Wages and salaries are of vital importance when it comes to determining the number of employees that are required to perform a particular task in an organization (Frøyland et al., 2018). Due to the lack of enough police officers, the police department is experiencing an increase in wages in achieving the required number of police patrols in high-crime areas. As a result, there has been an increase in wages and salaries that the department is paying patrol officers in order to achieve the required level of output (Frøyland et al., 2018). To ensure that there is uniformity in terms of wages and salaries among police officers, the police department must eliminate the overtime hours and wages assigned to currently employed police officers by increasing the number of workers in order to reach the expected level of output. The human resource department has already determined the minimum wage that the new police officers should be paid after performing their responsibilities as per the terms of their contract and job descriptions. By filling up the remaining positions, the police department will not incur any additional costs in paying overtime wages to the existing police officers.
An educated and trained workforce causes an increase in the demand for that labor by employers. The police department is looking for qualified entry-level police officers to fill up the missing slots for the required officers. Education and training will play a significant role in increasing the levels of productivity within the police workforce, thereby causing the curve for demand for labor to move to the right (Frøyland et al., 2018). If the required new pool of police offers are not well-trained or educated, the police department will not hire from within that labor pool because they will incur extra costs and time in training the workforce. Therefore, the demand for labor will shift to the left. The police officers are going to be deployed in high-crime areas, and this requires the human resource department to seek applications from qualified police officers with similar experience. Implementation of the employee referral program stipulates that current employers will help the human resource department in identifying qualified police officers to fill up the open positions.
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The police department is in the city is complying with government regulations that require the human resource department to fill up the empty positions in the department. This is after it was published that three officers are receiving high annual pay than the mayor. Therefore, the mayor instructed the police department to hire new police officers in order to reduce overtime. Therefore, this will lead to the growth in demand for law enforcement officers in the city; thus, this will shift the demand for new law enforcement officers in the labor market to the right (Frøyland et al., 2018). Due to increased crime rates, the police department is under pressure to increase patrol activities in high-crime areas. To lower crime in the city, the police department, their demand for more police officers has increased. As a result, the city requires more police officers to be employed in order to decrease malfeasance in high-crime areas, which can be described as the demand for output by the mayor.
Advancements in technology are causing shifts in how criminals commit crimes and in how police departments need to investigate crimes. Criminals have become tech-savvy, and they have realized that they can conduct criminal activities without getting caught or be given smaller penalties if they caught. Today, technology is dynamic and changing every day, and thus, police agencies are facing difficulties in keeping up with technological advances. Because of these, the police agency needs to hire new police officers who understand and enjoy the use of technology to prevent and investigate crimes. The police department also needs to hire new police officers who are comfortable and have the knowledge to use the technologies that are being adopted by the police, such as body cameras.
Factors Influencing the Demand for Supply
The police department is under pressure from the citizens and the mayor to lower crimes in high-crime areas by increasing surveillance in such areas. The police agency is required to employ twenty-five new officers without fail to help avert the crisis. Therefore, a raise in the number of law enforcement officers will result in the supply curve, shifting to the right (Frøyland et al., 2018). A raise in the number of law enforcement officers is due to increased crime rates that need to be lowered by the police department and the need to eliminate overtime hours of the existing police officers so that the wage gap between the ranks in the police department and the city are maintained—the higher the education qualifications, the lower the supply.
Barriers to entry affect the supply of labor. Although the human resource requires entry-level officers, each officer referred for the role of City Police Officer I, must be qualified for them to be eligible for employment (Frøyland et al., 2018). The police officers must also have previous experience in such situations as they will be dealing with both minor and major criminals. Such factors lead to the depreciation of the supply of labor, which results in the supply curve shifting to the left. If many of the new police officers referred by their colleagues are unable to meet the qualifications, the police department will experience low supply (Frøyland et al., 2018). Other factors influencing the barriers to entry in the city include the harsh weather experienced in the city, the highest cost of living when compared with other cities, and the high income and sales tax that is imposed on residents.
Government regulations and policies may shift the supply curve to either the right or left, which is dependent on the provisions of the policy (Frøyland et al., 2018). For example, if the government reduced the required levels of qualifications, the supply curve shift for new police officers will shift to the right. If the government supports high qualifications for new police officers, the supply curve will shift to the left. In addition, government policies that reduce or increase the desirability for work and not for working will also affect the labor supply curve.
Recruitment Plan
Recruitment Objectives for the Police Department
The average age of the police force in the police department is 45-years and this represents an aging workforce. To reduce absenteeism and future strain on the resources, the human resource department should acquire the new police officers between the ages of 25 – 35. The current workforce in the police department is aging and they will eligible for retirement in five years. By attracting and retaining younger employees the police force will reduce absenteeism and the postponement of retirement. The aging workforce will transfer their knowledge, skills, and experience to their younger colleagues before they retire.
The human resource department is looking to hire police officers who reflect the communities that they serve. This may include hiring more African-Americans, women or Hispanics depending on their current demographics.
To streamline the recruitment and selection process through the employee referral program, which will provide a large pool of qualified candidates to choose from. The involvement of everyone in the police department will increase the chances of success for the human resource department based on the incentives provided for each effective hire.
Recruitment Strategies for the Police Department
The following will be the size of the applicant pool required to produce twenty-five viable applicants using yielding ratios.
The total number of applications = 43 (5+9+14+10+5) – Current application pool
The total number of job offers = 13 (3+1+0+5+4) – Number of job offers that resulted from the application pool.
43 applications from the current application pool yielded 13 job offers, what about Y which will result in 25 job offers.
Solution = 13*43/25 => 1075/13 = 82.6923
The applicant pool size that will produce 25 viable candidates = 83.
Individuals to be Targeted Recruitment
To help combat crime, the police department needs a qualified police officer with the experience to reduce the crime rates in the city and achieve the strategic objectives of the police department (Yu, 2018) . For the target groups identified by the human resource department, the criminal justice graduates and military police should be the appropriate target group to be considered for employment.
Police officers are responsible for performing different duties such as maintaining law and order, making arrests, conducting investigations and traffic stops, and preparing cases (Murphy, 2018) . One advantage of recruiting an individual with a criminal justice degree is the exposure they have to real-world experience from their professors. Many education institutions in the United States include instructors with diverse experiences within the criminal justice fields (Baek, 2019) . Besides, most of the students studying bachelor’s degrees in criminal justice are current police officers. Education is an asset in the criminal justice system, and it helps police officers gain knowledge in criminology and the confidence and composure that is required to deal with real-world situations. To help reduce the rate of crime, military police are a perfect fit for the police department. Military police are bright, and they possess a wealth of information on how to deal with rogue individuals in society (Baek, 2019) . Military police officers have the discipline and training that is required to transition into law enforcement easily.
To employ military police, the police department should be able to attend military ceremonies and reception events. Although there may be few no vacancies in a military department, the human resource department will be able to reach out to interested individuals. During the ceremony, law enforcement agencies can highlight how their departments can support military personnel after their deployments (Baek, 2019) . By building partnerships with local military, the law enforcement agency will be able to enhance their visibility. Such an opportunity will go beyond the need to recruit military personnel and offer strategies to combat crime (Linos, 2017) . One of the ways to recruit criminal justice graduates is to offer job fairs both on and off school environments. Interested candidates in law enforcement will always reach out to the police department either for internships or to look for job opportunities after they graduate (Baek, 2019) . The second and most effective option is to advertise for the potions in the media and distribute them to colleges and universities in the state.
Selection Plan
Selection Methods for Target Candidates
The psychological screening of police officer candidates is a core practice in the area of psychology (Yu, 2018) . A police officer candidate may undergo psychological screening either before or after being granted an offer for employment. Upon approval by the psychologist, the applicant will be hired as a police officer. The psychological screening of new police officers is not about checking their overall sanity or lack thereof (Yu, 2018) . The purpose of pre-employment screening is to show that the candidate possesses the mental strength to handle long hours of work, abusive language, horrifying crime scenes, and language (Linos, 2017) . In their line of work, police officers are emotionally, mentally, and physically overloaded; thus, the psychological evaluation is aimed at testing the candidate’s ability to handle such situations.
During the application process, candidates are required to answer police interview questions to the best of their ability. The competition for the position of a law enforcement officer is fierce, and therefore, applicants must ensure that they stand out from other candidates (Yu, 2018) . The purpose of the interview process is to ascertain that the information provided by the candidate in their application is accurate. The interview process is used by the police agency or department to assess the applicant’s suitability for the role within the department (Linos, 2017) . Lastly, the interview process is used to test the candidate’s ability to demonstrate new competencies in the role that they have applied for. Some of the core competencies that candidates will be tested for include integrity, transparency, public service, service delivery, and openness to change.
Traditionally in the United States, background checks have been at the center of police recruitment strategies (Yu, 2018) . Background investigations are vital to the recruitment process because they help determine whether the candidate is eligible for their role as a law enforcement officer (Linos, 2017) . There is increased public scrutiny of the actions of law enforcement officers, and police departments must ensure that police officers possess the required competencies and that they will not be problematic for law enforcement.
Selection Tests
Physical tests, which include medical examinations, physical agility tests, and vision requirement tests, will be used in assessing the candidate’s ability for their role as a law enforcement officer (Yu, 2018) . The second type of tests that will be used are mental tests which have been designed to measure the candidate’s knowledge and intelligence as well as to evaluate their physical fitness and well-being.
Type of Background Verification Checks
After the application process has been completed, the applicant’s application is handed over to the background investigator for the initial screening process (Linos, 2017) . The background investigators start by pulling the applicant’s records from the Automated Training Management System to check the applicant’s history and certifications (Yu, 2018) . This information consists of any available information from the candidate’s family, relatives, and property ownership, which is compared to the information on the application. When the candidate has passed the initial screening processes, the next phase is the oral interview. The interview process will ask the candidate a series of questions and then analyze their responses (Linos, 2017) . After approval by the background investigator, the candidate will proceed to the next stage of the investigation process.
Methods of Evaluating the Recruitment and Selection Plans
Time to fill – Open positions are costing the police department money, and the quicker the position is filled, the better it will be for the organization to the issuing out of overtime allowances to existing police officers (Linos, 2017) . Analysis of the average time taken to fill the vacancy will be used to measure the success of the recruitment process.
Quality of hire - The human resource department will track the performance of new police officers in the department, and the quality of their work will help in setting performance benchmarks and measure the return on investment (Linos, 2017) .
Turnover – For the recruitment and selection strategies to effective, the turnover rates must be low (Linos, 2017) . The agency will work on implementing onboarding programs aimed at reducing turnover rates.
Early-stage attrition rates – Although candidates may be skilled and contribute to the strategic objectives for the department, leaving voluntarily or involuntarily shortly after being acquired does not constitute success (Yu, 2018) . The human resource department will calculate the effectiveness of the process by dividing the sum of employees who left by the total number of employees working during the time.
References
Baek, H. (2019). Perceived Appropriateness of Training and Organizational Commitment Among Korean Police. International Criminal Justice Review , 30 (2), 235-253. https://doi.org/10.1177/1057567719867380
Frøyland, K., Andreassen, T., & Innvær, S. (2018). Contrasting Supply-side, Demand-side and Combined Approaches to Labour Market Integration. Journal of Social Policy , 48 (2), 311-328. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0047279418000491
Linos, E. (2017). More Than Public Service: A Field Experiment on Job Advertisements and Diversity in the Police. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory , 28 (1), 67-85. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mux032
Murphy, K. (2018). The Legal Context of the Management of Human Resources. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior , 5 (1), 157-182. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-032117-104435
Yu, H. (2018). Gender and Public Agency Hiring: An Exploratory Analysis of Recruitment Practices in Federal Law Enforcement. Public Personnel Management , 47 (3), 247-264. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091026018767473