Pasco Fire Rescue among first in state to move to new schedule to improve work life balance, recruitment

Pasco Fire Rescue shifting to 42-hour work week

FOX 13's Kailey Tracy shares the new plan from Pasco Fire Rescue as they aim to improve the work-life balance for firefighters.

LAND O' LAKES, Fla. - Pasco County Fire Rescue personnel will soon get to spend more time at home.

The department is one of just a few in Florida moving to a 24 hours on, 72 hours off schedule. Right now, they operate on a 24 hours on, 48 hours off schedule.

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What they're saying:

"When you're away from your family at 24, two years ago, 48 hours, at a time, that's incredibly stressful on you and your personal life, and when you are at work, how can we expect you to give 100% of your work when you aren't 100% at home," Dixon Phillips, the president of Pasco County Professional Firefighters IAFF Local 4420, said. "So, having that work-life balance is incredibly important."

That’s one of the reasons, Phillips said, they’re shifting to the new schedule in January. 

"We're excited looking forward to see how that affects their home lives, you know, being able to be at more kids' baseball games, birthday parties, home with their spouses and to see how they are coming to work," Phillips said. 

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"To have a three-day rest period is incredibly important so that we can, when we show up to work, you know, people's lives are at stake. So, to be able to be rested, refreshed, and ready to go for 24 hours at a time is incredible," he said.

Phillips said another reason for the shift is to help fight the longstanding issues with recruitment and retention, and it’s already working.

"Right before we agreed on our collective bargaining agreement that had the 24/72s, we worked 79,000 hours of overtime, which is an incredible amount. The next year, before it's even implemented, we almost cut that number in half," he said.

Dig deeper:

"We’ve had what's called a six-week Kelly Day. So, every six weeks, we have kind of a free day off. We have vacancies already staffed to cover the Kelly Day vacancies … So, what we did was we took all those employees that were staffed for the six-week Kelly Day vacancies, moved them over to the fourth shift, and then we had to hire the rest. So, we are doing a lot of promotions," Phillips said about how they’re creating the new schedule.

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The department is the first in the Tampa Bay area to shift to the schedule.

"We're excited to be one of the pioneers moving forward into this," said Ryan Guynn, the chief for Pasco County Fire Rescue. "We get phone calls all over the country asking us why we're doing it, how we're doing it, how it's affecting us so far, and it seems like it's a movement that's kind of taking traction. And it's not for every department, but we're excited to have it here. We're excited be able to provide that benefit to our men and women, and it's going to pay dividends for the citizens."

Phillips said they’ve hired several people who’ve been at other agencies for 15 years or more in promoted positions, starting as a firefighter paramedic, because they want the schedule change.