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Most Wanted Interpretations

Agency Workload Assessments

The most common mistake with some agencies’ approach to conducting workload assessments is to focus solely on the patrol component or central dispatch component of the agency, and/or failing to consider other essential components in either the process or the proofs.

 Workload assessments are addressed in the Standards for Law Enforcement Agencies, standard 16.1.2, for the Law Enforcement Program and in the Standards for Public Safety Communications Agencies, standard 1.3.2, for the Public Safety Communications Accreditation Program (PSCAP).

 Agencies can avoid making this mistake by taking the following steps:

• Recognizing critical words in the standard statement and commentary.
• Properly identifying all agency components.
• Identifying the methods to be used, and the person(s) responsible for workload assessments.
• Establishing when workload assessments will be conducted.
• Documenting the agency’s effort.

 To illustrate this situation, only standard 16.1.2 (law enforcement) is used in this example.  The PSCAP standard 1.3.2 is nearly identical (absent the patrol component). Critical words in standard 16.1.2 are underlined for emphasis in this discussion.

 16.1.2 The agency allocates personnel to, and distributes them within, all organizational components in accordance with documented periodic workload assessments.

 Commentary: The intent of the standard is to encourage the equalization of individual workloads among and within organizational components.  The analysis should specify all incidents and factors used in making each workload assessment and indicate any time and location factors necessary to complete a task.  The method used to determine workload assessments in the patrol component will generally differ from other components within the agency, however, all components should periodically receive an assessment, especially if the agency is in a strategic transition such as the implementation of community oriented or problem oriented policing.

 Basing the allocation of personnel on workload demands can have a significant influence on the efficiency and effectiveness of the agency.  The agency should attempt to prevent over or understaffing by ensuring that the personnel strength of an organizational component is consistent with the workload.  The nature or number of tasks and their complexity, location, and time required for completion are some of the factors influencing workload demands.  The process of allocating personnel to each organizational component also permits the agency to determine the overall number of personnel required to meet its needs and fulfill its objectives. 

The allocation of personnel to the patrol component should, at a minimum, take into account the number of incidents handled by patrol personnel during the specified period; the average time required to handle an incident at the patrol level, which can be computed through a sampling of cases; calculation of the percent of time, on the average, that should be available to the patrol officer for handling incidents during a specified period, such as an eight-hour shift; and time lost through days off, holidays, and other leave, compared to total time required for each patrol assignment.

 Patrol personnel should be distributed in accordance with temporal and geographic distribution of incidents or in accordance with community policing strategies.  This is one of the primary means of improving the agency efficiency and effectiveness.  The agency's system for determining the appropriate proportional distribution should take into account incidents, locations, variations in workload, and deployment strategies.  The workload assessment system should be documented and include an outline of the calculations required, plus any source documents, personnel, and/or equipment necessary to accomplish the task.  There is no single assessment system that is suited for every agency's needs.  Using reliable data and reasonable calculations, the agency should reach valid conclusions about workload within each component of the agency. Periodic assessments of all components of the agency should help support increased agency performance and service delivery with available resources.  The assessments may also help identify unusual workload demands that can be addressed through new management strategies.   (N/A O M M)

 Notice the critical words include all organizational components must receive documented, periodic workload assessments. 

 The glossary defines Organizational Component as: a subdivision of the agency, such as a bureau, division, section, unit, or position that is established and staffed on a full-time basis to provide a specific function.

As mentioned above, it is a common mistake to focus solely on the patrol component of a law enforcement agency, rather than assessing all components.  In a communications center, the same principle holds true; it is easy to focus solely on the central dispatch component, failing to recognize other essential components, such as a telecommunications technician unit.  One reason for this oversight might be the prevalence of material and guidance for determining patrol deployment or staffing communications centers.

 An organizational component can have many members or be as small as one person, provided that person is working full-time to perform a specific function for the agency.  For example, an agency with one full-time crime analyst, juvenile officer, and telecommunications technician will constitute three components.  These components could have names such as Crime Analysis Unit, Youth Services Section, and Communications Support.  Review your organizational chart to ensure you have a list of all organizational components.

 Next, do research to see what information is available concerning how specific components originally came to be supported through the agency’s fiscal requests in the budget cycle.  Sometimes an accreditation manager will find that not only was there a workload assessment conducted to create the unit, but there is an ongoing process of calculating workload within the unit.  Thus, they are kept from “re-inventing the wheel”.  Some form of workload assessment is usually conducted as part of justification for additional staff, or the creation of new units within the agency.  This may lead to the proofs of compliance you will need, or indicate that slight modifications can produce a good system for periodic assessments.

 Then decide the methodology each component will use to conduct the workload assessments, and identify the person(s) responsible for conducting the workload assessments.  You will probably find a variety of “off the shelf” methods, software packages, and other guidance for patrol or communications, but will be left to your own imagination as to what formula to use for other components.  Stop here and look at the critical words in the standard commentary:  The method used to determine workload assessments in the patrol component will generally differ from other components within the agency, and Using reliable data and reasonable calculations, the agency should reach valid conclusions about workload within each component of the agency.  Documents containing reasonable calculations and valid conclusions concerning workload in the component will be relevant to this standard.

Finally, establish a pre-set schedule of when the workload assessments are to occur and document the effort.  In so doing, you might notice that standard 16.1.2 is not a “written directive” standard; there is no absolute requirement for a written directive for compliance, yet the standard requires “all organizational components” to receive “documented periodic” workload assessments.  Once you develop a reliable system for accomplishing the workload assessments, the best way to avoid future compliance problems is to have a written directive outlining the system.  The directive can be used to identify the person(s) responsible for the workload assessments, a schedule for completing the assessments, and a brief description of the software, necessary forms, or calculations to be used in the workload assessment.

Also, remember when a standard states “periodic,” the agency is given latitude in establishing its own timeline, but generally this means at least once in the accreditation cycle.