Police departments operate efficiently when standardized administrative procedures are in place, but often people have their own way of doing things. These inconsistencies make it difficult to train new recruits on procedures and best practices. This can cause inefficiencies, drive up costs, and introduce liabilities within police departments.
By incorporating standard procedures, police departments can improve their administrative systems, thereby reducing stress, cutting costs, and improving morale, performance, and public safety.
Here are 4 steps that can help agencies become more effective:
- Current Policy Review – Strategically review current procedures. Decide which work best, which aren’t working, which could be streamlined, and which will promote efficiency and policy standardization in your agency.
- Set New Policy Standard – After you have decided which processes you’d like to standardize, make them policy and share the policy with all personnel. After a short while, you should notice your agency running more efficiently, giving officers time to work on back burner tasks.
- Use Individual Skill Sets Fully – Standardizations breed efficiencies which in turn frees up time for personnel. You will now be able to give officers new tasks and responsibilities, but make sure the new tasks fit their skill sets. Staff will be more engaged with work they like to do and are able to do well, which not only helps with efficiency, but also builds morale.
- Periodically Review Procedures – Expect your policies to change as time goes by and your agency changes. If a best practice is no longer working, change it, delete it, or tweak it. Refresh the way you do things, so your agency is working as efficiently as possible.
A helpful tool:
SmartForce brings together a department’s official communications, administration and business processes in a single, compliant, first-of-its-kind, integrated agency management system. Check out our free demo video to see the power of SmartForce in action.
