Membership
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emtbill
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We entice our members with money. Every member has to pull some volunteer shifts, but if you want to do extra we pay the members $50 for a 12 hour shift. That's not a lot, but for sitting around for 12 hours playing xbox and sleeping, it's easy beer money. It costs less to entice a volunteer to work than it does to pay a full time employee when volunteers can't cover a shift, so it's a win win situation. Additionally, if you procure a certain amount of points quarterly by coming to meetings, getting extra training, etc, we give about $300 so in total you can make a couple extra thousand dollars a year by being with our agency.
ResTech
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Some volly stations have incentive programs... one that I am familiar with paid so much per call and at the end of the year before Christmas, the members were allowed to choose from several gift cards from several major retailers. It wasnt uncommon for many volunteers to have $200-300 racked up... which isnt a lot... but nice before Christmas.
A few tips I could give to retain volunteers....
1) If your a combo paid/volunteer dept... treat everyone the same. Do not make vollys seem less important or lesser qualified. Too many times this separation of paid and volunteer creates a wall and alienates volunteers to the point they become inactive.
2) Allow vollys to have priority on calls over paid staff.
3) Instill a sense of pride within the organization... provide uniforms.
4) Create a survey and ask all members to fill it out to identify what the obstacles are to retention.
5) Sometimes the demands of life are just too much and no matter what you do wont matter.
A few tips I could give to retain volunteers....
1) If your a combo paid/volunteer dept... treat everyone the same. Do not make vollys seem less important or lesser qualified. Too many times this separation of paid and volunteer creates a wall and alienates volunteers to the point they become inactive.
2) Allow vollys to have priority on calls over paid staff.
3) Instill a sense of pride within the organization... provide uniforms.
4) Create a survey and ask all members to fill it out to identify what the obstacles are to retention.
5) Sometimes the demands of life are just too much and no matter what you do wont matter.
Hockey
Quackers
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My agency pays us, above minimum wage, for our entire shift.
8jimi8
CFRN
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to entice our employees and volunteers my squad pays its full time medics $11.00/hour
how about that!
how about that!
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You may want to check out our Volunteer Incentive Programs thread. Lots of good ideas there.
wyoskibum
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Your joking right?
medic417
The Truth Provider
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Our service attracts and keeps paramedics by paying $20/hr all 24 hours paid. Great retirement and insurance that I have yet to find better for free and include family for less than $100 a month, plus lots of other benefits. In fact I have never seen a fire department even come close on benefits. This is in an area with a very low cost of living.
ResTech
Forum Asst. Chief
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Hockey... are you experienced with EMS organizations who are primarily volunteer who have to resort to paid staffing to supplement the volunteer staffing?
It is important to treat everyone the same and have the same expectations for everybody. If not, you will have turmoil, low moral, and bitterness within the organization. When its the volunteers who are doing all the groundwork and are managing the organization, why should they not have priority on calls? If they devote time to be on-station, if a call comes in than they should be on it.
The paid staff gets paid the same regardless. There are many flavors of EMS department make-up... yes, the big County and City departments likely have Unions and are structured differently than the majority small to medium sized Community FD or EMS station.
It is important to treat everyone the same and have the same expectations for everybody. If not, you will have turmoil, low moral, and bitterness within the organization. When its the volunteers who are doing all the groundwork and are managing the organization, why should they not have priority on calls? If they devote time to be on-station, if a call comes in than they should be on it.
The paid staff gets paid the same regardless. There are many flavors of EMS department make-up... yes, the big County and City departments likely have Unions and are structured differently than the majority small to medium sized Community FD or EMS station.
wyoskibum
Forum Captain
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I agree. My old service was combined paid/volunteer. We had minimum shift requirements for the volunteers so they could get the experience to maintain competency. The volunteers were expected to know their stuff and the career staff would do daily shift trainings with the volunteers.
The volunteer on shift would go on every call and they were expected to tech every BLS call. The only exception was if the patient would benefit from having two ALS providers riding them in.
Around here anyway, it's the full timers who have the attitudes and vollies are pretty much treated less than respectable. Of course this never applies to ALL part-full departments but, I've seen it enough to know it's more common than not.
A full timer is sometimes a combination of luck, timing and a good interview. Part-paid and vollies on a combination department deserve the same wages as full timers, period! After all, they get little to no benefits and cost less to have on staff. Most of all, we need to show our thanks as a community for everything they do at a cost the taxpayer cannot complain about.
A full timer is sometimes a combination of luck, timing and a good interview. Part-paid and vollies on a combination department deserve the same wages as full timers, period! After all, they get little to no benefits and cost less to have on staff. Most of all, we need to show our thanks as a community for everything they do at a cost the taxpayer cannot complain about.
emtbill
Forum Crew Member
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Nah that's about what medics make around here as well.
On giving volunteers priority on calls: I agree that this can cause a lot of problems. Around here it is understood that a volunteer is in charge of the station, trucks, etc, and the paid paramedic is in charge of patient care on a shift. Many employees take offense to this, but others don't mind as long as they get a paycheck. I think you can get around these potential problems by removing the word "priority" from the incentive list. If the paid medic understands he/she is there for ALS calls, give them a fly car, or run an ALS and BLS ambulance, let the volunteers run the BLS calls. There shouldn't be a problem of a BLS volunteer wanting "priority" on a chest pain or dyspnea patient since the medic will be AIC anyway.
Now if you have a volunteer ALS provider showing up to the station wanting to run calls when there is already a paid medic there, that's another story. We have had that problem in the past and you're placed in a tight spot because it's hard to turn a volunteer away but the squad is already paying the employee to be there for a shift, so it's a waste of money. It's good etiquette in these types of systems to sign up to be the medic on a shift ahead of time, or if you're just stopping by the station to hang out, ask permission to ride and be respectful.
subliminal1284
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$11.00 an hour for a medic? How in the hell does your county even have ANY medics?
8jimi8
CFRN
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Sadly, I am NOT joking. Basics make $9.00/ hr, Intermediates make $10.00/hr and Paramedics make $11.00/hr. I think their part time medics are making $13.00/hr
When I found this out, i decided to just pull an extra shift nursing to make more money and to just keep volunteering to keep getting scene experience.