New On Call Way of Working Hampshire and IOW

[DesJWhite]

We on the IOW have been informed that this is very popular in Hampshire with RDS Firefighters, any feedback would be appreciated. We signed up to a flexible system with all on our station giving maximum effort to keep pump on the run (which we do into the 90’s%) our/my concerns are that we will be contracted to achieve certain hours of response at fixed times which effectively penalises those providing day cover (which is all 3 officers most of the time, keeping our stats in the 90’s) to missing the often more interesting (from a professional use of learned skills point of view) night shouts as-well as creating a divide in what is a very close station. The plus is the rotation of riders ( which will inevitably impact on response times, due to waiting for colleagues who live further afield to arrive). I hope I’ve got part of my point across as on a 04:00 shout last night but just interested to hear more views from over the water.

[Keith]

Des, it would be useful if you posted details or a link to the scheme, if you're looking general feedback. If its specific from Hampshire firefighters, not sure how many there are on the forum.

[DesJWhite]

Keith I will see if I’m ok to post document later today

[TandA]

I am not from Hampshire/ IoW but I am RDS for 23 years.  I would be very interested in hearing details of this, I have some concerns but I will hold them back until I know a bit more.

[Crog]

It sounds similar to the Kent system. Got rid of the 75/100 cover, put everyone on specific contracts for certain hours (similar to shifts, but on-call for that set period) and paid salary for it. All drills and first 8 hours of shouts each month are covered by the salary, after the 8 hours are hit, normal hourly rate paid.

Cover went from late 80-early 90% down to 60’s overnight and when I left, they were predominantly run by the whole-time every day (multi-pump stations send a pump out every day shift to cover certain on-call areas), with the nights being when on-call are on.

[DesJWhite]

Apologies I am not allowed to share documents as not agreed and not in public domain (3 stations are trialing) but for Hants/IOW employees it is on SharePoint and email. It is planned for 18 months approx to be brought in depending on results of trials, which are happening June/July and August!

4 hours ago, Crog said:

It sounds similar to the Kent system. Got rid of the 75/100 cover, put everyone on specific contracts for certain hours (similar to shifts, but on-call for that set period) and paid salary for it. All drills and first 8 hours of shouts each month are covered by the salary, after the 8 hours are hit, normal hourly rate paid.

Cover went from late 80-early 90% down to 60’s overnight and when I left, they were predominantly run by the whole-time every day (multi-pump stations send a pump out every day shift to cover certain on-call areas), with the nights being when on-call are on.

That’s what we envisage happening and we do medical response as well, Thankyou for feedback.

We would be rostered every Thursday by Watch Manager on our availability the following week 80% of station self employed and those employed wouldn’t be able to commit to day hours which you would be contracted to do, but also we would be contracted to evenings/weekends and if you need to go out of town you would have to make up the hours. 

[Keith]

13 hours ago, Crog said:

Cover went from late 80-early 90% down to 60’s overnight

Sounds like a resounding success.

8 hours ago, DesJWhite said:

depending on results of trials, which are happening June/July and August!

Do senior management never think?

[TandA]

I don’t predict success.  Flexibility is the key to on call availability, especially when the only guaranteed payments for on call amount to a few thousand a year £3k retainer, plus about another £3k for 94 hours drill and 96 hours of calls.  Who is going to tie themselves down completely for £6k a year.
Take me as an example.  I am contracted to give 90 hours cover.  I am almost always around for every single one of the difficult to cover 50 hours between 8am and 6pm Mon - Fri and give way more than the additional 40 hours I am contracted to cover at night / weekend.  I should be just the kind of person that the services are desperate to retain but if they brought in the system that you allude to then I would be resigning immediately.  On the very rare occasion that my primary boss says I have to attend a meeting in person or have to come off call to complete a job for him, then I simply have to do that and it doesn’t matter what the service say.  At the end of the day, he pays the mortgage and important bills, the money from the on call is just beer money.

[DesJWhite]

Thankyou for your feedback exactly how we are thinking, unfortunately I am unable to post the proposed system of working, I am so tempted but value my job (and not for the money) I and many if not all of my colleagues wouldn’t be able to commit to those difficult to cover hours, we feel many will walk. Their answer to filling in the gaps is employ day staff on 35 hour contracts, they can’t recruit now! So how Do they expect to attract new to a less appealing position. 

Edited February 3, 2023 by Carl
Quote removed as its a direct quote of the previous post. Please see FAQ

[TandA]

I understand your inability to give details.  That the service won’t allow public discussion of their proposals is also a bit of a red flag to me.  What are they scared of? (Rhetorical question - don’t answer that!).

This is a change to your contractual terms and that has legal implications and there is a process the employer must follow.  I would be consulting with my union rep as it should any such change to your contract of employment should be negotiated and agreed with them.  This kind of thing is where good union officials earn their money many times over, ensuring that your rights are respected, your views are properly taken into account and your position is protected as best as possible.  If you aren’t in a union then I would strongly consider joining one if I were in your situation.

[Matt]

So from what I read is at the moment the Island retained are on a different contract to the mainland retained and they want to align so both side have the same type of contracts which works on the mainland and supposedly improves the availability of the appliance?

Currently from what I ready you are on say 70, 85 and 100 hour contracts that all just fulfil to do what works for each of you?

What I read, correct me if I am wrong but they want to change so you have a specifc contract i.e. 70, 85 or 100 but they want so many of them hours to be fulfilled i.e. weekday days and weekend nights for example and that would be your hours?  I know the Island will struggle and some of the issue might be due to how many crew there actually on station but am I there?

So a contracted hours but with so many hours specified within a certain time i.e. days, evenings or weekend days or night.

Below is extract from a Brigade else where with what I'm trying to explain if that makes sense, 3 examples, if I am way off then ignore me, its been a very long day, but below what what is run up here, and I know elsewhere, it does sound to me (again apologies if not) but they want to align you to mainland which understanderbly you are not keen on and maybe doesn't work for the profile of your station on the island compared to mainland.

I can understand your side and I can see their side and no one is every going to be happy with a change and with mergers these issues will always crop up.

A fire station that requires day cover and struggles for weekend night cover a 70 hour core hours profile with 50 hour specific; the specific hours could be as follows, equating to a 70P profile (100% efficiency):

·         WEEKDAYS 60 available hours available 30 hours specified within Profile.

·         WEEKNIGHTS 60 available hours no hours specified within Profile.

·         WEEKEND NIGHTS 24 available hours available 15 hours specified within Profile.

·         WEEKEND DAYS 24 available hours available 5 hours specified within Profile.

 

A fire station that requires weekend cover a 100+ core hours profile with 70 hour specific; the specific hours could be as follows, equating to a 100B profile (85.71% efficiency):

·         WEEKDAYS 60 available hours available 20 hours specified within Profile.

·         WEEKNIGHTS 60 available hours available 10 hours specified within Profile.

·         WEEKEND NIGHTS 24 available hours available 20 hours specified within Profile.

·         WEEKEND DAYS 24 available hours available 20 hours specified within Profile.

 

A fire station that requires general cover all a 85 core hours profile with 60 hour specific; the specific hours could be as follows, equating to a 85C profile (91.67% efficiency): WEEKDAYS 60 available hours available 20 hours specified within Profile.

·         WEEKNIGHTS 60 available hours available 5 hours specified within Profile.

·         WEEKEND NIGHTS 24 available hours available 15 hours specified within Profile.

·         WEEKEND DAYS 24 available hours available 20 hours specified within Profile.

[DesJWhite]

20 hours ago, TandA said:

I understand your inability to give details.  That the service won’t allow public discussion of their proposals is also a bit of a red flag to me.  What are they scared of? (Rhetorical question - don’t answer that!).

This is a change to your contractual terms and that has legal implications and there is a process the employer must follow.  I would be consulting with my union rep as it should any such change to your contract of employment should be negotiated and agreed with them.  This kind of thing is where good union officials earn their money many times over, ensuring that your rights are respected, your views are properly taken into account and your position is protected as best as possible.  If you aren’t in a union then I would strongly consider joining one if I were in your situation.

We’re in Union but our Union Rep is heading up the project! But it has been signed off by the FBU, apparently! We are however seeking further advice!

5 hours ago, DesJWhite said:

We’re in Union but our Union Rep is heading up the project! But it has been signed off by the FBU, apparently! We are however seeking further advice!

We understand there needs to be alignment but as you say the

We understand there needs to be alignment and as you state the Island is different we can’t call upon other areas, not quickly anyway. We also understand something needs to be done for daytime availability but this is not the answer, they are planning on recruiting to fill those gaps but as you know that’s not a quick process and would you go for a 35 hour contract going through the 4 year development process for a few grand a year!

[Highlander]

whilst I welcome change, i can't see this being workable. I Can work from home, but depending on the meeting/call i'm on i will book off at the time, an hour before or more if its a really important call. i can't set these times, they happen when they happen (with notice obviously). Take that flexibility and i'm gone.  

 

I've also got 2 young kids, so as of now, if my wife nips to the shop or out for an hour, then I book off.  i can't imagine that any world that a marriage could work if said partner was told, you can't leave the house between these hours...... 

 

the only way a job like this can work is with a flexible approach. 

[OscarTango]

Did no one do any market research about similar systems that have been implemented and wether they worked. 

With the the usual caveat of not wanting to sound more cynical than I am: Kent decimated the retained service with it's shift to on call and it's never truly recovered. 

From a the point of view of the Big House, it made sense: we can't have the tail wagging the dog and have stations deciding when they're on the run or not. Let's have a system of gauranteed hours. 

But this neglected the fact that it's not the individual stations that matter so much. Its the overall mass of available retained pumps. If you give people the flexibility to book on and off (which let's face it, being glued to a five minute turnout area for tens of hours a week on top of full time work and life, you need), then this fosters good will. People will provide the cover they can knowing they can book off if something important comes up. 

Locking people down to fixed hours meant many people couldn't give the gaurantee to always be about at fixed times, so jacked it in completely. We were left with multiple zombie stations with people with hours in but not enough staff/ICS/drivers to get the lorry otr for days and weeks at a time. So far any attempts to improve this have come to nought, save for the resurrecting the corpse of Crewing with three. 

[DesJWhite]

8 hours ago, Highlander said:

whilst I welcome change, i can't see this being workable. I Can work from home, but depending on the meeting/call i'm on i will book off at the time, an hour before or more if its a really important call. i can't set these times, they happen when they happen (with notice obviously). Take that flexibility and i'm gone.  

 

I've also got 2 young kids, so as of now, if my wife nips to the shop or out for an hour, then I book off.  i can't imagine that any world that a marriage could work if said partner was told, you can't leave the house between these hours...... 

 

the only way a job like this can work is with a flexible approach. 

Thankyou for your comments, much the same as most if not all on our station we currently work together to keep the pump on the run very successfully contracts/rostering will decimate us

6 hours ago, OscarTango said:

Did no one do any market research about similar systems that have been implemented and wether they worked. 

With the the usual caveat of not wanting to sound more cynical than I am: Kent decimated the retained service with it's shift to on call and it's never truly recovered. 

From a the point of view of the Big House, it made sense: we can't have the tail wagging the dog and have stations deciding when they're on the run or not. Let's have a system of gauranteed hours. 

But this neglected the fact that it's not the individual stations that matter so much. Its the overall mass of available retained pumps. If you give people the flexibility to book on and off (which let's face it, being glued to a five minute turnout area for tens of hours a week on top of full time work and life, you need), then this fosters good will. People will provide the cover they can knowing they can book off if something important comes up. 

Locking people down to fixed hours meant many people couldn't give the gaurantee to always be about at fixed times, so jacked it in completely. We were left with multiple zombie stations with people with hours in but not enough staff/ICS/drivers to get the lorry otr for days and weeks at a time. So far any attempts to improve this have come to nought, save for the resurrecting the corpse of Crewing with three. 

100% agree retained us about flexibility, most of us achieve 120hrs,  when new system would be 24/7/5 = 840 divided by the current 11 = 76hrs each, most won’t be able to do weekdays so it will be 11 persons scrabbling for the hours available on nights/weekends m, leaving service recruiting for days on 35hr contracts (some hope) having to do a 36month development program for a couple of grand a year, shelf stacking would be more appealing!

[Percy]

On 04/02/2023 at 13:47, DesJWhite said:

We’re in Union but our Union Rep is heading up the project! But it has been signed off by the FBU, apparently! We are however seeking further advice!

We understand there needs to be alignment and as you state the Island is different we can’t call upon other areas, not quickly anyway. We also understand something needs to be done for daytime availability but this is not the answer, they are planning on recruiting to fill those gaps but as you know that’s not a quick process and would you go for a 35 hour contract going through the 4 year development process for a few grand a year!

If the FBU are involved then it is open for public scrutiny. Not really sure why you can’t post details? It’s a proposed system and related remuneration to keep a fire engine on the run, not nuclear missile launch codes.

In Surrey, despite the historic recruitment and retention issues of RDS and some semblance of service and availability in 2014, the concept of everyone ‘running up the path’ when the alerted goes off and the first 5 went was abandoned for the premise of those just being On Call responding.

This push for efficiency’ was very similar to leaving the hatch open on a submarine in terms of recruitment, retention and pump availability.

This sounds like something you are looking to introduce.