6-24-05
Behrend MBA Teams with Erie Fire Department
To Increase Workforce Diversity
Want to change your life? Get an MBA. Today's MBA courses are active, team-based, project-oriented, hands-on learning opportunities. If you don't think so, just ask the students who recently completed Peg Thoms' required graduate course on Managing a Diverse Work Force. She sent them into the Erie community to address a problem, and their answers were enlightening.
"Our assignment was to produce a strategy for the Erie Fire Department to make its workforce more diverse," said Annette Nowosielski, a Lord Corporation employee who will complete her Penn State MBA at Behrend in December 2005. "We researched the Erie Times-News, television, and radio to learn all we could about the problem, then we talked to firefighters and to the Human Resources office of the Erie Fire Department. We learned a lot about the city that we wouldn't have learned otherwise."
When the class was finished, Dan Palmer, deputy chief for training at the Erie Fire Department, received ten professionally-produced proposals filled with suggestions to diversify the Erie Fire Department.
In a letter to Thoms, Palmer wrote, "Your graduate class has done an outstanding job developing ideas and materials focused on improving interest and participation in the hiring process used by the Civil Service Commission for our department." Palmer said the department's intent is to use the materials to encourage potential candidates to participate in this year's testing cycle and to tackle some of the long-range strategies provided for future years.
To accomplish its assignment, Thoms' class divided into teams of four or five. Recognizing that Palmer would be a resource needed by each team, they invited him to class to give a presentation and answer questions.
Each team had to figure out why Erie, with 12.3 percent African American population, has no African-American firefighters, and the advantages that would accrue if the city did have a more diverse fire department. Once they found those answers, they began to develop a strategy and produce promotional materials to recruit qualified African-American firefighters. Because nearly all the students are employed and attend classes at night, this was no small feat.
"The majority of our work was done through e-mail," said Nowosielski, "because almost everyone in the class had a full-time job. It was tough to have group meetings, although we did need some."
"The strategies these students came up with were tremendous," said Thoms, who directs the MBA program at Penn State Behrend and is an associate professor of management. "They proposed a summer day camp for young people to learn the basics of a firefighter's job. They proposed that firefighters have a competition and challenge some of the local high school athletic teams to participate. They proposed that firefighters take their recruiting to high schools with larger African-American populations. They came up with ideas for corporate sponsorship of recruiting programs. And all of these proposals were presented in a high-quality, professional format, along with posters, brochures, videotape and radio spots that could be used on stations popular with young African-Americans."
Joanna Kreider's team saw the need to start early in recruiting minority firefighters. "If you start with young children, there will be a better chance for social change," she said. "Involve them early in after-school programs with firefighters, teach them about community service, and make the programs grow with the students. By the time they're in high school, both the students and their parents will be more interested and accepting of a career as a firefighter.
"In high school, offer students summer jobs to earn tuition credits," Kreider said, "or offer to help with their tuition if they return to serve the community as a firefighter." Another change Kreider suggested is recruiting outside the city for firefighters, as they do in her hometown of Harrisburg. "They can recruit anywhere for firefighters, but hire only with the understanding that the new employee must move into the city."
One of the reasons the class identified for the absence of black firefighters is simple family tradition. New firefighters often come from families where a father, grandfather, uncle, or brother has a history of service, and most of those families are white. For that reason, black firefighters tend to be few.
"This is one reason to start the recruiting process with young children," said Kreider. "It will take time to change, but eventually, there will be families of black firefighters."
About the school:
The Sam and Irene Black School of Business at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, has offered an MBA program since 1987. Thanks to quality improvements resulting from the $20 million endowment gift of the Black family, the program has been accredited by AACSB International, which sets the global standard for business schools, has awarded accreditation to Penn State Behrend's Black School of Business. This makes Penn State Behrend the first and only institution to earn this distinction of excellence in the Erie region.