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The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of literature about recruitment, retention and resignation among non-career firefighters.

A systematic review was conducted to identify factors associated with the recruitment, retention and resignation of non-career firefighters. The authors divided the results into three topics and four levels for further analysis.

27 articles are included in the review. Most research addresses retention at an organizational level and indicates a link between job satisfaction and factors such as supervisor support, recognition and close relationships within the workgroup. Further, a recurring reason that contributes to resignations seems to be family related (e.g. partner disapproval).

There is a lack of European and Asian research into non-career firefighters. The included research papers generally have low response rates and the sample is often mostly male and Caucasians from a limited area.

The identified factors offer deeper understanding and can help practitioners in their pursuit of the sustainable retention of non-career firefighters.

Because securing adequate numbers of non-career firefighters is important, there is a need to synthesize current evidence to identify and further understand which factors contribute to retention. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first systematic review to synthesize such evidence about non-career firefighters.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how work and family aspirations relate to occupational achievements and gender differences herein.

Using data from 2009 the authors examined the relationship between career and childrearing aspirations and occupational achievements of Dutch parents. Using path modeling in Mplus, the authors investigated both direct and indirect pathways where aspirations were related to occupational achievements via time allocations.

The authors found that ranking being promoted instead of a non-career aspiration as the most important job aspiration was positively related to occupational achievements. Surprisingly, the authors also found that ranking childrearing as the most important life role aspiration was positively related to earnings among fathers.

Investigating aspirations in multiple domains simultaneously can provide new information on working parents’ occupational achievements.

The results imply that parents who want to achieve an authority position or high earnings may need to prioritize their promotion aspiration among their job aspirations in order to increase the likelihood of achieving such a position. Moreover, this is likely to require sacrifices outside the work domain, since spending more time on paid work is an important way to achieve this aspiration.

This paper adds to previous research by explicitly taking life role aspirations into account instead of focussing solely on job aspirations. Moreover, this study extends previous research by investigating indirect pathways from aspirations to occupational achievements via family work in addition to the previously found pathway via paid work.

The purpose of this research is to understand how knowledge sharing takes place in the dynamic labour environment of Darwin's hospitality industry in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Three hotels, part of the same hotel chain, were used as a case study. Data were acquired through 76 semi‐structured interviews and validated through two focus groups over an eight‐month period.

The research revealed that organisational and individual factors supported knowledge sharing in the dynamic labour environment of Darwin's hospitality industry. Noteworthy were the participant's attitudes to knowledge sharing as well as the role of social interactions and social networks as they enabled peers to familiarise with one another both professionally and non‐professionally. The product of this familiarity was people knowledge that enabled their adaptation to multiple levels (place, industry, hotels, and peers) and in turn helped them to share knowledge with peers irrespective of labour instability.

The research focused only on one aspect of knowledge management (knowledge sharing) and the front office departments of three hotels located in Darwin, Northern Territory of Australia.

The research provides a knowledge sharing strategy that could help practitioners nurture knowledge sharing in environments of high turnover.

The research contributes to the scant literature available on knowledge sharing strategies in environments of high turnover.

How firefighters cope with critical incidents is partly influenced by the culture of the fire brigade. The purpose of this study is to better understand how informal peer support helps firefighters cope with critical incidents.

An ethnographic field study of explorative nature was conducted. Data were collected by means of 20 participating observations and 72 interviews with Dutch firefighters from 37 different fire brigades. The analysis was an iterative process alternating data collection, analysis and theory formation processes.

Firefighters will turn to informal peer support to cope with critical incidents provided that facilitating circumstances are present and there is adherence to certain implicit rules. The collective sharing of memories, whether immediately post-incident or after the passage of time, helps firefighters process critical incidents and serves to promote unit cohesion. Most firefighters reported these informal debriefings to be preferable to the formal sessions. By comparison, a minority of firefighters reported that they did not benefit at all from the informal interactions.

This study only focused on the informal peer support given by colleagues. Future research should focus on: (1) The possible differences between men and women as to what extent informal peer support is experienced after critical incidents, (2) Commanding officers: how do they, given their hierarchical position, experience coming to terms with critical incidents, (3) Premeditated critical incidents and the role of informal peer support, (4) Similarities and differences between career and non-career firefighters in experiencing and coping critical incidents.

Firefighters are an under-researched group in academic literature, that would benefit from mental health counsellors having a better understanding of their unique work culture and the complexity of the firefighting profession. More knowledge about the role of informal peer support is necessary to tailor help and aftercare more effectively to their needs.

Most studies confirm the importance of informal peer support when coping with critical incidents. This study provides initial, in-depth evidence of the role of informal peer support in helping firefighters cope with critical incidents.

The purpose of this study was to describe experiences of working as a paid part-time firefighter (PTF) in Swedish rural areas.

An inductive explorative design was used, based on interviews with 18 paid PTFs in Sweden. Data were analyzed using qualitative latent content analysis.

Three themes emerged from the interviews and describe paid PTFs’ experiences. The findings provide insights into how firefighters share a strong commitment, how support plays a crucial role, and how training and call-outs contribute to their experiences. Paid PTFs’ experiences are nuanced, ranging from personal limitations and challenges to satisfaction and the contrast with ordinary life.

The implications for fire and rescue service organizations are that they can encourage firefighters’ commitment and pride, as well as the commitment and support of their families and main employers. Further, highlighting the importance of support and facilitating flexibility when on call is crucial. Finally, acknowledging and promoting personal development and facilitating an inclusive culture are important factors for both motivation and satisfaction.

Paid PTFs are under-represented in the literature, despite the reliance on them in Sweden, and this study begins to address the knowledge gap. To improve retention, it is vital to understand paid PTFs work situation: what motivates them, what barriers they face, and how those challenges influence their experiences.

This article shows that regulation of the employment relationship in European public services has tended to give more importance to collective bargaining than to unilateral employer regulation. Although collective bargaining is a general trend, it is not the same in every country. This article concentrates on collective bargaining levels and the outcomes of collective bargaining in selected European states. A major explanatory factor of the extent of collective bargaining is the nature of the civil service system. Reformed “non‐career” systems tend to adopt collective bargaining institutions, resulting in binding collective agreements between employers and unions, while classical “career” systems do not.

Women came into the Australian banking industry to “fill in” for men and were left in lower grade, non‐career jobs on their return. For the majority of women, little has changed with respect to their status in the industry. They outnumber men in lower level clerical grades and perform the bulk of part‐time work. Very few women remain in the industry for a significant length of time, contributing to their under‐representation in management. Managers and women themselves need to be aware of the structural, attitudinal, and social barriers which effectively disadvantage full‐time and part‐time women in the branch banking system so that affirmative action programmes can be correctly focused. Makes a number of recommendations to address these problems.

Women should not be afraid to consider the motivation behind, and implications of, overseas moves, particularly when the impetus comes from their partner's career rather then their own. For the non‐career wife, alternatives to complete family moves can be considered. The more women require employing organisations to consider family needs, the more responsive these organisations will have to become. For the woman who intends to pursue her own career alongside her partner's in the new country, it must be remembered that opportunities may not be readily available. The woman who has a serious professional career and is unwilling to modify her goals may be best to remain at home and continue her chosen path. The female partner who wishes to work but not necessarily follow a specific career stream has flexibility as her paramount asset, but will also need self‐confidence and perseverence to seek or create job opportunities overseas.

Based on in-depth interviews with 64 women in 5 Japanese firms, this chapter examines how women workers interpret workplace sexual behaviors and interactions in different organizational contexts. The chapter explores the processes by which workplace sexual interactions, including harmful behaviors, are normalized and tolerated. It discusses three types of sexual workplace interactions in Japanese firms: (1) taking clients to hostess clubs, which women workers often see as “a part of their job”; (2) playing the hostess role at after-work drinking meetings, where a certain amount of touching and groping by men is seen as “joking around” or simply as behavior that is to be expected from men; and (3) repetitive or threatening sexual advances occurring during normal working hours, which are seen as harassment and cause women to take corrective action. The chapter confirms previous studies that have shown that women's interpretations of sexual behaviors can vary from enjoyable to harmful, depending on the organizational contexts. The chapter also argues that Japanese organizational culture, through its normalization of male dominance and female subordination, fosters and obscures harmful behaviors. Eradicating harmful sexual behaviors will require firms to reevaluate sexualized workplace customs and mitigate the large gender gap in the organizational hierarchy in Japanese firms.

Identifies the structural problems in the employment system which still lie behind the realization of the aim of the equal employment opportunity legislation (EEOL) which came into force in 1986. Points out that the dual track system, which was introduced by large companies ostensibly to ensure that there is a route for female university graduates to progress in the management career track, is in fact nothing more than a cleverly disguised but flawed device that allows continuation of the discriminatory system against women. By looking at the backgrounds and status of the existing female managers whose rise owes less to EEOL than to their efforts, suggests conditions which are required for the future development of female managers in Japan.