Windham County Sheriff's Department - Personnel Scheduling - Case Study

Case Study: Windham County Sheriff's Department in Newfane, Vermont, United States

Business Overview

Sheriff's Departments in general date back as far as the 1300's, serving the King of England. In Vermont, records show some Sheriff's Departments starting as early as the 1700's. Until approximately 1969, the Windham County Sheriff's Department employed three deputies, on a part-time basis. The Sheriff was a full-time employee. Each deputy was required to provide all equipment, including a cruiser.

Sheriff's Departments in the State date back as early as the 1700's. They were established to provide law enforcement services to their respective counties. Over time, the state has evolved to provide statewide jurisdiction to all law enforcement officers within the state, as well as established state law enforcement agencies to augment the office of the Sheriff. The Sheriff is given statutory authority to enter into contracts with villages, municipalities and other units of government for the purpose of providing services to include general police services, emergency response services, animal control, prisoner transportation, service of civil process and other various ancillary needs. Sheriff's Departments generally operate with little or no tax funding and require self-sufficiency. Windham County covers approximately 789 square miles of rural Vermont.

Scheduling Overview

The Windham County Sheriff's Department employs approximately 36 sworn law enforcement officers as well as an additional 5 civilian support staff members. It's an extremely fluid and dynamic agency, being able to leverage nearly all personnel towards various needs. As an emergency responding agency, we frequently have to schedule deputies to support required roles. Additionally, we provide on-call and near immediate response to various needs, including prisoner transports, traffic safety and other various events. As a result, we find that we can have anywhere from ten deputies, to nearly all deputies, working around the clock to provide various services.

Deputies are frequently assigned to provide services to private companies / corporations to augment their safety or security needs. Incidentally, a centralized scheduling platform is needed for various supervisors to coordinate services to each area. Additionally, given the rural nature of Vermont, cruisers serve as the primary office for many deputies and supervisors alike. As a result, it isn't uncommon for a supervisor to not see their desk, let alone the office in any given week. Finally, as a result of nearly half the staff being per diem, supervisors are responsible to ensure fair allocation of hours, as well as limit overtime as needed.

Previous Scheduling Method

Our previous work scheduler method involved pen and paper onto a weekly calendar, with an evolution into Microsoft Word. We frequently ran into issues of outdated schedules being used, unreadable writing and a very decentralized organization of staffing of our various obligations.

Since ShiftPlanning

The employee schedule maker ShiftPlanning has increased the efficiency of our scheduling with its changes being instantaneous, centralized and simplistic. We are able to fairly allocate shifts, utilize information to make both quantitative and qualitative judgments and offer flexibility to deputies in allowing them to sign up for shifts, as opposed to being assigned shifts. I continue to recommended the work schedule maker ShiftPlanning to several law enforcement and private sector organizations.

Each description of ShiftPlanning, and as such, it's team, has always included an intuitive, forward thinking organization that exemplifies communication, especially with its customers. I am always impressed at the near rapid response to bug reports, feature requests and informational responses.

The work scheduler ShiftPlanning has impacted our organization positively in several ways:

For Supervisors:

Instantly provides vital information to supervisors for determining fatigue, overtime, eligible employees and unavailable deputies.
Eliminated time wasted by supervisors, making phone notifications of work, revising obsolete schedules, double-booking and under-booking deputies.
Centralized the information vital to our decision-making process, as it pertains to scheduling.
Coordinates vacation, military leave and other forms of leave without "losing documents."
Helps coordinate movement of cruisers, to reduce costs of fuel consumption and other associated expenses.

For Employees:

Provides schedule without "mis-heard" or misunderstood statements.
Quick and easy way to know where and what.
Quick way to coordinate vacations and leave, especially for per diem officers.
Simplified leave request system.
to work shifts without having to seek out a supervisor.

ShiftPlanning sets the example for how businesses should interact with their customers. - Corporal Mark Anderson - Windham County Sheriff's Department

I can't speak enough good words about the employee schedule maker ShiftPlanning – it has been a godsend from the beginning, the ShiftPlanning staff has been amazing. The customer relations has always been top-notch.

Further

We have found the Request system to be extremely helpful.