Case Study

Improving Morale

You have been tasked with “improving morale” within the Sandy City Fire Department (SCFD). The SCFD is a department of 143 line firefighters, five fire stations and a budget of roughly 17 million.

Its rank structure consists of a chief, 2 assistant chiefs, 6 battalion chiefs, 17 captains, 6 lieutenants and 111 firefighters. The department additionally employs 11 civilians assigned to either administrative functions or to the dispatch center. SCFD is an old, very traditional fire department that has always done promotions by seniority, until recently. The new chief, less than one year on the job, has begun promotional testing for advancement. As you might imagine, the change has been controversial with some more senior members but well accepted by others, specifically ones with lesser service. The newer members favor the change due to opportunities it creates that were not previously available. Newer members also claim that seniority is only one of many traits required for leadership roles. Sole utilization of seniority for promotion has resulted in deficient department leadership. The senior members find the change unacceptable, for obvious reasons.

The riff has resulted in what has been described as the lowest morale in department memory.

Your job is to find ways to improve morale within the SCFD. Define at least two multi-step processes that could be used to satisfy this charge. Point out the pros and cons of each process with specific reference to the theories, processes and styles you have learned thus far in this course.

A 3-5 page, well written and structured paper should be the end product of this assignme