Times are changing and with these changes come challenges across various industries including policing. Companies are embracing these changes by converting their traditional processes to digitized and online forms. Law enforcement agencies are not exempt from the transformations needed to embrace the changing times. Law enforcement agencies have realized that using spreadsheets and bulletin boards are no longer efficient in handling the increasing demand for off duty details. Not only are these traditional methods prone to errors, they consume time and energy that can be spent on more productive activities. So, what’s the solution? A streamlined and automated online off-duty management platform.
This is a digital solution that assists law enforcement agencies in the administration and execution of their off-duty assignments. This platform usually provides services such as managing incoming off-duty requests, scheduling officers for the request, managing time and attendance, payroll management and invoicing.
Traditional processes can no longer keep up with the time it takes to coordinate and manage off-duty details, but there are way more benefits to switching than just time savings. To help, we’ve worked with law enforcement agencies to identify the top six benefits of switching to an online off-duty platform.
Having an online off-duty platform allows citizens to book officers for their events and get matched with the right officer. This helps connect your department with the community and can even help your officers build relationships with citizens as they attend more events. Communication between the citizen and your department is also effectively managed as they get notifications on-the-go when an officer is assigned to their detail request.
With the pandemic, there has been a reduction in physical visits across various sectors including law enforcement. An off-duty system allows the public to make their requests from the comfort of their home without walking into your department. This helps to reduce the physical contact discouraged during this pandemic to curb the spread of the virus. Moreover, the public can access your off-duty services 24/7.
By giving your citizens access and the ability to pay online, you’ll see an increase in revenue through better tracking and handling of payments. Or, if you never had a formalized off-duty system previously, this would open up new revenue streams.
With a paid-duty platform, you can track and securely store all off-duty information, making it easier when you get audited by human resources, internal affairs, the State, external attorneys, and by supervisors. The ease and access of database records for such audits will reduce the stressors and man hours of compiling and providing audit reports to the requesting parties. Furthermore, with paper-based methods of managing off-duty details, you’re likely taking up valuable storage space, and important details information can be misplaced, searching for data becomes cumbersome and unauthorized persons can even gain access to sensitive data. However, with an online off-duty management system, your law enforcement department can make sure that its details’ information is protected and secure while making sure that only authorized personnel have access to details management.
Increase transparency, track patterns that can help your agency make better decisions with off-duty planning and implementation such as preventing fatigue among officers due to overtime work. According to this audit of the King County, it was discovered that working only one additional hour of overtime per week increased the chances that an officer would be involved in a use-of-force incident the following week by 2.7 percent, and increased the odds of ethics violations by 3.1 percent. With an off-duty management system, patterns of overtime can be identified and adjusted accordingly.
An off-duty management platform helps to remove concerns about partiality and favoritism with its automation features. This provides full transparency across board in the agency. With this, officers can abide by union rules, making sure that everyone has fair access to off-duty activities, and ensuring officers aren’t overbooking their calendar. Online methods of off-duty management offer a reinforcement to staff, with policy information clearly displayed before they apply for a booking. This helps to ensure that they understand they are to remain in compliance with agency policies and procedures.
Traditional methods of managing off-duty details are flawed and not sufficient in dealing with the day-to-day hassles of assigning officers to these details. See how our Off Duty solution can help address these issues and help you better serve your community by scheduling a demo today with one of our off-duty specialists.
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