That is the question, are your firefighters present and accounted for? You may say, “Of course they are Rick! They show up when they are supposed to and their names are on the roster. Also, we ensure accountability at the scene of an emergency. So, what kind of a question is that?”
Ok, so their names are on the roster and those working in Operations are assigned to a seat on a rig and in a station. The people working in admin, training, and prevention are all physically present. But are they all mentally present?
Not long ago, my wife and I were in a large city and in the rear-view mirror I saw a ladder truck coming up behind us (non-emergent). As the rig pulled alongside, I noticed that both firefighters in the back were scrolling on their phones. They were in the rig, but were they mentally engaged? I have no idea where they were going and what they were going to accomplish but my first thought was, “Why are these guys on their phones? How come there isn’t any conversation taking place in the cab?”
Recently, Gallop released the results of another employee engagement study and at the top of the report, it read, “Key finding: Only 31% of U.S. employees were engaged at work in 2025 — and just 20% globally. Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in team engagement.” (https://www.gallup.com/394373/indicator-employee-engagement.aspx)
Did you see the last sentence? To whom does Gallop identify as part of the problem? Managers, but let’s translate that to the leadership of the organization. Depending on what position an individual serves at, the leadership may be disengaged as well. It is easy to account for people physically, but are they mentally engaged in the job? In emergency services there can be serious and deadly consequences of having mentally disengaged employees. Look at the Gallop statistics again, ask if this applies to your organization, and discuss the steps you can take to ensure employee engagement.
