Task 1: Workforce Planning, Recruitment, & Selection PDF

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This task was to write an essay to address the problem of excessive overtime for police officers. I was tasked with hiring 25 new officers to drastically reduce the amount of overtime required....

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Task 1: Workforce Planning, Recruitment, & Selection Course Code: 234 Student Name: Jordan Glenn Student ID: 000758594 Date: 03/09/2019 Student Mentor Name: Yolander Trotter

Following the recent news story about the amount of overtime hours that a few of our police officers have been working lately, I was tasked with the hiring 25 new police officers in order to drastically reduce the amount of overtime currently required by our police officers. In addition to the time requirements of our regular duties, our officers have been spread very thin lately due to a recent promise from our new mayor that we will reduce crime in the city by increasing the number of patrols in the high-crime areas of the city. These required overtime hours have led to a few officers earning a higher annual salary than the mayor himself. The mayor is understandably embarassed by this being reported in the news, so per his intstruction, I have put together a recruitment and hiring plan that we will use to address this issue both now and going forward. There are a few different factors that are influencing labor demand. First, the average age of our current police officers is 45 years old. Within the next five years, 24% of the current force will be eligible for retirement. In this situation, five years from now represents a deadline for our department to have their replacements well-trained and ideally having a few years of experience under their belts so that our police force and our citizens do not experience any drop-off in the level of service and support that we all expect from our officers. Another factor influencing labor demand is the fact that our union contract with the officer’s union requires our organization to allow for promotion from within, which will most likely lead to one-quarter of the current police force. This has caused our organization to primarily focus on hiring entry-level police officers since this is a revolving cycle of retirement, promotion and back-filling these entry-level positions.

Lastly, there are a few potential scenarios that would influence labor demand that are mostly outside of our control. These include, but are not limited to, voluntary and involuntary termination of officers, such as relocation, illness, or death. The very nature of the job puts our officers at risk every single day when they put on the uniform. Although we do our due-diligence to conduct frequent training sessions to make sure that we put our officers in the best position to be as safe as possible, unfortunately there are scenarios that occur that could result in fatalities in the line of duty. In order to be proactive instead of reactive to these types of tragic events, we need to make sure that we are staffed properly in order to prepare for these types of situations. The same type of unpredictability goes along with events such as relocation or illness. We cannot foresee when these things will happen, and with the officer training program at the police academy being 12 weeks long, it is imperative that we have contingency plans in place. At the same time, there are a few factors that are influencing labor supply. First, our state has one of the highest overall cost-of-living indices in the nation. The entry-level role of a police officer is not the going to be one of the highest-earning jobs in the state, so the high cost-ofliving is a definite deterrent to many people who may think that they would not earn enough to live comfortably in this area. Keeping in mind our current situation regarding officer’s salaries, one of our primary focuses of this hiring effort is to drastically reduce the amount of overtime worked by our officers. Due primarily to the high cost-of-living and poor climate, our state has one of the highest rates of out-migration in the nation. With so many college-aged students choosing to find work or attend school in other states due to the previously mentioned factors, this is negatively affecting the labor supply for the positions we are looking to fill with highquality candidates.

In order to ensure that we keep the right end goals in mind throughout this hiring process, we have come up with three recruitment objectives. The first objective is to gather an applicant pool of 36 candidates to produce 25 viable candidates for the position. This number of candidates is based on a combined yield ratio of 0.70%. Our second objective is to be strategic in the types of candidates that we will be targeting to hire for these open positions. The two types of candidate groups that we will primarily be targeting are military police officers and candidates from other police departments. Based on the supplied data, the yield ratio for military police candidates was 60%, and the yield ratio for candidates from other police departments was 80%. These target groups will maximize our chances of hiring 25 high-quality candidates while reducing the amount of recruitment costs that are incurred as much as possible. Our third recruitment objective is to achieve an 80% retention rate for the first year. This will be driven primarily by the new employee referral policy, which will reward current employees for recommending high potential candidates. This policy will attract qualified applicants who will have assistance during and after their onboarding to ensure their success. For our applicant pool, we have determined that the applicant pool needed to produce 25 viable candidates is 36. We will be using the target groups of military police and other police departments because these two groups will give us the highest chance of finding quality candidates. The top group that we will be targeting is other police departments because this group of candidates already has the exact experience for the job role that we are hiring for. These candidates will be able to get through the onboarding phase more quickly than other groups

because they are not required to go through the 12-week training course before assuming active duty on the police force. Military Police is the second group that will be targeted because they have experience in a similar role that they will step into if hired. These candidates are more likely to have an indepth understanding of the role which should lead to an increased retention rate. Although Military Police candidates will have to go through the 12-week training course, they are coming from an environment where peak levels of physical fitness and discipline are required. With their on-the-job experience of police work, this should help increase the rate of new hires that pass the 12-week training course. We have identified two effective methods for reaching each target group. For candidates in other police departments, one effective way to reach this target group is to post electronic job postings. Active-duty police officers recruited from other police departments within the state are best contacted at least six weeks before the anticipated job offer date. The internet is one of the most easily accessible and free resources to find jobs anywhere in the world. There are very popular online job boards, such as Indeed.com, that advertise millions of job listings sourced from thousands of different websites. This is by far the most popular method of searching for a new job in the 21st century. Another effective way to reach candidates from other police departments is employee referrals. This method should be a popular one with our current group of officers, because of our new employee referral program. The way that the program is designed, our current employees will be encouraged to not only recommend high-quality candidates, but they will also be inclined

to mentor the new-hires as they grow in their new role in order to maximize the amount of financial reward that they get from the program. For military police, we have identified two primary ways that we feel will give us the best chance to gather the best possible candidates. For candidates in this target group, it is a best practice to contact them about six weeks before discharge from active military service. The first method that we will be using to contact these candidates are electronic job posting sites specific to military personnel. The benefit of using this is that we can specifically target the type of candidates that we want by posting the available job on a forum that is limited to them. The second way that we will reach out to this target group of candidates is to use our new employee referral program. A lot of our currently employed officers are former military members themselves, and they still have friends that are currently enlisted in the armed services. This new program will be vital to the continued growth and influx of high-quality entry-level talent into our organization. The first selection that we will use to evaluate possible candidates is a situational judgment test. This type of selection test is an ideal test to evaluate how the candidates would act in a particular setting. A situational judgment test is crucial for hiring police officers. In their line of work, they will be faced with situations that will require split-second decision making that could have serious ramifications if not treated appropriately. Situational Judgement tests give candidates real-life scenarios that they could face while on the job and allow them to choose different methods of handling that scenario. Candidates will be given a specific set of methods of handling the situation, and they will be asked which option is most and least effective. It is

essential to be able to have the same set of scenarios and answers for all candidates to make sure that we have valid data when comparing each candidate’s performance against one another. The second type of selection test we will utilize to evaluate candidates is a physical ability test. The physical ability test is when candidates must demonstrate whether or not they can meet the physical requirements of actual job tasks. The candidate will receive a specific timeframe in order to complete this set of tasks correctly, and it is normally evaluated on a pass/fail grading method. The physical ability test is essential because the role of a police officer is a physically demanding job. For the safety of our officers and fellow citizens they are protecting and serving, it is vital that our officers demonstrate that they can meet the physical requirements of the job. The final selection method that we will be using to evaluate our candidates is a traditional structured interview. In this type of interview, it is essential for the interviewer to ask each candidate the same set of questions. By asking the same questions to all candidates, there can be standardization in the hiring process. We will also get more reliable evaluations when comparing the quality of each candidate’s answers to the set of questions. There are multiple types of selection tests available depending on the objectives of your hiring process. One of these selections tests is a structured behavioral interview is a great way to measure specific knowledge, skills, and abilities for each candidate with a standardized set of questions. The questions will primarily be focused on how the candidates have acted in the past when they have been in these situations. We will be asking the same set of questions to each candidate, so this method will help us gain insight into each candidate’s past behavior in real-life job situations.

Another type of selection test is a team interview. The team interview is a reliable method for a selection test because it allows multiple perspectives to be given when making a hiring decision on various candidates. When there are multiple stakeholders in the hiring process, it is beneficial to be able to get as many of those people involved in the hiring decision to further ensure the new hire’s acceptance into the organization. From the candidate’s perspective, it can be slightly intimidating due to having multiple hiring managers to speak to all at once. However, the team interview format allows the candidate to get a glimpse into how different employees in the organization interact with each other. There are two types of background verification checks that we will be using in our selection process. One verification check is a social media check. This type of background verification check should be treated identically to a standard background check. The social media check is performed after the candidate has been interviewed and deemed as a viable candidate for employment. When checking a candidate’s social media page, a hiring manager can get an unfiltered view of who the candidate is when they are not participating in the hiring process. The second type of background verification check we will utilize is a standard drug test. With the responsibility and visibility that our officers have to enforce the laws, it is imperative that we conduct a drug test to ensure that our officers do not have any substance abuse issues. Our citizens rely on our officers to serve and protect them at a moment’s notice, and our police department would have no credibility if we hired officers that did not abide by the same laws that they are sworn to enforce. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of our choices of recruitment and selection plans, there are four methods that we will use to accomplish this task. The first method is measuring

what the average fill time is for these positions. The more time efficient we are in completing the hiring process, the more money that our organization will save. These cost savings will be especially important since we are hiring 25 new officers, and we are making a significant investment in training and development for each one. The second method that we will be using is measuring the effectiveness of our advertising methods. After each stage of the hiring process and even after, we will be keeping track of the yield ratios for each method of advertising to see how our approach should be for the next time that we hire for this position. We are paying close attention to the yield ratio resulting from employee referrals, because with our employee referral program being an additional financial expense for our organization, we want to make sure that we are getting a solid return on our investment. The third method of evaluating the effectiveness of our recruitment and selection plans that we will be using is measuring the effectiveness of the criteria used to screen applicants. We want to make sure throughout the hiring process and duration of the police academy training that our personality traits and KSA’s that we have identified as important for a police officer to have to develop into a top performer in our organization. The benefit of monitoring this during the hiring process is that if we realize halfway in that we are ending up with candidates that we don’t believe will eventually be high performers in the role, we can course correct immediately and not be stuck with employees that we don’t believe will add any value to our team. The final method that we will be using is measuring how long new employees stay, and what the average turnover is in our team. Although we are hoping that the parameters of the new employee referral program will significantly reduce the amount of turnover that we have, we

cannot blindly accept that this program is going to be successful in that goal. If we do experience a high level of employee turnover, various aspects could be contributing to that. Did we not do a good enough job up front with setting the expectation level of performance? Did the job description provide an accurate representation of what the actual duties and requirements of the role are? We will review all of these questions and more in the event of unusual levels of employee turnover. Overall, we expect to make a significant impact in many areas of our organization with the hiring of these 25 new police officers. First and foremost, we will be directly addressing the amount of overtime required by our officers so that we can avoid the situation that prompted this hiring requirement in the first place. With the additional officers in the field, we will be able to better serve our citizens in fulfilling the promise made by the mayor to lower crime by increasing the number of police patrols in high-crime areas. With this approach to our recruiting and hiring process, we believe that we will be putting ourselves in a great position to exceed the expectations of our fellow citizens both now and into the future.

References Webster, B., Ph.D. (2016). Workforce Planning: Recruitment and Selection....