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### **Promising Practices on Recruitment and Hiring**

September 2020 | Volume 13 | Issue 9

Regardless of the size of the agency, staffing is key to  effective policing, agency productivity, and positive police-community  relations. Challenges typically emerge when recruitment, hiring, retention, and  promotion activities are out of alignment with the strategic plan. It is vital that  agencies recruit and hire personnel who reflect the community’s diversity;  retain personnel by providing incentive structures, mentorship, and  transparency; and provide clear, merit-based, and objective pathways to  transfer or promotions. These factors are particularly important for small  agencies where a single hire could have an immediate impact on the culture of  the agency and reputation in the community.

##### Challenges and Barriers

Agency leadership has a responsibility to hire personnel  who are qualified for the position and reflect the community’s diversity. The  process should be valid and fair and comply with all applicable laws and  guidelines. Recruiting is especially key as many agencies are experiencing high  number of retirements and resignations. Competition is increasing among  agencies because the number of people entering the profession is decreasing. Participants  at a COPS Office forum said the most significant barrier to recruitment is the  community’s changing image of law enforcement.1

Barriers exist throughout the hiring process that hinder  the selection of talented personnel. Many of the traditional selection  practices used to screen applicants have an unwarranted disproportionate impact  on underrepresented populations.2 Some deterrents include the  following:
          - Length, complexity, and costs of the application  process
          - Reliance on inadequately tailored examinations  as part of the screening process
          - Reliance on additional selection criteria and  screening processes that disproportionately impact individuals from  underrepresented communities
          - Background checks that rule out candidates  otherwise qualified for the profession on the basis of credit history or minor,  usually drug-related, offenses
          - Personnel requirements such as residency, age,  and experience
          - The length of time it takes to qualify or train  for the profession
          - Outdated physical requirements 3

Changing cultural norms have caused law enforcement  agencies to revisit traditional selection and hiring criteria. For example,  many have relaxed their policies on tattoos and prior drug use to prevent the  unnecessary exclusion of talented job candidates, while some agencies use a  case-by-case assessment.4 Experts  have pointed out that entry-level testing should identify only knowledge,  skills, and abilities that will allow a person to become a successful officer  after appropriate training.

##### Promising Practices

The following promising practices come from the COPS  Office *Law Enforcement Best Practices* report:5
          - Develop a  comprehensive recruitment program  based on a written recruitment strategy  that is developed by a working group of command staff and rank-and-file  officers. The working group should examine barriers to recruitment and identify  the values and characteristics of the ideal candidate; available data should be  used as available.
          - Deploy  personnel based upon workload and service goals , which can be conducted by  internal staff or partnering with external staffing experts.
          - Get  creative and expand recruiting horizons  by leveraging partnerships with  external human resource officers, elected officials, and other agencies.  Engaging community, using mainstream media and social media, and if possible, using  agency’s website to tell the agency story, market opportunities, and report on  activities and outcomes. Get creative by folding recruitment efforts into youth  engagement and other community policing activities. Broaden the applicant pool  by reaching out to high schools, community colleges, universities, and other  job fairs. Activate community ambassadors to help with recruitment. 			 
 A good example of promising practice #3 is highlighted  in a COPS Office publication.

 The Northern Cheyenne tribe’s police department is a  BIA direct-service agency; its officers are federal employees dedicated to  serving the tribe through an MOU. The tribe and the police department place a  priority on hiring Native officers who tend to be hindered by the lengthy  application and hiring process. In response to this, the tribal council’s vice  president personally helped several Native candidates go through the  application materials to ensure they understood what was required. He provided  ongoing encouragement throughout the process.* _______________________ * International Association of Chiefs of Police, *Promising Practices in Tribal Community Policing*(Washington,  DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2016), https://cops.usdoj.gov/RIC/ric.php?page=detail&id=COPS-P359.

          - Streamline  and enhance the internal recruiting process  by delegating an individual to  lead the recruiting efforts but still engage the entire agency in raising  awareness and supporting the recruitment efforts. The individual should  exemplify the traits an agency is looking to recruit.
          - Get  proactive  with recruiting methods, including maintaining regular  communication with applicants and mentoring candidates. Applicants should be  introduced to all ranks and levels of responsibility in the agency through open  houses, ride-alongs, and other avenues to interact with personnel. 
          - Establish  fair and flexible hiring criteria  that allow an agency to stay current with  societal trends, and leadership the ability to consider mitigating factors that  might explain an applicants’ disqualifier. These processes should be monitored  closely to ensure that decisions are consistent and fair. 
          - Bring job  descriptions and application management into the digital age  by using  online platforms such as LinkedIn and DiscoverPolicing to increase the pool of  eligible applicants. 
 DiscoverPolicing.org  is a comprehensive resource on law enforcement jobs with a full-featured career  center where candidates can post resumes and hiring managers can post  vacancies. In addition, agencies can use DiscoverPolicing.org to post jobs and  search resumes as well as to highlight their own employees. The website is  provided through a joint partnership between the IACP and DOJ. 

          - Assure validity  of—and periodically audit—all testing instruments  including written  examinations, physical assessments, sample job tasks, oral interviews, criminal  background checks, credit checks, background investigations, and the command  staff final interview, as well as medical, polygraph, and psychological  examinations. 6  Partnering with colleges, universities, or other industry professionals may be  a good way to approach test validation.
          - Engage  the community and demonstrate the fairness of the process  by inviting  community members to participate in oral board interviews and maintain  transparency where appropriate. 
          - Consider  outsourcing the testing process to a third-party vendor  who can conduct  written and physical agility testing, while also addressing regular validation  of testing instruments. A vendor may help an agency reach more applicants,  while decreasing personnel costs. 

The COPS Office *Law Enforcement Best Practices* report provides helpful tools and further details on the discussed practices as  well as other relevant policing topics.7

 Recruitment costs should be considered long-term  investments to meet agency and community expectations. The cost of a single  employee choosing to leave an agency not only results in recurring hiring,  training, and equipment costs but also can cause immediate budget shortfalls  through unexpected overtime costs to maintain minimal shift coverage.8 Throughout the hiring process, be honest about the activity level and  expectations, stress the diversified workload that is seen in smaller agencies,  and even focus in on the closer community engagements.

 In the end, your agency may not be able to tackle every  single promising practice, but by being intentional in creating your  recruitment and hiring processes, you can address any barriers; recruit and  hire talented, highly qualified personnel; and better serve your community.

 If your agency is looking for assistance in implementing  any of the practices discussed here or any other topic, see the COPS Office Collaborative  Reform Initiative Technical Assistance Center (CRI-TAC) for free technical  assistance and training to state, local, campus, and tribal law enforcement  agencies. For more information, please visit CollaborativeReform.org.

 Nazmia E.A. Comrie          Senior Program Specialist, COPS Office

##### Recent COPS Office Resources

Hiring  for the 21st Century Law Enforcement Officer: Challenges, Opportunities, and  Strategies for SuccessLaw Enforcement Best Practices: Lessons  Learned from the FieldLaw Enforcement Recruitment in the 21st  Century: Forum ProceedingsMitakuye Oyasin videoPromising  Practices in Tribal Community Policing

References:			 1. James E. Copple, *Law Enforcement  Recruitment in the 21st Century: Forum Proceedings* (Washington, DC: Office  of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2017), https://cops.usdoj.gov/RIC/ric.php?page=detail&id=COPS-W0830.             2. U.S. Department of Justice, *Law  Enforcement Best Practices: Lessons Learned from the Field* (Washington, DC:  Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2019), https://cops.usdoj.gov/RIC/ric.php?page=detail&id=COPS-W0875.			 3. U.S. Department of Justice, *Law  Enforcement Best Practices* (see note 2).			 4. U.S. Department of Justice, *Law  Enforcement Best Practices* (see note 2).			 5. U.S. Department of Justice, *Law  Enforcement Best Practices* (see note 2).			 6. U.S. Department of Justice, *Law  Enforcement Best Practices* (see note 2).			 7. U.S. Department of Justice, *Law  Enforcement Best Practices* (see note 2).	    8. U.S. Department of Justice, *Law  Enforcement Best Practices* (see note 2).

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