Since the beginning of 2019, members of the Merrill Fire Department have had intense discussions on potential core values for the department. Core values are the guiding principles for the employees of any successful organization.
They simply define how their employees are expected to live.
They are designed to be quickly referenced by the employee when they have to make a decision, which most of the time, are quick decisions.
Since employees are expected to live their core values daily, it was essential for each member of the fire department to have input on this decision. Each crew brainstormed different potential core values. As they came up with a potential value, they also provided a brief definition of what the value meant to them. After each crew offered up suggestions, all potential values were put in a survey for members to vote on. After the vote, the top four values selected by members of the Merrill Fire Department were:
Excellence, Professionalism, Integrity, and Compassion.
Equally important to selecting the values were the accompanying definitions of each value. Members have to know what they mean. Excellence as defined by our members as striving to always perform at the highest possible level in ones work, relationships, and life. Our members won’t settle for second best. Working in a job that can kill you at any time, the option to just show up isn’t good enough.
We defined professionalism as the highest level of recognition and admiration; achieved through dedication, effort, and continuing education in a respective field. Being respected and appreciated by our community is important to us. Our members constantly are trying to improve themselves and our overall department. In a world that is constantly changing, we too must adapt to and prepare for the threats that face us.
When we strive to do the right thing even when no one is watching, we are living out integrity. We live with the decisions we make every day, many of which are very difficult and unknown to outsiders. Integrity has also been described as the highest level of honesty because you must be honest to yourself. When living the life of a public servant, you are always in the publics’ eye, and even then, no one will judge our members harder than themselves.
For our members, compassion is a desire or feeling when confronted with another’s physical, mental, or emotional pain to help relieve that suffering. Given the frequency of our ambulance calls, our members are on the front lines, serving each patient and their family on their worst day. We consistently put our own physical and emotional needs on hold to help someone else. It’s been said in the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) field that you treat every patient as if it was your grandma, and we all love our grandmas.
It wasn’t until after the core values were chosen that the acronym EPIC was borne.
The core values and their definitions are now proudly on display in the front entrance of the fire station. Additionally, the motto “Be EPIC” is labeled above every door in the station that heads out to the apparatus bay, reminding our members what we are before heading out. You are encouraged to ask any member at any time what our core values are. They will recite them to you without hesitation, but more importantly they will be living them out in front of you. Our members are EPIC!