For the last 4 years, we have been working with Fire and Rescue Services across several countries. From those experiences, we have identified critical challenges related to resource management that are consistent regardless of location and station size. Most Fire and Rescue Services experienced the following problems on a daily basis:
1. Resource capacity planning is not accurate, often due to unrealistic or outdated rotas.
2. Not enough appropriately skilled resources available. F&RS need pre-determined numbers of staff with specific skill sets but that is hard to achieve.
3. Despite efficient planning, unforeseen challenges will always occur, it is difficult to keep a balance between demand and requests. The F&RS is often forced to move resources to be able to respond to incidents in time.
4. Resources sometimes are assigned inconsistently. In this article, we want to share with you a brief description of functionality that our current clients have found beneficial in order to increase their operational efficiency, be more effective in availability planning, resource management and reporting.
Resolving deficiencies with FireServiceRota
FireServiceRota allows you to resolve deficiencies in a fair and compliant way with minimal effort:
1. You will be able to make efficient use of capacity and easily redistribute shifts above optimum crewing levels to deficient shifts. Integrate on-call and wholetime crew to maintain resource availability.
2. The system allows you to detect and prevent understaffing before it occurs. It provides tactical station level monitoring of resources (including appliances). FSR focus on the quality of on-call cover provided instead of just the number of hours, this encourages smaller but more important contributions to the appliances’ availability.
3. Flexible rotas: FSR allows arbitrary shift patterns to be used. FSR makes crewing deficiencies visible and predictable. It also allows analysis on when and why appliances are off the run.
4. Align personnel across various crewing systems to meet known risk and demand requirements. Firefighters may download the app to receive alerts and messages anytime and anywhere. Firefighters can also capture responses and update their rota in an automated workflow, as a result, the crew members will gain empowerment to achieve well-being, fair reward, voice and equal opportunity.
Plus: Eliminate paperwork and save time. FireServiceRota connects with your command & control software, payroll, Human Resources and business intelligence systems. The system has the ability to calculate the amount of hours/allowances your staff should be paid for.
Summary
Since resource allocation and utilization requires a huge effort, Fire and Rescue Services should be able to rely on adequate software, not spreadsheets to document the use and status of staff and appliances. Our mission is to provide a solution that can help you to do what you do better: to promote and provide safety to the community you serve.
Please contact us to get further information about FireServiceRota and how we can help you to drive improvements in your station, our experts will be happy to assist you.Phone: +31 613056675Email: cor@fireservicerota.com
