- Title:
-
Ethnic Communities are Not Interested in Becoming Firefighters: True or false?
- Date:
- September 2008
- Organisations
- MFB
- Authors:
- D. Smiley
- Location:
- Australia, VIC, Australia
Overview
The International Bushfire Research Conference 2008 - incorporating The 15th annual AFAC Conference, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
The search to understand why fire services personnel are not diverse enough leads to a series of presumed justifications including the assumption that ethnic communities in general do not consider firefighting as a sought-after career.
Is this assumption true or false? Either way, what does it matter? What difference would it make to a fire service to have a diverse workforce? Do people in the community care one way or the other about the the profile of firefighters?
Should the fire service as an organisation concern itself with this issue and if so, why? How? And what can be done about it? Often, efforts are focused on recruitment while little is done to prepare the internal environment to be welcoming, accepting and nurturing of difference. The challenge for a fire service is to:
- Understand the difference diversity will make to its core business.
- Communicate this understanding consistently and widely across the organisation.
- Develop and implement internal and external strategies to make it happen.
