By Steve Athey
Early in my career I was the Director of Operations for a large, urban EMS system. I took the job and was thrust into a fast-paced 911 system that was often characterized as having a contentious labor-management relationship. It was sometimes difficult to gauge employee satisfaction and their feelings about their jobs, their working conditions, and how they felt about management. There were always those employees who were willing to communicate directly both positively and negatively about issues, but it was still difficult to determine if those were consensus opinions among the rest of the workforce. Being new to the organization, I wanted to open communications and find any tool I could to improve the exchange of ideas and opinions.
During that time period, Tom Peters, author of “In Search of Excellence,” had advocated Management by Wandering Around (MBWA) as a popular management strategy to gain insights into your business and your employees. I wandered around and around, but the past environment was such that many employees were afraid to express themselves, so I was still unsure about the real feelings of the employees.
One day in my “wanderings,” I happened to use the restroom in the crew area and found written on the bathroom walls opinions on every aspect of the EMS operation. Scrawled gloriously in anonymous black and white were gripes, concerns, poems, and pictures — and none of them positive. After all, does anyone write nice things on bathroom walls? Had I found the true thoughts, opinions, and feelings of the employee group?
I couldn’t help but react to some of the expressed themes and employee concerns, but was the bathroom wall really a tool to learn the expressed feelings of a workforce? Did a majority of the employees write on the bathroom walls, or just a few? Did the female employees write on their bathroom walls? More importantly, were the concerns and discussion threads written on the walls valid? I’m not sure I answered any of those questions, but I did try to be responsive to what I had read and learned, and I eventually re-painted the bathroom. The writings returned, so I had to assume at least someone believed the forum was “legitimate.”
Bathroom wall 2.0
Twenty-five years later, I believe the bathroom wall has been replaced by the internet forum or message board, and my questions about the validity or value of the information found on the bathroom wall are still relevant and can be asked of this new technology. Many EMS managers participate in these forums to gauge industry trends, exchange ideas, identify prevalent opinions, and sometimes learn information about their own organizations and the thoughts and feelings of their employees.
These forums or discussion boards are Web applications that manage user-generated content and are usually “member only” for specific industries or locales. They could be valuable places for exchanging ideas on a number of topics. However, as a member of an EMS-related discussion group, I frequently find myself questioning the validity of the consensus reached on these boards or whether or not it really is the feeling of the majority versus that of the vocal minority.
These online discussions can disintegrate quickly into the modern equivalent of a bathroom wall, and any opinions you might develop from reading or participating in these groups should be accepted with caution. The old EMS manager in me cringes a little when I read “posts” airing dirty laundry, tearing down the industry, or someone being critical of their company or organization. I realize they have the right to do so, but I wonder if the opinion is a prevalent feeling on the topic or just a single scrawl on the bathroom wall. If the post generates some discussion (threads), they can get hot and ugly.
A thread or topic is a collection of posts, where forum members can respond not only to the topic, but also to responses left by others. They often are reactionary, “off topic,” or posted with no other apparent purpose other than to “flame” someone else or to gain approval of your position by the masses. There are those that will wait until a position is clear and then take the popular stance among the group — to the accolades of others. Detractors of the popular position are not well-received. I think the potential for anonymity and “group thinking” behavior calls into question the validity of the consensus opinion or information often generated on these sites.
Online ‘discussion’
This example from an EMS group to which I belong shows how quickly a thread gets “off topic,” and what could have been a positive exchange of information is now a back-and-forth of loud opinions and positions. On the first day of the thread entitled “EMS Job,” a newly graduated EMT at the “top of her class” asks (in part),
“I have been having trouble getting a response after submitting my resume online. I am in need of a job and have such a passion for this line of work. I was hoping and praying someone could help me out. God Bless!”
There are 1,793 members in the discussion group who post an average of 400 messages a month, so you would expect a positive and helpful series of responses from a broad spectrum of EMS professionals and providers. Instead, here is synopsis of what was posted in response to a new member of our industry. There were 36 posts on this topic occurring over three days, by 13 different authors; so less than 1 percent of the members of the group responded. Their responses included:
- The first thread response calls EMTs a “common labor job” and takes the original poster to task for “not knowing how to look for a job”
- A discussion quickly breaks out over the “common labor” comment
- The “separation of classes” argument between EMTs and “glorious paramedics” occurs by the 6th post
- The theory of whether or not EMTs and paramedics are really in the same profession is hotly rejected and the question is asked “how does protecting EMTs protect me?” (paramedics)
- The words “elitist mentality” are used
- EMTs as volunteers are used as a reason for the “cheapening of the profession”
- Generation X and Y are blamed
- Someone started screaming (all caps)
- ALS, BLS, EMT —Basic, Intermediate and Paramedic monikers are challenged as invalid
God Bless, indeed. I wonder if the original poster still “has a passion” for this line of work. There were, however, four responses by three different posters that offered assistance, answers, and/or congratulations to the original poster. This by far was not the hottest thread of the week, but it gives you an idea of the rhetoric provided from a simple, honest request for help and the opinions you could draw from this discussion. How can managers make sense of this “tool” as an information device? Many managers I know in the industry don’t read these at all because they believe they do not reflect the consensus or provide valuable information — “they’re a gripe board” is the opinion I hear.
Although “griping” may be a part of EMS, I do think the boards can provide active discussion and dissemination of information, and the younger generation employees are certainly comfortable communicating in forums such as these. Managers must decide if they will use the boards and if so what weight they should assign the discussions they find there. There are certain posters with posts I make sure to read because they have historically provided the voice of reason, and there are those I ignore because they are either pandering to the crowd or just like to “hear” themselves talk.
If you have the opportunity to belong to an industry discussion group, embrace the opportunity to learn what others are thinking, and to learn what the “hot buttons” are for your industry or your organization. Just don’t get fooled into relying solely on the information you read there to form your opinions — just like the bathroom wall.
