Unit V Management and Supervision in Criminal Justice

BCJ 4301, Management and Supervision in Criminal Justice 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit V Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

4. Evaluate the importance of time management to the police supervisor. 4.1 Summarize designing and implementing a personnel evaluation system. 4.2 Examine the five baselines of the spirit of performance. 4.3 Describe the four generations of time management.

Reading Assignment Chapter 8: Performance Chapter 9: Time

Unit Lesson This unit reviews the spirit of performance. We will study the steps of leading by objectives, and analyze employee performance-evaluation processes. We will review designing and implementing a personnel evaluations system, the performance rating scale, as well as problem employees and citizen complaints. The spirit of performance that functions at a high level is reflective of a healthy organization. It cannot be cultured by lectures, catch phrases, and cheerleading. It can be realized in five baseline values:

 Nonnegotiable high standards: We see that a police agency must always have high standards, and the focus must be on performance. Understanding that there will not be success each and every time, the organization will never tolerate corruption, complacency, and low standards.

 Opportunities: Everyone should have the opportunity to grow in their career and receive rewards for good work. Employees should be valued and empowered to achieve the best outcomes.

 Character: The character of the organization is engrained in ethics, positive values, and vision.

 Emotional intelligence: Leadership sets the emotional standards within the organization. They set the tone with positive emotions.

 Teamwork: In any organization, a group of people working as a team can achieve more results and get things done smarter than they could individually. The leader balances the team’s focus and emotional energy (Whisenand & McCain, 2015).

There are six steps to leading by objectives. Leading by objectives (LBO) requires that goals are indeed attainable, quantifiable, and tangible. LBO uses these goals to focus the agency and individual in the right direction of achieving the desired results. The first step of LBO is to identify the issue. This is often the most difficult part of the process and may require several attempts. The next step is to provide a specific statement. The supervisor should concentrate on the statement of the objective. The third step is to analyze optional strategies. The supervisor should develop as many options as possible and remember to not disregard any possible solutions. This leads to the next step, selection of the option. Here, the supervisor selects the best option for implementation. We also know that the best option does not always work the way we believe it should. Step five is the implementation phase. Having thought through the process, the supervisor is ready and aware of how individuals will be affected, and the strengths-based leader will be ready with a plan of action for follow through. Finally, there is the feedback step. The results of the objective-setting process are communicated to all involved. This step is important to ensure people are informed. Always be mindful of

UNIT V STUDY GUIDE

Performance and Time

BCJ 4301, Management and Supervision in Criminal Justice 2

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE

Title

roadblocks (Whisenand & McCain, 2015). If this process is new to an organization, there will always be the inherent resistance to change mentality that will need to be overcome. We see that the employee performance evaluation system is used for promotion, separation, and transfer decisions. It provides feedback on how the organization views individual performance. It is used to evaluate contributions made to achieving organizational goals. Evaluations provide reward decisions to include merit increases and promotions. Evaluations provide criteria for researching the effectiveness of administrative, personnel selection, and placement decisions. They can be important for finding training and development needs for staff and can be used to assess those decisions. Information can be collected from evaluations that provide data on budgeting, schedules, and human resource planning (Whisenand & McCain, 2015). Finally, new performance objectives can be specified for the future. There are four common types of errors the rater needs to be aware of: halo errors, strictness errors, leniency errors, and central tendency errors. There are thirteen steps to designing and implementing a personnel- evaluation system. The first step is the job analysis as we build a valid evaluation process. Next, multiple raters should be used to complete and review the form. It is important to designate the raters in the process. The raters should be trained accordingly, and they should be rated as well. A rating manual is important, and all performance-rating systems should have a guide or manual to ensure a set of common definitions. Additionally, it should address the concerns of the organization, the ratee, and the rater. There must be a valid data base to ensure fair recall of issues or events. A forum for feedback is important. Supervisors should lead by objective, and put mission statements into action. An important step to the evaluation-system process is avoiding mistakes. Often the process fails because supervisors make these common mistakes: lack of face-to-face discussion, improper preparation, no follow-up, no identification of actual performance issues, and concern for only bad performance (Whisenand & McCain, 2015). Employees should be prepared to answer what was their biggest accomplishment and what areas were they lacking in performance. Finally, supervisors should be prepared to perform a self-appraisal to get the most out of the process. This chapter also covers the different types of problem employees. The malcontent is the most common and the most problematic to correct. They cause insignificant issues and conflict. They are usually miserable and bitter. Employees involved in professional misconduct and criminal misconduct make up the other two categories of problem employees. Finally, citizen complaints will arise when citizens feel they have received inappropriate treatment from an officer. The process starts with the receipt of the complaint, investigation, and adjudication. Strengths based leaders have the skillset to resolve most of these complaints at their level by utilizing their active listening skills and expressing concern when appropriate. Everyone has a sense of what time really is. There is linear time that flows in clocks, counting minutes and hours. Albert Einstein displaced time with a theory that it could expand or contract. A minute dealing with a painful issue may seem like an hour, and an hour spent involved in something exciting may seem like a minute. We see that time and productivity work together (Whisenand & McCain, 2015). Time is a very valuable resource. It can be counterproductive to queue in more work effort in a standard time frame. Twice the work-load during the same shift will result in employees becoming tired and fatigued, and productivity falters. There are four categories in the time-management matrix. The objective of a Category II leader is to accomplish goals effectively. As we review the Category II leader, five steps must be individually completed: produce an individual mission statement; identify your roles; select your goals; use weekly scheduling; and take action and be flexible. We must remember that time management is, in fact, a form of self-control. Self- control is a crucial signature strength.

Reference Whisenand, P. M., & McCain, E. D. (2015). Supervising police personnel: Strengths-based leadership

(8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.