It should be no secret that law enforcement agencies are facing personnel shortages. Departments from Detroit, Michigan; to Dallas, Texas; to Lafayette, Louisiana; and all across the United States are coping with staffing deficits and the complex and varying circumstances that created these shortages.1
Turnover within the current ranks is also is an ever-present concern. According to the results of a 2016 sur-vey conducted by the North Carolina Department of Justice, about 62 percent of officers surveyed said they would leave their job in law enforcement for one in a different profession.2
As leaders work to understand and address root causes for these issues, the hiring process continues. Despite pressure to fill vacancies, law enforcement leaders know they cannot sacrifice quality in the name of quantity or fail to retain top talent.
Several vendors offer tools that can make the hiring process more effective and efficient, so agencies can make solid hires without spending more valuable work hours than necessary.
Streamlined Background Checks
The hiring process contains several steps, particularly in law enforcement. In many cases, one of its more cumbersome aspects is the background check.
“Agencies are struggling to meet their hiring needs due to resource constraints and a delayed background investigative process,” said Kenneth Coats, CEO of Chicago-based Kentech Consulting. “Excessive time and complexity to complete background investigations are causing candidates to lose interest in the selected agency, resulting in agencies not meeting recruitment numbers for the year.”3
Kentech offers customized background check solutions that can complete digital background and security checks up to 75 percent faster than competitors. According to Coats, the solution saves costs and time over other options while streamlining screenings. The approach is to combine technology with “boots on the ground” in the form of veteran investigators.
“The approach is always using best technology with the human element, never omitting one for the other,” Coats said. “We always use a hybrid approach regardless of the client to get faster and more complete results than other services.” Each customer receives a customized plan, with Kentech serving as an active partner, as opposed to a third-party offering an “out-of-the-box” solution.
“We help our customers gain the competitive advantage of vetting and hiring superior human capital,” Coats said. “We’re also unique in how we cater to our customers. Kentech provides specialized products and services to uniquely solve our customer pain points at a variety of levels.”
Retaining High Performers
Part of the human resources puzzle is retaining employees that bring value to operations. Speaking generally, poor retention exacts a hidden cost. According to a 2017 study, when a worker departs, the employer spends an average of 33 percent of that worker’s salary on finding and hiring a replacement.4
Guardian Tracking, based in Indiana, can play an important role in strengthening employee satisfaction and morale. Company leaders say its personnel management software is designed, with police officer input, to assist law enforcement in recognizing and documenting good behavior and managing the records over time.
“Good performance can’t be compelled,” said Leon Wasilewski, co-founder of Guardian Tracking. “The history of law enforcement and the history of how we track employees was to document bad behaviors for liability. Now we reward high performance. When you ignore high performance, that’s when dissatisfaction happens.”5
Although rewarding good behavior is a challenging idea for a range of professions and cultures, law enforcement can sometimes be oriented toward punitive measures rather than incentives.
“When someone is promoted to sergeant, it’s because they were a good officer,” said Mike Reed, another Guardian Tracking co-founder. “We train officers to go out and look for bad things, and that’s what we do as supervisors. We’re good at catching bad behavior, but not at catching good behavior. Or when we do, it’s just a pat on the back and it ends there. This solution helps make sure it doesn’t end there.”6
Tapping the Military Market
The most fertile recruiting ground for law enforcement is arguably the military. After completing their service, members of the armed forces can use their skills and experience to serve communities as police officers.
“They know how to follow orders, most of them are physically fit, and they get along well with a lot of different types of people,” said Doug Bradbury, owner of Military Media, based in Poughkeepsie, New York. “They are trained in weapons and are especially well prepared for active shooter scenarios.”7
Sometimes, however, accessing this audience can be challenging or confusing. That is where Military Media comes in. “The hope is that the media reach a lot of short-timers, who are thinking about or already decided to end their service and may be moving into the civilian job market,” Bradbury said.
The main focus of Military Media is to produce and distribute advertising and marketing materials to a range of military audiences. As part of this, the company sells advertising space and is a frequent partner of law enforcement agencies that place ads announcing job vacancies.
According to Bradbury, it’s an effective way of connecting with potential candidates, and doing so on a customizable scale. Military Media facilitates the advertising, then hiring managers take it from there.
“It’s recruitment work, and it reaches out on a national basis to geotarget,” Bradbury said. “This is where they can advertise. We offer advertising services, and the candidate would respond directly to the agency.”
The option is also relatively inexpensive, as it is simply a matter of purchasing the ad. The value, Bradbury says, lies in its ability to reach the right people at the right time.
Advanced Lie Detection
Lie detection also can be an important component of the candidate evaluation process, and one that can absorb its share of time. The polygraph remains a familiar tool, but questions over its accuracy and its relatively complicated workings have caused some to take a second look.
The PSE 7010, developed by the Dektor Corporation headquartered in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania, provides an alternative to the traditional polygraph machine, although it’s based on the same kinds of biological subtleties.
“These systems are based on stress, any reaction or situation that upsets the body’s normal state of being,” said Arthur Herring III, owner of Dektor Systems. “Stress is most accurately measured through physiological responses. A polygraph needs attached wires to monitor things like breathing and galvanic responses.”8
However, according to Herring, the PSE 7010 pro-vides a simpler means of detecting those responses. “There’s another way to measure physiological response and that’s voice,” Herring said. “Superimposed over voice in warm-blooded animals are minute voice changes called microtremors. They are inaudible [to the human ear] but are caused by different organ movements and so forth. Under stress, those tremors disappear, because lying makes you hold your breath and do similar things.”
The PSE 7010 also auto-records each session for future use. This gives the tool investigative value as well. “Any confession by the subject is preserved. Only PSE auto-records the interview. It’s not uncomfortable or unnatural,” Herring said. “It’s just natural talking.”
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Each PSE 7010 license is $5,500 for any computer or smart device. The simplicity lies in the drastically shorter user training time when compared to the polygraph. Although polygraph training can last as long as 10 weeks, training for the PSE 7010 lasts 10 days. Each 10-day training session costs $2,500 per person.
Whether an agency is seeking to improve the efficiency of their recruitment, hiring, or retention practices—or all three—technology exists to help them find and keep those best suited to protect and serve.
Notes:
1Chastity Pratt Dawsey, “Facing Police Shortage, Detroit Seeks to Stop New Cops from Jumping Ship,” Bridge, April 10, 2018; HYPERLINK “https://www.bridgemi.com/detroit-journalism-cooperative/facing-police-shortage-detroit-seeks-stop-new-cops-jumping-ship”Rebecca Lopez, “Dallas Police Officers and Top Brass Continue to Leave Department,” WFAA 8, March 5, 2018; “La. Police Department Experiencing Critical Officer Shortage,” PoliceOne, June 12, 2018.
2North Carolina Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Retention Study (Criminal Justice Standards and Training Division, November 16, 2016).
3Kenneth Coats (CEO, Kentech Consulting), email interview, August 10, 2018.
4Valerie Bolden-Barrett, “Study: Turnover Costs Employers $15,000 Per Worker,” HR Drive, August 11, 2017.
5Leon Wasilewski (co-founder, Guardian Tracking), telephone interview, August 9, 2018.
6Mike Reed (co-founder, Guardian Tracking), telephone interview, August 9, 2018.
7Doug Bradbury (owner, Military Media), telephone interview, August 8, 2018.
8Arthur Herring III (owner, Dektor Systems), telephone interview, August 8, 2018.
