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Emergency services in Australia are struggling to hold onto their volunteer staff. In New South Wales, for example, only half of the 1,700 volunteers who join the State Emergency Service are still active members a year later. In Western Australia, the overall yearly turnover is 12-18% and rising.

This represents a serious drain on the sector. Precise volunteer numbers are not always collated, but we estimate that more than 240,000 emergency service volunteers across Australia help to protect regional, rural and remote communities where the sprawling areas make it impractical to rely solely on career emergency workers.

The large turnover is an economic liability, as training and uniforms (including personal protective equipment) are expensive. Meanwhile, the constant drain of volunteers can affect not just operational capacity, but morale too.

Volunteer brigades and units are managed by the volunteers themselves. This can lead to tensions between these quasi-independent groups and the paid staff who work in the regional, district of head office. But such tensions can also arise within the volunteer groups themselves, and effective leadership is therefore a crucial element in retaining new recruits.

Keeping volunteers on board

Our research group has therefore partnered with Australian emergency service agencies to try to give leaders the interpersonal skills required to support members and hold onto volunteer staff more effectively.

To do this, we trialled a training program based on self-determination theory (SDT). Our results suggest this could be a very useful tool.

Self-determination theory recognises three basic psychological needs required for motivated, happy staff:

• autonomy: the need for volition, to make decisions and express one’s personal initiatives and ideas

• competence: the need to feel effective and capable

• relatedness: the need to feel accepted and part of the group

Self-determination theory’s basic psychological needs have been researched and applied across diverse social environments such as homes, workplaces, schools, sports teams, and health care. Research suggests that when workers’ needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness are met they are more motivated, engaged, satisfied, and less likely to be considering quitting.

To try to apply this approach to volunteer emergency services, we developed a nine-week program called Inspire Retain Engage (IRE), to teach leaders to interact with their members using SDT principles.

The program consisted of a one-day face-to-face training to learn about self-determination theory and leadership, where leaders worked together to identify key strategies to support each of the three basic psychological needs. For example, leaders could build relatedness by getting to know volunteers and their interests.

Participants then developed their own nine-week action plan that they implemented in their units and brigades with the support of an online mentor. This was followed by a final day of reflection, sharing successes and identifying best practice.

We piloted the IRE program in 2014 with volunteer leaders from the New South Wales State Emergency Service and the NSW Rural Fire Service. It was then further refined and tested in 2016 with volunteer leaders and staff of the Victoria State Emergency Service and the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services.

In total, we have trialled this approach with 72 members from four different volunteer-based emergency service agencies.

We evaluated the program’s impact by surveying IRE participants, volunteer members supervised by participants and other volunteer leaders not a part of the program, both before and after IRE.

The findings revealed that the self-determination theory principles – encouraging autonomy, competence and relatedness in their role – were linked with higher job satisfaction among volunteers, and a more widespread intention to continue volunteering with their current agency. Basic psychological needs accounted for 56% of the variance in volunteers’ job satisfaction and 49% of turnover intention.

Getting results

When emergency service leaders were surveyed about current volunteer leadership courses available respondents told us that such training is often hard to access, limited in scope, and does not focus on interpersonal skills.

The results of the evaluation showed the IRE program improved leaders’ managerial orientation. When compared to other leaders in the organisation, program participants adopted more motivational and less controlling managerial approaches nine weeks later. In addition, 46% of members reported a difference in their team leader’s interactions with them during the program.

Overall, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. 100% of leaders agreed that self-determination theory was a valuable model for emergency service leadership, and 84% said they would recommend the program to other leaders in their organisation.

As of 2017, the IRE program is available to all emergency service agencies in Australia and we are satisfied with its benefit to volunteer leaders, staff and their agencies.

But of course, only time will tell whether this kind of thinking will improve retention of our valued volunteer emergency workers in the long term.

Michael Jones's research is supported the Commonwealth of Australia through the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre.

Vivien Forner and Yoke Berry do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

We are dairy farmers in Scotland who rear our calves to eight weeks of age in hutches clearly visible to the public next to a road. Walkers, cyclists and motorists stop to view and photograph the calves in their happy and comfortable environment. We have never had a negative comment as to their welfare and since starting to calve in September – the last one arrived on Sunday night – no antibiotics have been required to treat any ailment with the calves.

Though I would agree that the calves pictured in your article (Dairy is scary. The public are waking up to the darkest part of farming, theguardian.com, 30 March) looked too big for the hutch accommodation provided, I find this to be the healthiest method to rear calves for the first period of what is in our interest to be a happy, contented and productive life.
Robin Young
Dunblane, Stirling

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Australia is embarking on a transition from an electricity system that relies largely on coal to one that may one day be 100% renewable. Last week’s closure of the Hazelwood coal-fired generator was an important milestone on this path.

The development of the renewables sector has not, however, been a smooth ride.

Estimates released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics suggest that the number of direct full-time equivalent jobs in renewable energy activities has continued to fall from its 2011-12 peak. Over a period in which the Australian economy saw around 600,000 additional people get jobs, employment in the renewables sector has been going backwards.

A small employer

The renewables sector is estimated to have directly provided only 11,150 full-time equivalent jobs in 2015-16. The Australian labour force exceeds 12.6 million people. The sector thus makes a small contribution to national employment, although one that is quite important in some local economies.

Around half of the jobs in renewables in 2015-16 were in installing (and maintaining) rooftop solar systems. Hydroelectricity generation provides 1,840 full-time equivalent jobs, a number that is likely to increase if pumped storage is to make a larger contribution to smoothing Australia’s electricity supply. Biomass provides 1,430 full-time jobs, and the wind industry around 620.

The fact that renewables is a small employer - especially once installations are up and running - is not a bad thing. If renewables were labour-intensive, they would be expensive.

Up then down

The rise and then fall in renewables jobs is primarily a result of what has happened to installations of rooftop solar. The annual number of small-scale solar installations (PV and solar water heaters) skyrocketed over the four years to 2011. This rapid growth was spurred by generous feed-in-tariffs, rebates, and rules for federal government solar credits. There was also a national program to install solar panels on schools.

When these arrangements were curtailed, uptake fell. Annual installations of small-scale solar PV and water heaters are down by more than 60% from their peak. We are still installing a lot of new systems (more than 183,000 in 2016), but fewer than before. Employment estimates for small-scale solar closely track installation rates. The decline in employment in the wind energy sector is also worth noting.

The largest fall in renewables jobs has been in Queensland, a state that substantially tightened its feed-in-tariff scheme for rooftop solar in several steps from 2011 on. Queensland also holds the title of having Australia’s highest residential rooftop solar PV penetration rate (32%). South Australia is not far behind, at 31%.

Ramping up large-scale renewables

Recent years of policy uncertainty and backtracking have not helped the rollout of large-scale renewables. The termination of Australia’s carbon price and downwards renegotiation of the Renewable Energy Target had chilling effects on investment.

Those events are now behind us. With continued reductions in the cost of renewables, brighter days for the sector appear to be ahead, especially if our governments get policy settings right.

We can expect particularly rapid growth in jobs installing large-scale solar PV. Just last week, for example, it was announced that South Australia is to have a large new solar farm.

Paul Burke receives funding under the Australian Research Council's Discovery Early Career Researcher Award scheme.

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