Staffing question...

[mobrien316]

There has been talk at my agency lately about requiring a supervisor (sergeant or corporal) to be working at all times. Right now we only have four sergeants and two corporals in patrol, and there are a lot of shifts that are "supervised" by a senior officer.

I agree there should be a supervisor on each shift, all the time, but I think in order to do that we need some additional supervisors. With the current staffing levels I believe that if one or two people go out on vacation or injury the rest of us would be flooded with overtime, whether we want it or not.

I've tried looking for the number of people realistically needed to staff one position 24/7 (taking into account vacation, sick time, holidays, training, etc...), but I've not found a satisfactory answer.

I was thinking that if we have one sergeant and two corporals for each of the four shifts that would give us the best chance of always having a supervisor working without constantly having to order people to work double shifts. In our department when the sergeant is working the corporals are assigned a patrol sector; when the sergeant isn't there the corporal becomes the shift supervisor.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[txinvestigator1]

24 hours a day, 7 days a week is 168 hours a week. If you use 8 hour shifts, then that needs, at minimum, 5 people. 40 hours x 4 people = 160 hours.

To cover OT/ holidays etc, you would have to add the number of people required to cover the average number of hours a person takes off in a year.

Once you add additional position that require 168 HPW coverage it becomes more complicated, but you can work it from there.