Every fire department whether paid or volunteer must train and practice their skills on a regular basis in order to maintain their knowledge and skills so they are prepared when an incident inevitably occurs. Of course, we can learn a lot from the other members of our department. However, sometimes planning of trainings and the trainings themselves can become a boring routine occurrence. When your trainings start feeling like a broken record, it might be time to consider bringing in an external training service.

External training services can help break up the monotony and spark some inspiration within your department! Here are 5 reasons to hire an outside training service.

1. Introduce a new perspective and fresh materials

As mentioned, routine fire department training can become stale and boring! Bringing in an outside instructor can reinvigorate your department with enthusiasm and inspiration. External trainers offer their courses because they are passionate about what they teach. They see the importance of fire service education. They will bring a new way of thinking, viewing, and practicing skills for fire service.

While your in-house instructors may cover a topic in-depth, an outside instructor may present the same information in a different format. That new format might make more sense to some members than the repetitive way it had been covered in the past.

2. Bring in expertise in special training areas

Outside trainers are often particularly knowledgeable in specific areas and topics. Brining in outside instructors for your department trainings can help fill in that gaps that your in-house experts and experienced members are lacking.

For example, Fire Fighter I courses typically do not cover hazmat trainings. However, in rural areas, we are often surrounded hazardous materials such as fertilizers, and chemicals being shipped across country on trains. Understanding placards and how to handle spills and decontamination may be rare occurrences in the fire service, but when they do happen we need to be knowledgeable and trained to handle those situations.

3. Learn from unique lessons plans based on incidence from outside your department

Your internal trainers often are drawing from the same experiences and incidents time after time. They also probably experienced those events together with the same group they are teaching.

Bringing in an outside instructor and training can provide a more varied knowledge base. External trainings can pull from real world incidents from other departments. This can increase awareness and allow your members and expand their view point.

4. Identify weaknesses within your department

Consultation with an external training instructor can help identify and define areas of weakness within your own department. Bringing in an outside lesson plan may uncover skills that were lacking within your department. Outside professionals can be brought in to aide in expanding understanding of those skills and topics.

Therefore, bringing in an outside instructor can even help the leaders in your department make a plan to cross those gaps with future trainings.

5. Improve professionalism

Sometimes, when we fall into routine, we might forget our ‘why’. When we forget the reason we are training, our professionalism may fall by the wayside. A good ol’boy atmosphere may take hold, as we feel as though we are just hanging out with our buddies. The result is we are not getting all we can out of in-house trainings.

Bringing in an outsider can help boost professionalism and provide a good reminder of what we are striving to prepare for on those routine training nights. The presence and expectations of behavior and learning coming from an outside instructor can help hold fire department members more accountable for their attendance, and retention of information from trainings.

In conclusion, if your trainings have become stale, boring and routine, reinvigorate your department with inspiration from an outside training instructor. Outside trainers bring enthusiasm, they can help bridge gaps in knowledge, provide a fresh perspective to your department and more. External instructors have many benefits to elevate your department’s skills, knowledge and understanding.

Resources: https://www.firerescue1.com/fire-careers/articles/the-case-for-seeking-effective-outside-firefighter-training-VHexkHRD9sfM3HAN/