Chiefs, Show the Work

To win support for adequate staffing, you must show budget-makers what firefighters do, what it takes & what happens when resources fall short.

By Terry Garrison
B Shifter Buckslip, Sept. 8, 2026

For the past few years, my daughter has worked for a global private company as a financial auditor. The company is currently undergoing a strategic change. Recently, she received the following email, which went to every employee within the organization. (I removed the company name and a few other details to protect the innocent idiots.)

Hello,

As we continue to work toward our strategic framework and our ambition to be a peer-leading company, I am writing to share some necessary news regarding the evolution of our organization.

Tomorrow, we will begin the process of notifying colleagues whose roles are directly affected by the changes resulting from this evolution. To ensure a private and respectful setting for these conversations, we ask all office-based employees to work directly from home tomorrow.

What to Expect Tomorrow:

Process: If your role is impacted, you will receive a calendar invitation for a team meeting of private discussion. If you do not receive a meeting invitation, please continue to work from home.

Communication: We are committed to providing clarity quickly and handling every conversation with transparency, care and respect.

I understand that working apart can be difficult during a transition, but we believe this is the most caring way to facilitate these conversations. Thank you for your continued professionalism and empathy toward your colleagues as we take the necessary steps to position our company for the future.

According to my daughter, many people were laid off. Fortunately, she was not one of them. The following week—and I couldn’t believe this—the company hosted a pizza party day at work to “celebrate” the changes. My daughter said it was a strange thing to do with the survivors. I think she will begin the covert process of seeking another employer.

As leaders, our primary role is to support our members.

I am sharing this with you because I often hear our city managers and public officials say they would like the fire department run more like a private business.Some fire chiefs even use phrases that support the private-sector concept. We can’t do this because of how we must operate and staff our apparatus. We are the only business I know of that requires constant staffing. Think about it: If any other government employee takes a day off due to sickness or vacation, the position simply isn’t filled for that day. One less sanitation worker, and another garbage truck covers the area. One less police officer is one less car on the street. But for us, inadequate staffing is not an option because it can delay treatment or impede firefighting.

That difference is something fire chiefs must be able to explain clearly. It is not enough for us to understand why staffing matters. The people who approve our budgets, staffing levels and resources must understand it, too.

I have learned that when we clearly describe our work & explain how staffing impacts our customers, it becomes difficult to argue with our staffing needs.

Few fire chiefs would say they don’t understand that responsibility. Some chiefs may bristle at the reminder, but the truth is, some out there need reminding.

Here is the good news: The best way to maintain our focus and support our firefighters is to stay connected to the work they do and describe that work in detail whenever we have the opportunity with finance, human resources, legal, city managers, fire boards and public officials. I have learned that when we clearly describe our work and explain how staffing impacts our customers, it becomes difficult to argue with our staffing needs. Sure, they still don’t like the high cost of continuous staffing or overtime, but helping them understand how proper staffing improves service lets us have more productive conversations about appropriate hiring levels.

And by “describe the work,” I mean really describe it. Explain what has to happen when the tones go off, what each firefighter is expected to do, how many people it takes to perform those tasks safely and effectively, and what changes when those people are not there. Connect staffing decisions directly to response times, task completion, firefighter safety and customer outcomes.

Remind your bosses that the human body hasn’t changed and that going without oxygen for longer than five minutes still results in death. Show them the EMS studies and how many firefighters and paramedics it takes to effectively treat our ALS patients—including trauma patients.

Make your argumentseven more impactful by showing them data within your jurisdiction. Charts and diagrams work nicely. Additionally, use NFPA standards to demonstrate how many firefighters it takes to control a typical house fire and what happens when we delay our initial attack and ongoing operations. Standards like NFPA 1700 help chiefs translate fireground reality into something decision-makers can see and understand. The argument is no longer, “This is what the fire chief wants.” It becomes, “This is what the work demands.” My good friend and fellow Blue Card employee Chris Stewart and I recently participated in developing the revised 2026 edition of NFPA 1700: Guide to Structural Fire Fighting. I encourage every fire chief and fire department leader, including labor leaders, to review the document and use it whenever discussing our work with those who control the budget. Like previous standards and other NFPA documents, the new 1700 was created by firefighters based on the work they perform and the hazards they face.

I remember my city manager and the weekly meetings we shared. He would have his agenda and want to discuss budgets, and I was certainly okay with that. But I would come prepared with my own information and make sure we also discussed response times and service delivery. There was never a time when I did not try to bring the conversation back to the work our firefighters performed. I did the same when meeting with elected officials and inquiring citizens. Today, I think I would absolutely leave them with a printed card containing relevant information, something they could take with them and share with others.

The private company my daughter works for will survive. Employees will come and go, and the stakeholders will have gains and losses. But the decisions we make as fire service leaders can cost so much more—like the loss of one of our customers or of one of our firefighters. Sure, fire chiefs should be competent at budgets and good at public speaking, but they should be remarkable at understanding and explaining the work that our firefighters perform. If the people making decisions about our staffing and resources do not understand the work, we cannot expect them to fully understand what it takes to support it.

In 2007, Terry Garrison retired from the Phoenix Fire Department after serving more than 30 years. Working for Alan Brunacini and reaching the rank of assistant chief of operations helped shape Terry’s consistent values: firefighter safety and customer service. After a quick retirement, Terry served as the fire chief of the Oceanside (Calif.) Fire Department for almost three years. He then served as the chief of the Houston Fire Department for more than five years. Terry eventually moved back to where he was raised and served as the fire chief for the Glendale (Ariz.) Fire Department for more than six years before officially retiring from government service. Including his two years in the U.S. Army, Terry has worked for the government and worn a nametag and a helmet for more than 47 years. (Thank goodness for helmets.) In addition, he has traveled throughout the world teaching Fire Command, utilizing his master’s degree in education. Today, Terry and his wife, Annette, live in Phoenix. He will continue to stay connected to the fire service by working with B Shifter.