Volunteerism Strategy six-month progress report

Our first six-monthly report to track Fire and Emergency New Zealand’s progress against our Volunteerism Strategy is now publicly available.

Volunteers currently make up over 80 percent of our people. They work alongside our career firefighters, and are supported by trainers, support staff, leadership teams and a huge range of others throughout our organisation.

Volunteers bring more than their skills and numbers; they bring their strengths and awareness of the risks and needs of their communities into the way we work. We ask them to take time out from their families, their jobs and their lives to help keep our communities safe.

To ensure we do all we can to support our volunteers, we have been working to deliver on our Volunteerism Strategy(external link), which recognises the key role of volunteers in the community and to our organisation. Implementing the strategy will ensure we have a thriving and unified volunteer workforce that feels valued, safe and supported and will help to ensure our organisation is deeply connected to New Zealand communities.

As part of our commitment to volunteers and our organisations volunteerism principles, we have published a report on our progress against the Volunteerism Strategy. The first, scene-setting, six-month report is now available on our website(external link). This report provides a starting point from which we will track our progress and evolve our understanding. The report highlights areas of success, where we need to do more, and how we can continue to learn and improve our practice.

This report is an important milestone for Fire and Emergency. We hope our people enjoy reading about the progress we have made in help ensure our organisation has a sustainable and thriving volunteer base.