Taming 911 Turnover: Timely Advice from Industry Thought Leaders

Today, almost every 911 center is caught up in the endless revolving door of turnover, recruiting and training. Recently, NICE held a virtual roundtable on ‘Reducing 911 Turnover and Engaging Staff’ to see how innovative 911 thought leaders are addressing this problem. Joining us for this discussion were Stephanie Johnson, ENP (911 Technical Operations Manager, Ada County Sheriff’s Office), Barbara Davidson (Director, Ingham County 9-1-1 Central Dispatch), and Garth Wireman (Deputy Director, Greenup County Public Safety). Here are some key take-aways from that session:

RECRUITING TIPS

1. Broaden recruiting efforts beyond traditional job fairs. For example, Ingham County used creative advertising (see video below this blog post) to attract new recruits and also successfully leveraged partnerships with veterans’ associations to attract candidates with desirable backgrounds.
   
   
2. Partner up with community colleges to create courses. Ingham also engaged Lansing Community College to create a two-week dispatch certification course which will commence this fall.
   
   
3. Solicit free marketing advice from experts. Ingham also partnered with Michigan State University’s communications department to gain a fresh perspective on how to best attract recruits to 911, for example leveraging new social media tools. You can even recruit college interns to help with social media. 
   
   
4. Institute recruiting bonuses for current staff to encourage them to refer their friends.
   
   
5. Hold career days and invite potential recruits from the community to experience the job first-hand to grab their interest. As Garth Wireman says, the exciting and rewarding the job of 911 telecommunicator is 911’s best secret. Don’t let it be! 

RETENTION TIPS

1. Create a mentor program to foster strong relationships with new employees and help them succeed.
   
   
2. Consider retention bonuses geared toward specific career milestones.
   
   
3. Spend time with telecommunicators on the floor, getting to know them – show them you understand their struggles and that you’re invested in their well-being.
   
   
4. As Ingham’s Barb Davidson says, you need to “reduce the heads down work you do every day, so you can be heads up for your staff.” With automated QA and incident reconstruction solutions like NICE Inform Elite, supervisors can get more time back in their day to engage with staff.
   
   
5. Institute formal recognition programs to reward telecommunicators for the great work they do.
   
   
6. Use Quality Assurance as a tool for effective, actionable feedback. For example, Ada County employs an ‘off the floor’ professional dedicated to the quality assurance function to ensure QA (and telecommunicators) get the attention it/they deserve.
   
   
7. Double down on QA for new employees so they don’t learn bad habits that need to be unlearned.
   
   
8. Use QA to uncover training gaps. Ada County uses insights that come out of QA to determine what block training it should offer on overlapping shifts.
   
   
9. Use screen recording to troubleshoot and differentiate between training, process and technology issues.
   
   
10. Use real-time performance metrics to identify when telecommunicators are struggling. For example, Ingham County was able to identify and help a telecommunicator who was having difficulties from data brought to light through the NICE Inform Intelligence Center.
    
    
11. According to Garth Wireman, centers should also leverage technology to make employees’ jobs easier. 

These are just some of the tips for improving recruiting and retention offered by our experts. Want to learn more? Browse our website or contact us.