José Herrera
VP of Technology
Managing extra duty is a complex administrative function, requiring police departments to have clearly defined policies and procedures around scheduling, reporting, payment, approvals and communication.
Slip-ups in these procedures can place departments in violation of local, state and federal regulations. Further, there can be serious public relations issues related to extra-duty police officers, their work and their compensation.
In order to manage the complexities, SmartForce™ has a module devoted to extra duty. With SmartForce™, employees can use the Extra Duty module sign up for work outside of normal duty hours offered by approved businesses.
The Extra Duty module contains all the key information required for police departments to manage extra time. In one location, staff can find business owners and their businesses, job coordinators, employees, jobs, pay rates, assignments, and extra duty slips.
Easy workflows
With the Extra Duty module, departments have access to easy-to-use workflows for creating available jobs, selecting and approving jobs, and tracking work after the job is completed.
A staff member managing extra duty can assign roles and control security access within the module. Available roles allow personnel full access, access to jobs and job slips, or view-only access.
After an employee requests a job, approvals are tracked automatically with a status of waiting, approved or denied shown for each approver. When a job is assigned, a job slip is automatically issued. The job slip lets officers report hours worked and include any notes. Again, approvals are tracked and a status field is updatable to show whether an assignment is completed, canceled, invoiced or paid.
Compliant software
With the SmartForce™ Extra Duty module, departments can be confident they are compliant with all applicable requirements. Extra Duty follows best practice principles established by the U.S. Department of Justice for the use and management of extra time. The module adheres to the requirements set forth for extra duty by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc., (CALEA) as well.
Extra Duty also allows for powerful tracking and analysis. Reporting functionality lets commanders know who is working which extra duty assignments, for whom and where they are. Hours worked and billed by clients are tracked and reportable, showing what monies have been collected and paid to officers and which are outstanding.
From a perception point of view, Extra Duty allows for the fair and equitable selection of extra duty assignments, eliminating internal or external allegations of favoritism. Extra duty time can be reported quickly and accurately upon request from an elected official, a court order, a member of the media or the general public. If there is an incident during extra duty time, the module provides accurate reporting for insurance coverage, legal claims or internal review.
Extra Duty is just one of the modules available in SmartForce™ suite of products. We designed it to minimize the Admin work and allow officer to focus on keeping their communities safe. To learn more about the current and expanding features of SmartForce™ Agency Management Solution (AMS) developed in collaboration with our customer and Agency partners, please visit our site at www.adventos.com.
