Can The Same Technology Behind Bitcoin Help Our Staffing Crisis?
#MandoCity has more or less become the hashtag of choice here in the city of San Diego. Forcy The Bear terrorizes the ranks of CalFire, and the creator of Instagram’s sdfirebrigade, has built an online empire of the pain and struggles of our nation’s firefighters. Don’t get me wrong, all of these social media accounts are a hilarious pain killer to the plight that all of us are feeling in today’s fire service, giving true testament to the camaraderie and ability to laugh in the face of an utterly hopeless situation. The creator makes some seriously awesome stuff that is worth checking out. Click on the helmet to access the Brigade’s Twitter. Back to the point…the bottom line nationwide is: we simply can’t fill the seats to serve the public.
The staffing crisis for every department is unique in it’s own way, but fundamentally across the entire fire service, we are seeing burnout. The contributing factors are many, but predominantly lack of pay, increases in cancer and other occupational injuries, vaccine mandates, and the expectation that we all keep offering more services on top of an already strained system. I am a father to two small children and a husband to an amazing wife that despite my many flaws, still loves me and wants me around. I’d love to be there for my family more than my department allows me to be. It’s a complex process, but basically after those that want to work to fill vacancies sign up to work, the remaining seats left to be filled on the daily basis are forced upon the ranks. This unpleasantry takes on the form of many terms: mandatory overtime or mando, force, involuntary overtime, etc. The theme is the same: think you’re going home? Nope, the department has other plans for you. The night before shift change is pins and needles when the station phone rings breaking the bad news. Cancel the BBQ plans with the family. Break the news to your daughter that you won’t be going to her gymnastics class with her. Stay at a busy station and rack up another dismal 2 hours of sleep night. It’s quite frankly unsustainable. The writing on the wall is clear: in order to keep above water, the fire service needs to figure out these staffing problems.
The fix is complicated, and the point of this article isn’t a magic bullet. I will speak for our department when I say our city leadership is trying. We are hiring more academies of new firefighters and rearranging our staffing matrix to allow our members to work where they aren’t normally assigned. For instance, recently we have allowed firefighters and captains to work as engineers to ease the mandatory and a recent pay incentive for paramedics has allowed us more flexibility in keeping our rigs fully staffed. Despite this, we are running out of fixes and the problem doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Fitting into the framework of a resilient mutual aid system, our department is struggling to give mutual aid to state wildfire incidents and national FEMA emergencies. I want to reiterate, there is no easy fix.
BlockChain?
I write this on the day that Bitcoin has posted a new all time high. For the record, I am a newly converted fan of cryptocurrencies and have invested a small amount of my portfolio into crypto. For those that are unfamiliar with blockchain technology, it is the fundamental technology behind Bitcoin. For those of you in the fire service, imagine a simple way of collecting the chow money in the morning. It’s usually a shitshow. Chow is $10 per person. I throw in $20 expecting change. Engineer Smith throws in $5 for the time being and gets an IOU. One firefighter has no money but promises to pay later, while another firefighter throws in $30 to foot the bill for the time being. This is all being written down by the newest firefighter who is furiously trying to account for who owes who what. The other crew walks in with a similar complex network of high rollers and deadbeats, the ambulance crew threw in $10 (for two people….that math doesn’t add up?). Guess what…the math gets crazy for shopping for chow, but its a simple enough problem to solve in a single fire station. Eventually if everyone remembers what they put in and what they owe or are owed, the system works itself out. But, what if you ran chow for the entire department? 1,000 people of stellar and questionable accounting practices all expecting chow. How do you run the math? How do you stay efficient and trustworthy in accounting? Quite simply, under normal accounting procedures…you don’t. Blockchain technology solves these complicated accounting problems without relying on one single person or entity to do the math. By joining the chow pool, you strengthen the ledger system. It relies on a complex system of cryptology and computer based accounting to ensure everyone is whole at the end of the mess. YouTube “How Does Blockchain Technology Work?” and there are countless examples of the mechanics of blockchain work without a central controlling authority. Here is one of my favorites.
Solving Some Staffing Ideas With Blockchain
-Three Way trades?: Under our current system, it is impossible to trade shifts three ways because there is no reliable way to account for this possibility under our current system. If instead of finding a specific trade partner, I could instead opt to work a trade from a “trade bank” of people wishing to use a trade to get the day off. I earn a credit which can then be used in the blockchain framework to take a day off in the future where others are willing to work a trade.
-Mandatory Incentives Blockchain: A simple fix to end mandatories would be to pay more for mandatory overtime shifts. People might be more willing to work extra if the price were right. Our time is valuable and under the current model, being paid time and a half isn’t quite as enticing as it once was, especially if you are being forced to work when you don’t wish to. Also the demand for mandatories changes from day to day (ie holidays have a huge inflow of mandatory call backs). If our union and city could come to an agreement of a fixed OT bonus amount given to each employee, a small blockchain system could be set up to better incentivize people to sign up for and work overtime and mandatory shifts. For example, say we are all given $1,000 in our bonus account at the beginning of the year. We cannot touch this account until the end of the year. This hypothetical $1,000 seeds a bank from which we can sign up for mandatory overtime shifts. On days where most people would sign up for an overtime shift, the overtime ledger would reflect an increase in supply of willing workers and the bonus for working that day would decrease. The overtime bonus would be less or even close to zero. You would still get your time and a half, but very little more on top. Now, say it’s Christmas Day and there are plenty of vacancies, the blockchain ledger would respond to this. Sure, you could say no to work, but it would cost you a portion of your overtime bonus. That bonus would go into the reward bank for those willing to work. These reward would respond in real time to people willing to sign up for a mandatory overtime shift. The more people on the list, the lesser the reward. At the end of the year, those that step up and take the brunt of their mandatory shifts will be rewarded with a healthy bonus of over $1,000, while those that value their time off will have close to zero in their account. It would minimize the cost to the city, and perhaps ease the burden of being forced into a shift you had no desire to be on. Additionally, by working more mandatories, you are earning freedom to buy your way out of a mandatory shift down the line. The poor firefighter stuck in your shift gets rewarded. With Blockchain technology, there is little way any one person can manipulate the system because there is no central authority managing the system. Everything is done in real time according to a specified formula.
These ideas are all just ideas. Bottom line is our staffing problems aren’t going away and unless hiring and pay raises solves these issues, I am afraid we are in some perilous times ahead in staffing our fire departments. I think some sort of BlockChain system might be another way to alleviate this complex problem. Got any good ideas? I’d love to hear them.
Thank you and stay safe,
Tanner
The Firefighter Economist 