Madison County Fire Dispatch Keeps Track of Deadlines with Staff Files
“It makes life so much easier because it saves so much time.”
Frita Fears, Communications Supervisor, Madison County Fire Dispatch
Customer Profile
Madison County Fire Dispatch, located in Huntsville, Alabama, is part of that county’s emergency services team. They currently have 16 employees working in a 911 environment.
Situation/Challenge
Being in a 24/7 environment means employees must work some holidays each year. In addition to accruing vacation and sick time, Madison County Fire Dispatch also needs to accrue holiday time. And, keeping track of yearly evaluations, Continuing Education credits and additional county-required training in a timely fashion was a challenge. Prior to using Staff Files, the employee records for Madison County Fire Dispatch were kept in separate spreadsheets and on paper in file cabinets. “It was a massive nightmare,” says Frita Fears, Communications Supervisor at Madison County Fire Dispatch. “Now it’s all in one place and is password protected.”
Solution
Training deadlines are now managed by using reminders in Staff Files. All education and training is logged into the Training Tab, annual performance reviews are logged into the Evaluations Tab and reminders are automatically set. “It was hard to keep track of all that training for every employee,” says Fears. “Now when I log into Staff Files, my list of reminders pop up, so I know what is coming due soon.”
Individual accrual accounts and policies are set up for vacation, sick and holiday time. “We needed a better way to accrue time-off and the ability to accrue for a separate holiday time category,” adds Fears.
Using the various tabs within Staff Files, Madison County Fire Dispatch can keep records, for both current and previous employees, privately stored in one place. “We add miscellaneous reports, such as disciplinary actions, to the Documents Tabs, so everything can be kept with the rest of the employee record,” adds Fears.
Benefits
After implementing Staff Files, Madison County Fire Dispatch was able to see an immediate improvement in workflow. “Purchasing Staff Files was money well spent” says Fears. Not only have reminders been implemented for yearly evaluations, training, and education, but for birthdays, too, which has helped boost employee morale. “Birthday cards mean a lot to employees,” according to Fears. Employees have also come to depend on Staff Files for reports that list their personal time-off accruals. When talking about the many uses of Staff Files, Fears adds “It makes life so much easier because it saves so much time.”
