Policing policy - getting resource management right - from Criminal Justice Management magazine

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Many current policing plan objectives that relate to contact centres, drawn from sources such as the National Policing Plan, National Community Safety Plan, and Public Service Agreements, are most effectively addressed by changes to resource management policies underpinned by workforce management systems. Typically these objectives include reducing operating cost, cutting attrition, lowering absenteeism and providing a faster speed of response for the public.

Over the past 10 years we have worked with forces such as Strathclyde Police and The Metropolitan Police as well as private sector businesses like HBOS and Vodafone on the implementation of workforce management systems to support changes within resource management. Much of our work is focused on the people and process elements within resource management - change management and helping define better practices and policies that technology supports.

In our experience successfully achieving objectives requires that organisations start by defining better resource management policies by considering the needs of all 3 stakeholders - the public, staff and the organisation. For example, flexible working hours are easily supported with technology, may be what staff want and thereby reduce absenteeism, attrition and make recruitment easier for the organisation. But, will enough resources be available at the right times to achieve the speed of answer that the public require? A policy stands the best chance of success where the co-alignment of needs exists and where differences do occur compromises or actions taken to ameliorate the effects will have to be considered.

Workforce management systems are essential for resource management within today’s contact centres as they will enable you to complete day to day management more efficiently and effectively. In addition they will also allow you to explore different ways to meet the needs of stakeholders by using ‘what-if’ scenarios. Using these scenarios you can anticipate the impact on cost, service and staff of proposed changes to achieve goals like reduced absenteeism, faster response times and first contact resolution and make more informed decisions in regard to your resource management policies.

Workforce management systems build scenarios by forecasting how many calls will happen in the future for all of your contact types based on historical trends. They then do the massive amount of computation needed to create every individual’s work schedule, down to the minute, for every day of the year to meet the speed of response goal. The result – a scenario with enough people with the right skills at the right times to answer every call type for a given speed of answer.

Systems accomplish scheduling by taking into account a vast array of staff constraints including the number of resources, holiday entitlement, work time preferences, employment contracts and even rewards such as allowing individuals different freedoms to choose based on previous performance etc. As you are free to make changes to these variables, along with speed of answer, you can try different scenarios and see how to best meet the needs of all the stakeholders to give your resource management policies the best chance of success.

News Source : Policing policy - getting resource management right - from Criminal Justice Management magazine