They may not be of a baby panda sneezing, but they’re still pretty awesome! Take a few minutes to check out our new “everything you wanted to know about IPMA-HR’s assessment products in two minutes” video and our new “everything you wanted to know about IPMA-HR’s fire service products in just over a minute” video. You won’t regret it. We promise, it’s better than “CATS.”
WKRG News | During the 2018 Independence Day travel period, Alabama State Troopers worked 18 traffic fatalities. They say many of those accidents are a result of fewer troopers on the road. Right now, Alabama has about 342 troopers on the highway, but they say they need 700 more.
POLICE Magazine | … For those who aspire to become supervisors, your preparation for the test and process started the day you walked across the police academy stage. Those who wait to read the announcement for sergeant testing and only then start preparations will probably fail. Read the requirements ahead of time, as some may take some time and effort to meet.
CorrectionsOne | In this episode of Tier Talk, Anthony Gangi discusses how to deal with staff members who have a negative view of the workplace. Listen in as he talks about being the voice for positive change and fighting through the negativity.
We have not one, but three Hero Highlights this week!
PoliceOne | Three Moss Point police officers responded to a call for a busted water pipe at the home of an elderly couple early Thursday morning.
It’s not like police officers don’t do that sort of thing as part of their job to help the community. But in this case, they not only braved a spewing kitchen water pipe to turn it off, but they also stayed to clean up the mess.
PoliceOne | An Alabama college student who walked 20 miles to work after his car broke down was gifted a new vehicle, and it all started after he was helped by a group of officers.
PoliceOne | The video – with more than 600 shares on Facebook as of Tuesday afternoon – showed a woman struggling to get out of the driver’s seat of a car as a man in the car wrapped his arm around her neck, choking her from behind. The incident occurred Monday in the Walmart shopping center on Harter Parkway. As the woman just manages to free herself, a man pointing a gun approaches and tells the suspect to get out of the car.
The Good Samaritan was an off-duty Sutter County sheriff’s deputy, Undersheriff Jeff Pierce said Tuesday.
CorrectionsOne
Gary Gross, director of the Missouri Corrections Officers Association, said inmate tensions are growing across the state over restrictions that stem from staff shortages, the News Tribune reported. Currently, there are about 700 open starting-level corrections officer positions statewide.
“In some institutions, they’re using non-correctional staff to work as corrections officers,” Gross said.
Baltimore Sun
Front-line patrol officers are regularly referred to as the “backbone” of the police department, but commanders have struggled to fill shifts, forcing them to draft officers into overtime work. That costs money and leaves officers exhausted.
The reassignments come as the City Council has announced plans to more carefully scrutinize the department’s overtime spending.
KYMA News
The Yuma Police Department is faced with a major police officer shortage after losing nearly 40 officers to higher-paying agencies over the last three years.
“We’re losing our officers to other agencies who are offering these incentives,” Chief John Lekan said. “Offering higher pay, unfortunately, maybe even offering a little more community.”
According to Chief Lekan, those losses have critically affected the Yuma Police Department.
WBIR News
“When the initial call came in, they thought he was intoxicated. When I got up there, I realized he wasn’t under the influence. He didn’t have shoes. It was 90 plus degrees that day, so the ground was hot,” Gibson recalled.
Shoeless, friendless, and homeless, Gibson says the man said he was heading south where he heard the people were nicer. But, on that hot highway in Rogersville, he met one of the nicest.
WASHINGTON — In its continuing effort to aid the federal government in serving as a model employer, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today issued its federally focused report addressing equal employment opportunities for women in various public safety occupations…Continue Reading
As school districts across New Jersey clamor to hire armed guards, some law enforcement experts are concerned about a potential shortage of candidates equipped to serve as school officers…Continue Reading
Mark Diaz, president of the Detroit Police Officers Association, said the union has lost 117 officers since Jan 1., which averages to about 4.5 per week…Continue Reading
Bipartisan Amendment Will Reauthorize Funding For Rural Fire And Ambulance Crews To Fight Opioid Epidemic, Strengthen Workforce….Continue Reading
That’s right. We graduated and now have our own accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Why? To make us more efficient in our delivery of relevant, timely and interesting content directly related to the public safety community:
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Anti-patronage ordinances, funding restrictions and tensions between law enforcement and minority communities reaching back decades impede efforts to build police departments that reflect the populations served. Read More…
A joint publication of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Federal Trade Commission
When making personnel decisions – including hiring, retention, promotion, and reassignment – employers sometimes want to consider the backgrounds of applicants and employees….Except for certain restrictions related to medical and genetic information (see below), it’s not illegal for an employer to ask questions about an applicant’s or employee’s background, or to require a background check. However, you must be in compliance. This publication explains how to comply with both the federal nondiscrimination laws and the FCRA Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Read more…
We love to hate meetings. And with good reason — they clog up our days, making it hard to get work done in the gaps, and so many feel like a waste of time. There’s plenty of advice out there on how to stop spending so much time in meetings or make better use of the time, but does it hold up in reality? Can you really make meetings more effective and regain control of your calendar? Read More…
Steve Jobs insisted that every item on a meeting agenda have a designated person responsible for that task and any follow-up work that happened. He called that person the DRI—the Directly Responsible Individual. He knew the public accountability would ensure that a project or task would actually get done, and he wanted to set clear, organized instructions for his team to follow.
It sounds simple enough, and yet the majority of managers and leaders completely fail to do this. We’ve all left meetings feeling good about what we discussed only to later wonder why so little happened as a result. Where did the momentum go? Read More…
Today, I would like to discuss how IPMA-HR’s assessment resources can be used to ensure your organization’s practices adhere to professional standards of practice.
Adverse impact is at the center of an increasing number of news stories written about selection practices. Unfortunately, a large number of departments and agencies don’t do enough to protect themselves. Over time, HR and assessment professionals have learned that it nearly impossible to eliminate adverse impact within cognitive testing. More than ever, it is important that your organization protect itself in situations where adverse impact may surface, opening the door to possible litigation.
The recent article by Rich Tonowski certainly brought to the surface some of the thoughts I have had when reading and hearing about public safety departments all over the United States getting into large scale legal battles in regard to their selection processes.
Some of these litigation cases are certainly deep and complicated, such as Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and Ricci v. DeStefano. However, others like Easterling v. Connecticut Department of Corrections and United States v. New Jersey Civil Service, are lessons in assessment basics that should always be at the forefront of an HR or assessment professional’s mind. Basics like ensuring that job analysis of a target position includes opinions and ratings from a diverse group of personnel and making sure to test candidates in areas that are directly related to job tasks.
During the month of January the ASR will focus on establishing standards you should keep in mind to ensure your department doesn’t end up as the lead story on tomorrow’s evening news. Our coverage kicks off with the next series from Robert Burd, on the topic of issues that might arise during test administration. Specifically he will discuss using successive hurdles, weighing different parts of the selection process and certification rules for eligibility lists. You can also look forward to a piece on the importance of Test Response Data, both to IPMA-HR and your agency as a whole. We will also be highlighting outside professional resources that are important for you and your staff to review and understand. Concluding the month long theme, we will bring you an in-depth look into non-cognitive testing, and how it can be implemented within your assessment process.
The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) has earned a reputation as the nation’s primary resource of information on a variety of jobs. Developed under the sponsorship of the US Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration, the network’s main draw is the O*NET database, which has occupation-specific descriptions for hundreds of job classifications.
O*NET also publishes a number of guides available for free download. Two guides cover best practices in testing and assessment:
Let’s break the guides down, shall we? (more…)