Analyst Talk - Research Remix - Smart Staffing Strategies - Leapodcasts

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Analyst Talk with Jason Elder.

(00:01):
It's like coffee with an analyst,or it could be whiskey with an
analyst reading a spreadsheet,linking crime events, identifying a
series, and getting the latest scoopon association news and training.
So please don't beat that analystand join us as we define the law
enforcement analysis profession.
One episode at a time.
How we doing?
Analyst, Jason Elder here withanother LE, a podcast Deep Dive

(00:23):
Research remix with Jamie Rausch.
Jamie, how we doing?
I'm doing great, Jason.
How are you?
I am doing well.
I, you, you know what I have to do fornext time is get a nice little clever
tagline there for research remix.
I yeah, that sounds fun.
Realize that, that I need that nicelittle tagline that describes applying

(00:46):
research best practices to the lawenforcement analysis profession.
Yeah.
Sounds exciting.
We'll have to figure that one out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe I have to jet GPT, that one.
I guess no one thinks anymore.
Absolutely.
Right.
No doubt.
All right.
What are we talking about today?
Well, today we're gonna talkabout reframing the police.

(01:07):
Staffing challenge, and we're gonnatalk about what the research says
about kind of how to address thispolice staffing issue that we are
all facing across the departments.
And of course the main factors ofthis issue are things like changing
demographics in cities, changingdemographics in our departments,
as well as kind of like thesegenerational preferences of what
skills people have and want.

(01:28):
Also just the change ofpeople not necessarily being
involved in public service.
There's also a lot of con conversationand topic around police reform and
how that's affected the retentionof employees and people who are
leading the profession as well.
So really today there's this wholeidea that kind of the rising demand
for officers to have these new skillsthat reflect the diversity of their

(01:50):
communities has made it very challengingfor agencies to capitalize on this.
And so in 2024 Wilson and Gramme drawfrom a lot of academic and professional
literature and some experience that theyalso have in working with police agencies.
Where they're really focusing inkind of in this research approach
of four key goals, which is reallyunderstanding the importance of the

(02:14):
elements associated with the policestaffing system and kind of like the
larger ecosystem of police staffing.
Devising a really good six step plan toaddressing workforce planning and meeting
workload demands, and then understandinghow a research systems approach.
Might be the best applied way toaddress kind of what agencies are

(02:35):
facing related to police staffing.
So just to kick that off withkind of the first area and talking
about a little bit the elementsof the police staffing system.
One of the things that the researchershave argued here is that most of
the most important elements of thepolice staffing system are really
about workload and performanceobjectives and workforce goals.

(02:56):
Things like allocation ofpersonnel, deployment of personnel,
effectively, recruiting, retention,selection, training, productivity.
Staffing and succession planning,and then ultimately organizational
culture and organizational learningand all of those things they really
talk about are the framework of muchbroader kind of ecosystem around

(03:17):
staffing and staffing related issues.
But one of the things that theyreally argue is that workload, which
is the work that police agencies do.
Can be measured through calls for service.
And the amount of time allocated toeach call is going to be one of the
key areas that departments have theability to focus in on, to address the

(03:41):
staffing crisis that they're facing.
And one of the things that it talksabout is that it's not just about
understanding what that looks like,but then the allocation of manpower.
And today there are kind of fourmethodologies to allocating personnel.
Into a department or the allocation ofpersonnel for a department, and then

(04:01):
ultimately to smaller areas, whetherthat's your districts, your precincts,
your geographic beats, et cetera.
But allocation today that they, theytalk about is really per capita.
So how many officers do youhave per your population?
There are allocation modelsrelated to minimum staffing, so
estimating a sufficient number ofpatrol officers for being deployed.

(04:23):
To maintain officer and publicsafety, your authorized level, which
is something that is coming up inall of the budget talks that we hear
all across the country right now.
So using budget allocations tospecify the number of officers that
a department is going to have andhow they can allocate those officers.
And then ultimately, like I mentionedbefore, workload base, which is really
the number of officers needed tomeet that demand for service again.

(04:47):
One of the primary objectives of alaw enforcement agency is for police
officers to respond to citizen issuesand understanding what citizens' needs
are and that demand for police service.
And so again, as we think throughthis idea of the workload based
approach, I kind of wanna bring itto this particular podcast with the

(05:07):
fact that workload is an area where.
Analysts have a large role toplay, and as we've realized kind
of over the years, there aremethodologies in how to effectively.
Determine workload for an organization.
It requires things like very goodquality computerated dispatch or

(05:29):
CAD system data calls for service.
It requires the processes of notonly having the dispatch date and
time of a call, but also when thatofficer was in route to that call,
when they became on scene in thatcall and when they cleared that call.
Understanding all ofthose various elements.
One of the things we'veseen over the years is that.

(05:51):
You have a dispatch call for service,and then you have essentially that an
officer is now in route to that call.
And the time between when they're inroute to the call and when they're
on scene is their travel time.
And if the travel time over multipleyears is longer than that, also is an
indicator potentially that your fuel costsare higher and your budgeting process.
So this staffing ecosystem and thisworkload analysis really allows

(06:13):
the organization to see things.
In a much broader perspective.
And so it's really important kind ofas people think about workload, that
they don't just look at how many callsdo we have, or even worse, looking
at how to allocate staffing based ontheir actual incidents for call as
and not necessarily when people areactually going to a particular call

(06:34):
that might never get a police report orthat might never end up in an arrest.
And so these are areas thatanalysts really have the ability.
To kind of focus in on and canprovide value to their organization
in a way that meets these differenttypes of methodologies and standards
that are out there and really canproactively kind of provide value

(06:55):
essentially to their organization.
Even sometimes without the organizationunderstanding or knowing that analysts
have access to that data and the abilityto do those types of things as well.
And so that workload approach really.
Allows an organization to not necessarilylook at the staffing crisis in terms
of how do we focus in on recruitingand retention, which is often what

(07:17):
organizations kind of go at their go-tomethod for dealing with staffing, but
also looking at, in that workload,how do we maximize efficiency with the
existing staff we have and where are ouropportunities to adjust our deployment,
adjust our work schedules to meet.
Maximum efficiency and addressingpolice service requests.

(07:38):
And then ultimately looking at are thereother opportunities for potentially
non-sworn staff alternatives to handlingthose requests for police service
that really give people the idea that.
Essentially it is something that canbe handled by the department as a
whole from a much larger perspective,and not necessarily just through
patrol officers or patrol units.

(08:00):
Regarding the, the staffing crisis, isit just . There's less officers than what
are on the books or is this dealing withstuff like, oh, budgets are shrinking,
so they're allowing attrition, so then.
Police departments haveto do more with less.
I think it's absolutely both of those.

(08:20):
So one of the things that we've seenover the budget talks probably over the
last six months or so with differentbudget cycles, is what is that allocated
number from a budgetary perspectivethat that a department has, but then
having through the budget process themlooking at the number of vacancies
and reducing that authorized number.

(08:41):
So what was once 350 officers throughthat budget process, because they had
20 vacancies, is now 330 officers.
And it resets the number of officersthat are available in the department
to do the work that that departmentneeds to do to service that community.
So we're seeing a decrease inthe allocation based on the

(09:04):
fact that there are vacancies.
And the idea is if you can't fill thosevacancies, then you don't need them.
The other half of that equation is thatthe other side of the staffing crisis
is that recruiting is something todaythat is becoming more and more and more
challenging into public sector work.
So departments, while they mayhave three classes for officers

(09:29):
over a year, they're only gettingclass sizes of 20 or 30 or 40.
Even in larger agencies, they'restruggling with being able to
fill larger classes to fill thosevacancies at a fast rate so that
those positions are not taken.
So you're seeing the decrease from thebudgetary side, both through the vacancies
and also just financial, constraints.

(09:51):
But you're also seeing a shortenedperiod of time for agencies being
able to actually recruit and thenultimately fill those vacancies at, at
a rate that's fast enough to meet theattrition that they're experiencing.
So in terms of it.
The class size is being short.
Do you know if this is due to, from thevery beginning, it being short just with

(10:13):
the number of cadets signing up, or isthis something they're seeing through?
, The academy process, they'reseeing more people drop out as
they're going through the process?
No, I think that's a great question.
I think over the last few years or so,we've seen smaller classes generally
from the application process, right?

(10:36):
And again, a lot of that isgenerational changes in work.
And, and really the demand on policeagencies and public sector work.
So those.
Those classes are ultimatelysmaller when they start.
Mm-hmm.
From my experience in talking withagencies, the washout rate through
the academy process is not very muchdifferent than it's always been.

(10:56):
We're not seeing a faster washoutrate, and we're not seeing people
who get into the process necessarilyand just walk away from it either.
It's really more about peoplewho are committed to the process
from the very beginning, thatnumber of, of individuals who are.
Interested in the profession and then getinto the actual process is a lot smaller
than it than it's been, and that's stillpretty standard across I, I would say a

(11:19):
lot of the larger police agencies, there'sa few agencies out there that still are.
Being able to have larger classesand graduating larger classes.
But by and large, recruiting andretention is something that agencies,
no matter the size, are reallyfacing across the profession today.
Hmm.
And
then
you mentioned workload and analysts.

(11:39):
Ability to look at workload.
And you also mentioned reform.
Mm-hmm.
Or at least some of the things thatpolice departments are being asked to do.
Mm-hmm.
So, I, as that has changed, 'cause Iknow public health other departments
in the city are being called in sooner.
So that.
Not necessarily, it's squarely on theshoulder of police departments, but

(12:04):
I envision just because maybe they'retaking less public health calls doesn't
mean they're just sitting back andtwiddling their thumbs all day, right?
So they still have plenty to do.
And so there's still that aspect ofmaybe a different type of calls for
service and a different response timethat am analysts can be studying.

(12:24):
Absolutely.
So that's one of the things that I thinkagencies as they've adopted models of
non-responder that they haven't reallynecessarily addressed very quickly.
And what I mean by that is, is that whena cos responder model is being adapted.
Then it does potentially free upother officers to, or officers
who would normally go to thosecalls, to other types of calls.

(12:47):
Where I think organizations haven'tadapted as quickly is, is that
they're not doing the analysis tounderstand where those other calls
that those officers should be goingand handling, whether that's a, a
specific beat or precinct or district,or whether it's another call type.
You can take those skills thatthose officers had and kind of
move them into these other areas.
Organizations are not good.

(13:07):
Policing organizations are notgood necessarily at looking
across the department and saying,I have all of these resources.
Where are they best suited today?
They often use the same kind ofstaffing rosters that they've used
last year or two years before withoutmaking necessarily the changes of
understanding that, yes, you now havepublic health or you have a conder.

(13:28):
That's handling the primary aspectof that call, and it does now free
up more time for other officersto go to these other calls.
The other factor that comes into thisas well is that typically agencies
across the board, if they've neverdone a strong workload analysis and
they've never done a true shift relief.
Factor analysis.

(13:49):
What ends up happening is they thinkmy officer is contracted for 2040 hours
a or 2080 hours a year, whatever theircontract is, and that they're available
for police work during that time.
That's not accurate.
Right.
We know that officers have court.
They're not necessarilygonna be handling a beat.
We know that there are officersthat have training, mandatory

(14:12):
training requirements in the states.
That is a number that has to come out.
If it's a state that requires anytype of breaks, which there are still
states that do, those breaks haveto come out of that total number.
If you ask most agencies, they actuallyprobably have never calculated what their
available time is per actual officer.
And so what you will find is, isthat typically officers again.

(14:36):
Be contracted for 20402080, officer 80 hours.
But really when you take all ofthose requirements out as well
as their benefit leave, they'redown somewhere into the 1700, in
some cases, down to 1500 availablehours to actually do police work.
That means you have to havemore officers to address that.
And that's one of the things that, thatcalculating that, you know what that.

(14:59):
Minimum or net annual work hours foran officer for agencies is something
that a lot of agencies haven't done.
And so they don't understand that whenthey're doing the workload analysis.
You can't base it that an officer hasa hundred percent of his or her time.
They just don't.
You, you mentioned the calls for serviceand the response time is there other data

(15:19):
sets that analysts should be consideringor either I. Maybe other parts of the
calls for service or something Totallyoutside of the calls for service data.
Yeah, I mean, I think when it comesto very basic workload analysis, calls
for service and CAD data is really kindof the best set of data to start with
because it really does give you whatis your total demand for service and

(15:42):
then ultimately what is your demandin terms of the amount of time on call
and time on call is, is deceptive.
A lot of times people will say, Hey, youshould remove all the canceled calls out.
Well, if you remove the cancel callsand an officer's been dispatched and
they've already spent four and a halfminutes on in route to that call, that's
a time that's been committed, right?

(16:03):
Mm-hmm.
They can't handle another call in thatfour and a half minutes, and so you
don't wanna necessarily remove those.
And so there's nuances in the calls forservice data that I think are important
in doing a very strong workload analysis.
But then on top of it, as you just kindof alluded to, there are specific data
sets based on specific types of calls.
Right.

(16:23):
So if a mental health related call ishandled by other units and it's not,
and all of the time is not documentedspecifically in the CAD system, maybe
just the officer's time, but not thecopos time, then you're gonna wanna bring
those data sets in to look at some ofthese more key types of calls for service.
The other thing to look at toois if you're an organization

(16:45):
that is doing any type of.
Telephone reporting, automatedreporting, online reporting, or even
today AI agent chat bot style reporting.
You need to understand thatthat's not gonna be captured
necessarily in your CAD system.
The amount of time of that information isgonna be captured in those other systems.

(17:05):
So you wanna account for that inyour total workload, but again,
you're not gonna see that necessarilycoming for your CAD system.
So again, it, I think from a generalstandpoint, it's good to start with
CAD data, but then as you start reallyfocusing in on what your approach is
to handling staffing, maybe it is usingnon-sworn officers for particular call
types, or maybe it is an online reporting.

(17:26):
Then you have to actually divein to those different call types.
Focus in on, okay, what isthe amount of time that.
We're essentially gonna free up ourofficers to handle other things.
We move to these approaches, andso there are gonna be other data
sets that are important as well.
Well, the automated call orthe, the online call that
that it doesn't go through.

(17:47):
CAD as you mentioned, thatseems like it would be a hin.
To the, the workload analysis.
Is there a new technology or a newtechnique as recent that has really
helped the, workload analysis?
I think really going back probably20 years, the net annual work hours
calculation, which really understandshow much time an officer has, is probably

(18:09):
like the standard starting point.
And then there's a actual methodologyout there to calculate shift relief.
Which basically means how many officersdo you need for the amount of time
that you're allocated to particularcall types or even to all of your
citizen generated calls for service.
Those are pretty standard methodologies,but when you get into things like chat
bots, AI agents and things like that,they actually do calculate the amount

(18:31):
of time that it took for that call.
To be completed essentially, right?
So for the time that the personstarted the chat conversation to
the time that that call ended.
And what I like about that is, isthat you can use that data to say
that's essentially what you've beenoffsetting for sending an officer, right?
So at least generally speaking, if theofficer was on scene at that time and

(18:53):
completed that call, that's that sametime that you're gonna see out of these.
AI agent type of systems, and youcan say that's time that we've
essentially freed up for officersto be handling other things as well.
So it gives you a really good picture,not necessarily to help figure out
what your overall workload is and like.
How you address the staffing side of it.
But when you do implement thosetechnologies, it does give you a very good

(19:16):
metric to say, this is the amount of timethat using these systems has essentially
freed up our officers to do other things.
Yeah.
Now, do you recommend a certainsoftware or is this more straightforward
that, that an analyst can use?
I guess what's some of, what are someof the tools that an analyst can use?
I think in terms of workload overallit's really important at a very

(19:39):
holistic level across your jurisdiction.
Just using very simple tools like Excelcan give you a lot of the information,
do a lot of the calculations for youto get you that complete time on call.
I really recommend though, that you focusin on the geographic side of this as well
because policing by its very nature, isvery geographic how officers are deployed

(19:59):
using the CAD system is geographic innature and that's where essentially
bringing in a GIS capability, having allof that stuff mapped and understanding
where you have areas that maybe your callresponse is gonna be longer because it's
a further out area or the travel time toget to that location is gonna be longer.
That.
Something that you can kinda reallysee and visualize and help your

(20:21):
commanders and your leadership overthose geographic areas to address the
best way for them to deploy the areaswithin their geographic boundary.
So I really encourage analysts not tojust do that first level, which is like,
how many officers should you have perdistrict across your entire jurisdiction?
But then also looking at a deeper level.

(20:41):
How do you assign those geographicallywithin each of those districts?
And then ultimately start having reallygood conversations about how do you
assign them to the shifts and makingsure that your shifts are balanced.
That is another area todaythat organizations usually
don't have the capability to,to really analyze that well.
But we'll often find that shift minimumsculturally in departments are done

(21:05):
based on the way they've always beendone, and they don't account for if
you've had decreases in your call volumeover the last five years, or if you've
had increases in your call volume.
So your shift minimums are setbased on kind of like this.
Administrative value, butit may not actually align
to when your call demand is.
In one particular departmentthat I've worked with, they had

(21:27):
actually two different departments.
They had shift minimums thatwere extremely, extremely high.
Into their late shift,their last shift of the day.
But actually in looking at their time oncall and looking at the number of units
that were actually deployed to thoseparticular calls, so now we're talking
two car at a time calls or two officerdeployed calls, they actually were

(21:49):
missing a chunk of, of individuals thatthey really needed in their mid watch.
And so trying to get thatorganization to shift back and put
more officers in that second watchrather than in the third watch.
Is something that you haveto work through as well.
Again, sometimes organizations willdo that over attrition, and sometimes
they'll make those whole scale changesas part of their contract or their

(22:11):
yearly staffing changes that they make.
But those are areas where, again, it'snot necessarily just about geography,
but now it's down to making surethat you're deploying your officers
effectively across the shifts.
Now are you seeing.
Anything where in practice the workloadanalysis isn't necessarily following
what you're reading in the research?

(22:32):
No.
I don't necessarily think thatthere's anything that's not
aligned with the research.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, the research is prettystraightforward about the fact that
the workload analysis and the workloadbased approach is really the best
method to address kind of efficiencyof the department, but then also.
Looking at how do we kind of addressthis staffing crisis given the fact that

(22:55):
sometimes we can't control recruitment, wecan't control training, we can't control
retention at a very holistic level.
We can control where our officers aredeployed and how they're deployed and
ensuring that they're meeting where thecommunity's demand is for their service.
And so the research really kind ofaligns it to saying, yes, this approach
is the right approach of doing it.

(23:16):
And it really, while departments havenot focused on that approach as a
method of addressing policing staffing,it needs to be focused on more.
And there is a role that analysts playin that type of analysis that then
allows the art organization to kind ofaddress its staffing challenges more
holistically and, and, and gradually.

(23:39):
Rather than just saying we haveto get more people in the door.
Yeah.
And for the listeners, we willput links in the show notes for
additional information on all theresearch that we've discussed today.
All right, Jamie.
Just to, just to finish up, let'sjust give them nice research remix.
, One-liners to, just to summarizewhat we've talked about here today.
Yeah, so law, law enforcementorganizations are definitely facing a

(24:01):
lot of challenges with staffing, andone of the ways to really address that,
that the research focuses in on is whileorganizations have not focused in on
workload based approaches and lookingat workload analysis and ultimately
the role that analysts play in that.
Essentially that is an area wherethey can capitalize quickly.
So I encourage all of the analysts outthere who are listening, if you're not

(24:21):
familiar with these approaches, thereare methodologies out there for it,
and really start diving into some ofthese approaches you may be able to
help your organization proactively.
In a way that they didn'tknow that you could help them.
Always appreciate yourtime and perspective.
Jamie.
Thank you so much and you be safe.
Thanks so
much.
Thank you for making it tothe end of another episode of
Analyst Talk with Jason Elder.

(24:42):
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