When it comes to law enforcement, partnerships are paramount. Whether it’s the pairing of an officer with his K-9, or the alliance between an agency and the community it serves, partnerships are the cornerstone of an effective public safety facility. But what about the partnerships we don’t typically consider? The ones that occur behind the front lines, such as finding the right officer scheduling method to meet the specific requirements of each facility and its departments.
The department employs 18 full-time licensed peace officers, which includes Chief Beahen, four patrol sergeants, two school resource officers, two investigators and nine patrol officers. The department also has two administrative assistants, one full-time community service officer and one part-time community service officer.
“For years, our department manually wrote out the employee schedule on paper and posted it in the office. We tried to create a yearly schedule, but it took us days to complete,” says Beahen. “And then there were the added issues of personnel and shift changes, time-off requests and variances in manpower demands.”
Beahen was not alone in his scheduling frustrations. On the other side of the country, a police department in California was experiencing similar challenges. “We were creating our schedules in an Excel spreadsheet,” says Elva Valasek, dispatcher II, who co-manages scheduling duties at the Folsom Police Department. “It just took so much of our time; we had to manually count how many officers we had to ensure adequate coverage for each shift.”
The Folsom Police Department is a full-service police department of 75 sworn officers and 27 professional staff members. The department provides service to approximately 78,000 residents living in the 30 square mile city of Folsom. Along with patrol and investigative divisions, Folsom PD provides its own dispatch, records and front desk services, maintains a SWAT team, a motor unit, a mounted enforcement detail, K-9 officers, bicycle patrol, school resource officers, and is supported by a robust volunteer program (CAPS-Citizens Assisting Public Safety).
Beahen and Valasek knew there had to be a better solution, and each set out in search of an alternative scheduling system. Both police departments knew they wanted an online, cost-effective program that would work with their unique scheduling demands.
“It used to take us days to generate the yearly schedule,” says Beahen. “Now it takes fewer than 15 minutes.” He added that managing time-off requests was also a time-consuming task. “They were submitted on paper and would not be looked at until someone was in the office and had time to review them,” he says. “Not only did they often get misplaced, but each request could take up to 45 minutes to examine and approve.” With the new software, requests are submitted and approved online. “By streamlining that process, this software has literally saved us hundreds of hours per year.”
Software such as ScheduleAnywhere allows officers to see schedules, request time off and review coverage and staffing needs anytime, on any mobile device.
Valasek estimates that using online scheduling software has cut the amount of time spent on creating and managing schedules by up to 75 percent.
“Previously, it took several hours to complete a one-month schedule and even more time to ensure we had proper shift coverage,” she says. “Now, the online software allows us to efficiently create the schedule for the entire year, and it handles the coverage watch for us automatically.”
Both police departments have also benefitted from the ability to communicate instantly using the mobile app. Schedules are posted and can be accessed remotely, allowing staff members to see their schedules, request time off and review coverage and staffing needs, which is helpful for employees when they are considering whether to pick up an overtime shift or an inmate transfer, for example.
Additionally, schedules can be shared with other divisions. This gives everyone with access real-time data about which employees are on each shift, in what location and who is available to fill coverage needs. Changes to the schedule can be made at any time and are immediately available to officers, administration, courts and dispatch.
After implementing the software, both Valasek and Beahen say they, along with their colleagues, are pleased with the move to an online scheduling system.
“It’s a cost-effective, easy-to-use solution for agencies of any size,” says Beahen. “Integration took less than an hour, and new hires require just a few minutes of training to understand and use the system. Switching to the online scheduling software has given me the ability to focus on the job at hand instead of sitting in the office writing out schedules and making schedule changes.”
Although pairing the right scheduling method with the demands of a police department might not be the first partnership that comes to mind in relation to law enforcement, it can easily become a driving force behind any efficient, highly-functional public safety organization.
