. Resource management also requires planning so that the acquired resources are not wasted. It is not appropriate to hire a skilled laborer for a job when the job position is not created yet and when the materials needed for the job are not available or when the organization does not have the resources to hire such a skill. It requires identification of the cost of hiring a certain skill to perform a specific function. This leads to the third requirement of resource management which is the expectations of the organization or manager from the resource. If a resource is identified as important in an organization, what is expected of the resource to achieve is also important, for example, the human resource is expected to perform his/her duties to improve the performance of the organization depending on the aim of the organization. Investments of an organization are also expected to yield profit and that is why organizations invest. In the above discussion, the main resource of focus was the human resource. The identified skill needed by the organization to ensure primary school children are taught about fire safety and their awareness improved was that of a community safety practitioner. The costs of hiring such skills have been approximated, how the project will be evaluated described, the other supporting resources identified and costs approximated and how operational assurance can be achieved identified. All these are in resource management. References Articlesbase, 2010, CRB Clearance– A Big Help to Authorities, Viewed on 13th July, 2010. Fire Magazine, 2009, Operational Assurance, Viewed on 15th July, 2010. Read More