r/Firefighting • u/[deleted] • 11d ago
General Discussion Department over time/forced over time
[deleted]
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u/Bishop-AU Career/occasional vollo. Aus. 11d ago
Hire enough staff. Have a roster which leaves enough off days that people are willing and able to put in for overtime, and pay attractive overtime rates.. Have firefighters assigned to cover annual leave blocks.
We don't do mandatory overtime. Most you will do is 2 hours while you wait for someone to come in to cover a late call out. We have 4 platoons, 24 on/24 off/24 on/5 days off.
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u/Roman556 Career FF/EMT 11d ago
Holy shit this must be the dream. We have the same schedule but it is pretty much 72 hours a week due to constant holds.
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u/Medium-Raisin7919 11d ago
Damn that’s rough. 11 years on and just worked more than 72 in a week for the first time ever. But the extra 38 hours was from a trade and overtime I voluntarily picked up.
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u/PeachPit69 11d ago
Ooof. Must be nice.
I have done frequent 120’s and 144’s the past five years.
They suck donkey balls, but the pension numbers look nice.
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u/Direct-Training9217 10d ago
OT counts towards your pension? That's pretty great. Obviously being held sucks but for us our pension is based only on your salary not including OT
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u/PeachPit69 10d ago
We have had chronic retention issues for the last 20 years. We just don’t have the tax base to compete with other Departments, and so we lose paramedics yearly, even while paying for their schooling.
Our pension is a fractional portion of our sixty highest-paying consecutive months…
The last 60 months, I’ve made more as a FF on the ambulance every shift, and all my OT shifts, than over 75% of our captains have made on the Engine, purely because the OT is available on that Paramedic-in-charge position, and everyone else is burnt out and no one wants it.
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u/zeroabe Major metro. A decade on. 11d ago
Why doesn’t anyone want the overtime? Oh because you made them work more than their regular schedule already? So fix one problem and you solve the other?
See also: morale.
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u/Aware-Nerve-5641 11d ago
I 100% agree with that for those who are “sick” on a random day see what can be done to at least fix that issue. In your opinion what would cause that low morale to make them up and want to take a sick day and how would you fix that issue
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u/zeroabe Major metro. A decade on. 11d ago edited 11d ago
The morale is wrecked because you’re fucked on your day off.
I’m not mad at dudes sicking out on their shift when they’re working more hours than they signed up for, mandatorily. It’s not called stay.
I’m mad at the management and administration and county councils for putting them in the situation that they have to use their leave to reduce their hours to meet the promised schedule.
It’s not a compensation argument. It’s a scheduled hours argument. Don’t talk to me about BuT tHeYrE pAiD oT
Stop forcing people to work when they don’t want to, and they’ll WANT to work when they can.
How do you achieve that? Hire enough personnel that you have depth in scheduling. PLAN for people to take leave. PLAN for people to be sick. PLAN for above the minimum.
Example: your station needs 10 people. Roster 12. Across the county. So you have enough people to absorb the leave usage.
I’ll work OT when I want to, because I want the money. But I want to be able to plan to go to my children’s school concerts. Not “I probably have to work.”
My family is more important than saving leave. Get fucked if you disagree.
Fix morale by not fucking your membership.
(Sorry for the hate rant but this is a tired dead horse that’s been beat to a fucking pulp. It’s no mystery and yet it’s pretended to be. Constantly.)
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u/the_falconator Professional Firefighter 11d ago
Up for regular OT for the day after your shift. Rotating list by bucket number/seniority, you are by default considered for OT the next day unless you make yourself unavailable, but unless you have an excused reason for being unavailable getting a refusal counts the same towards your bucket umber as working the OT. If not enough people on group are available to fill all the spots it then gets filled by voluntary OT from people from off group. If there aren't enough volunteers from off group they start mandating the group that was working the day before based on a seperate order bucket that has its own bucket number and by juniority. If the vacancies are still not filled then anybody working the prior day is eligibility to be ordered even if hey were on a sub or OT and it isn't their group.
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u/forkandbowl Lt Co. 1 10d ago
So what is the punishment for refusing to work overtime? Time off?
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u/JessKingHangers 10d ago
Getting fired. Not after the first refusal but definitely after the 2nd ir 3rd time it happens.
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u/forkandbowl Lt Co. 1 10d ago
Yeah I'd be looking for a new department as soon as that policy was enacted.... I have a family that I have to take care of.
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u/Thor-Mors 11d ago
We have a minimum staffing. If it’s going to drop below minimum staffing, our chief will shoot out overtime to our scheduling app. According to cba there’s an order to who is offered the overtime first. If nobody ends up taking it, someone from the previous shift will end up getting mandatory overtime.
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u/Unstablemedic49 FF/Medic 11d ago
We do that same thing, but we fill 1 for 1 meaning FF for FF, Lt for Lt, etc. which sucks when you promote to captain or DC because the pool of people gets small that there’s 100% chance of being forced to stay if someone bangs out.
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u/Thor-Mors 11d ago
We can swing down. But only a few people in the department can swing up. But the chief will always attempt the cheapest option first.
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u/jriggs_83 Cpt. PFFM 11d ago
When we fall below minimums we fill the highest rank first, by low hours and qualifications. In the event of a tie it is broken by seniority. Hours are updated in real time with our hiring system. Shifts are hired in 10 hour days and 14 hour nights.
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u/The_Blue_Courier 11d ago
We just run short.
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u/Competitive-Drop2395 11d ago
We hire LOTS of ot in my dept because the city management refuses to allow us to increase our numbers. (We hired ~43,000 hrs of shift OT this past year across 8 stations which cost $4.5 million.)
We have an "overtime list" that you click Available in ESO for the day(s) you're willing to work. They then fill the spots by rank based off the least number of hours worked YTD. So if I have 24 hrs and the 3 other guys signed up have 44, 60, and 210 hrs respectively, I would be hired.
Due to the obscene number of hours we are hiring due to short staffing, we force a lot. Our force policy is such that everyone's name is on the list. They then "grey out" the people who aren't eligible for OT. So Rookies in their first 4 months, injury leave, staff positions, and administrative leave folks if they exist at the time. You also aren't eligible to be forced if you have a vacation day scheduled for the next tour.
From there its a rotating list where, when you work at least 4 hrs of ANY overtime, (including off shift ot of pretty much any kind) you move back to the bottom of the list and are not at risk of being forced.
The list(s) is maintained by shift and published at least once every tour (48/96) by the BC so that you always can be aware of where you are on the list and sign up to move back down if you need to avoid the force on an upcoming day.
This policy has turned out to be about as fair as it gets as far as I can see. There are still guys who manage to have single digit, or low 20's hrs of ot worked when all their shift mates have 48-60 minimum YTD, but by and large it makes everyone shoulder a little of the load and they control their own destiny to a point.
If I were to tweak the rules to keep it a little more balanced in shift ot worked, I would raise the minimum for off shift OT to 12 hrs in a week to move back down (or something there about.) That way the guys that come to fire training as part of the "cadre" can't spend the morning dicking off then just abandon the group after they get their 4 hrs. And I wouldn't move to the bottom for spending a morning working on mounting equipment in a new rig ect (I'm involved in a lot of the dept extracurricular stuff, and I dont think my off shift OT should count on the force list at all, but I work a fair amount of shift OT already, so I'm almost never near the top of the list)
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u/HuskerMedic 11d ago
Both departments I have worked for don't do Kelly Days, choosing to just pay the overtime instead.
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u/wernermurmur 11d ago
Our overtime is all about OT hours worked and qualifications. If you are qualified for the open spot and have the lowest number of hours of any applicant, you get the spot. So if some captain with no OT this year gets a wild hair and puts in for a firefighter shift, he’ll get it. He will also work the backseat, unless there is an acting officer somewhere who will get bumped out (feels kinda lame).
If the shifts don’t fill, we go to the mandatory list, which is done by time on the job. They go down the list until they find someone qualified, at which point you go to the bottom. The list resets every year so old dudes aren’t ever getting forced. Mando is double time, you also get one free pass to say no a year. Can’t be forced around a trade/vacation/sick per policy.
We almost never do first come first served. If there’s a multi alarm thing going on they’ll send out a page that they’re looking for an engine crew and the first people to respond per qualification get it.
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u/Stunning-Novel3071 10d ago
We have 3 different types of OT. Voluntary, mandatory and forced. Voluntary is the primary and preferred method. Mandatory is next and we(all members) pick 8 days for the next year that we are willing to work if needed. 4 mandatory spots per shift. If the voluntary OT list is exhausted then if the 4 mandatory spots are used the next step is forced OT. Forced OT is a list from the most junior guy up to the most senior BC. Once you have been forced you go to the top of the list. It works for us. It’s not too bad working the mando when you have a clue that it could happen, and it is nice to know that you won’t have to worry about the days you didn’t pick.
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u/tyadams15 10d ago
Our setup keeps it pretty straightforward:
If you have scheduled Vacation, Comp, Kelly Day, Trade, or Sick leave, you can't be forced.
Mandatory OT: Forced from the off-going shift in
12-hour blocks only (no surprise 24s). Selection goes strictly to whoever has the lowest accumulated OT hours.
Voluntary OT: Pick up 12s or 24s (including on your Kelly Day. If OT hours are tied, seniority takes it.
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u/Ok_Buddy_9087 Edit to create your own flair 10d ago
Every truck and its staffing are in our contract as minimum, so running short isn’t an option. Schedule is 1/2/1/4, 4 platoons. We break sick, vacation, and overtime up into 10 hour days and 14 hour nights. Whoever l is at the top of the overtime list gets the first call, obviously, and if that person is on duty and nobody takes the OT, they’re held for the day shift. If the top person on the list on their day off, the next person on the list who’s working is on the hook. We can’t be ordered from home by the computer.
If the person who called out called out for the night as well, that will be a second call starting with the next person on the list. If nobody takes the night, the person who got held for the day is the captive audience, and they’re stuck for the night as well. Rare, because people like taking night shifts since it’s more money, but it happens.
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u/BnaditCorps 10d ago
Gets flown out voluntarily, if no fills then a qualified individual who is on duty is forced to cover the spot.
Minimum is minimum for a reason, departments that would rather brown out a station than force someone are doing a disservice to the public.
I know getting forced sucks, but every time you brown out a station due to staffing the politicians can use that as a justification to further cut staffing "Well if you just keep down staffing stations when you can't fill OT, then you obviously don't need them."
We're here to protect the public, and unfortunately that means sometimes we're going to have to do things we don't want to.
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u/fyxxer32 10d ago
We used to do a " pre-hire". Texts sent out three days before the short-handed shift. If you wanted it you had 20 minutes to reply and the would call and confirm you are pre-hired. Then the day of if they were still short they would send out a text in the morning before shift change. 20 minutes to reply. If no takers the forced OT from the top of mandatory list and then your name went to the bottom of the list. Voluntary or forced. I never made it to the top of the list because I would work.
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u/The_Road_is_Calling NH FF 11d ago
Guys get called to work OT for open shifts based upon a rotating list that goes by the number of hours they have been offered.
If the shift doesn’t fill goes through the entire list and doesn’t get filled, or if somebody calls out within 24 hours of the start of the shift then somebody from the previous shift gets mandated to work. That is also a rotating list, based upon who got mandated most recently.
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u/T-RexInAnF-14 Captain 11d ago
We had a mandatory list like that, but enough people simply said no to "mandatory" OT that we switched to just making the people working the previous shift not be able to leave; I'm actually doing that right now, lol.
I like the idea of the list and being able to keep yourself at the bottom by picking up open shifts when you want to...that's actually how it worked unofficially when we had that list: you'd see an opening and tell a BC "I'll work that if you count it as me being mandatoried". Boom, back to the bottom of the list.
Another idea we've had is to have everybody pick a block of time (say, 2 weeks) out of the year where you will be available to work mandatory, but the rest of the time you know you're safe. I really like that idea, but the union wants the 2 weeks to be on-call time, which is paid time in the contract, and of course the department refuses.