In Summary:

• The PSAP operated by the Fort Myers Police Department in Florida was dealing with a significant staffing shortage.
• The organization turned to MCP to assess the situation and make actionable recommendations to resolve the issues.
• Today, for the first time in a decade, all call-taker and dispatcher positions are filled with fully-trained personnel.

Overview and Agency Challenge

These are challenging times for public safety answering points (PSAPs). Many are dealing with funding shortfalls, others are wondering where they will find the money to implement Next Generation 911 (NG911) technology. Given this, it should come as no surprise that the PSAP operated by the Fort Myers Police Department in Florida has been dealing with a significant staffing shortage of its own. The PSAP operated by the police department in Fort Myers handles more than 200,000 emergency calls annually. Low employee morale and a high staff turnover rate were impacting the PSAP’s performance significantly and compounding existing 911 staffing issues. Other challenges they face included:

• Call-answering times that fell short of the 10-second National Emergency Number Association (NENA) standard.
• Transfer times that exceeded 20 seconds.
• A large percentage of abandoned calls.
• High attrition rates exceeding the industry average of 19 percent.
• Flagging morale, diminished performance and high employee churn.

How Mission Critical Partners Helped

Fort Myers hired Mission Critical Partners (MCP) to assess the situation and make actionable recommendations to resolve the issues. Working together, MCP and Fort Myers took the following steps:

• Conducting a comprehensive staffing study that involves a proprietary, multi-modal framework developed by MCP.
• An analysis of the resulting data in the context of the PSAP’s operational configuration to determine staffing requirements.
• Approaching the situation with an eye toward workforce optimization. Workforce optimization is a concept that MCP embraces. The concept is not only about putting people in seats, but keeping them there for the long haul.

The Results

The comprehensive assessment and recommendations report delivered to Fort Myers Police Department paid immediate and impressive dividends to the Fort Myers Police Department.

"This will be the first time in a decade–easy–that all call-taker and dispatcher positions will be filled with fully-trained personnel," said William Musante, Lieutenant with the Support Operations Section of the Fort Myers Police Department.