EIGHTH ARTICLE IN THE
JAIL STAFFING SERIES
Staffing Crisis Demands Efficient Shift Management
Rod Miller and Jim Hart, CJM, CCE
Our last staffing article1 examined the “new national corrections staffing crisis” declared by a U.S. Senate Subcommittee in February 2024, and explored the challenges posed by the “New Normal” for jail staffing (see box), where demand often exceeds our staffing levels and capabilities (supply). We urged operators to alter operations to reduce demand to match the actual staffing supply on the ground.
In the past, staffing levels sometimes provided a cushion that helped with unexpected challenges encountered during a shift. But the “new normal” rarely delivers enough employees to meet these demands.
This article underscores the importance of effective shift management to meet emerging challenges and identifies some of the events that increase demand, using elements of the staffing analysis methodology.
Staffing Sufficiency: A Moving Target
In recent years, many media reports identified staffing shortages at the local, state, and federal levels. Most of these sources described staffing shortages in terms of “vacancy rate” (comparing the number of filled positions to the number of authorized positions). This measure, by itself, oversimplifies the dynamics of correctional staffing, and the factors that influence staffing needs, and the sufficiency of staffing resources.
There are several approaches to measuring staffing sufficiency, including:
• Operational sufficiency—determining the extent to which staffing met operational demands on the ground (what was done during a shift compared to what needed to be done.) Put another way, measuring the extent to which staffing supply meets demands.
• Outcomes—looking at results (outcomes) as an independent measure of performance. Was the facility safe, healthy, and were other performance conditions achieved? Outcome measures provide evidence of actual conditions, suggesting the effectiveness of operations and staffing.2
The newest NIC staffing analysis methodology for jails and correctional facilities3, released in 2024, identifies several broad categories of factors that influence staffing needs:
• Facility design and condition
• Sanitation and safety
• Use of technology
• Crowding and conditions of confinement
• Inmate services and programs
• Characteristics, needs, and risks associated with the current incarcerated population
• Operational policies and practices
• Staffing policies and practices, including schedules and overtime
• Staff training and supervision
We are developing a methodology to determine the gap between staffing demand and staffing supply by shift. But on the ground, staffing sufficiency changes frequently during each shift—it is a moving target because:
• Demand at any moment fluctuates continuously during a shift
• Staffing supply may change during a shift, such as an employee who must leave before the end of shift due to illness or other reasons
Perhaps the bottom line when the dust settles answers this question: “Did we have enough of the right kind of employees to meet demands at all times during the shift?”
Dynamic Jail Setting Demands Effective Shift Management
Meeting dynamic demands with available staffing resources requires effective and creative shift management. The skill of shift supervisors may be the difference between success and failure.
Shift supervisors must be authorized to adjust operations as needed during a shift and guided by written instructions that convey the priorities of the organization. For example, Utah correctional facility managers are provided with a “shut down list” of posts that may be closed or collapsed when staffing is short. The list conveys the order in which operations may be changed.
Many facilities adjust programming in response to staff shortages. Communication becomes critical when this happens. Make every effort to communicate temporary changes with the staff, incarcerated individuals, and program providers. This avoids additional stress on staff.
Interface With the Administrative Structure of Jails
The longstanding administrative structure of jails did not anticipate the challenges posed by the staffing crisis. For decades, policies, procedures and post orders provided the foundation for jail operations. Now, there are so many moving parts and so many uncertainties, it is difficult to anticipate the constellation of circumstances that might combine to challenge operations and staffing during a shift.
NIC provides definitions for jail policies and procedures:4
In many organizations, the terms “policy” and “procedure” are used interchangeably to describe a management directive regarding an organizational activity. The terms do, however, have distinctly different meanings.
A policy is a definitive statement of position on an issue concerning the organization’s effective operation… In general terms, a policy reflects the organization’s philosophy on a particular issue. It defines what the organization intends to do consistently about that issue, and why the organization will take that action.
A procedure is a detailed, step-by-step description of the activities necessary to fulfill the policy…A procedure, on the other hand, describes step by step how (and when, where and by whom) the organization will implement the policy.
According to the NIC publication:
The responsible individuals or functional units must be identified in each procedural step.
• Provisions should be included for handling major problems that could arise in the completion of the procedure.
• Situations should be identified in which personnel are allowed to exercise discretion.
• It’s not possible to anticipate all the situations and factors that might arise, and employees may have to use discretion.
The “what if” contingencies provide instructions for unusual situations. For example, a procedure might instruct staff to take a newly admitted person from intake to a housing unit. If the elevator is out of service (contingency), the procedures describe alternative actions.
But no one can identify and provide contingent instructions for all possible situations. When this happens, the shift manager must decide what to do, considering everything that is happening at the time and the staffing resources available. Contingencies usually don’t happen consecutively, often they occur concurrently and create additional challenges.
Shift Management and Supervision
For example, sometimes there are fixed posts for which demand is not always continuous, such as the front entry where the number of persons seeking entrance and the times of their arrival (demand) is intermittent. Shift managers recognized the opportunity to “work smarter” and reduce the gap between demand and supply.
In one facility, the design and use of technology enabled more efficient staffing of the primary entrance:
• The design of the entrance ensured it was secure when it was not staffed.
• Several technologies could detect people who wanted to be admitted to the facility (exterior video surveillance, a camera at the front door).
• Signage told prospective visitors what to do when the post was not staffed.
• Visitors contacted the Shift Supervisor’s office using a telephone mounted outside the front door.
• Security staff provided an initial screening of the prospective visitors over the phone while accessing the computer network.
• Security staff provided interim approval of the request and told the visitors to wait for officers to arrive, providing an estimate of when that would happen.
• The Shift Supervisor moved two officers to the entrance.
They admitted the visitors into the post and used technology (screening devices, computer network, and other tools.
• After screening, the officers provided the visitors with official identification, notified Central Control, and opened a security door into the first level of the security perimeter.
• Central Control monitored the visitors’ movement and opened security doors as needed.
• After the visitors had been processed, the officers either stayed on the post to process other visitors who had arrived, or they closed the post, reentered the perimeter, and were reassigned to other duties by the Shift Supervisor.
This strategy freed up two employees for more than half of the shift, rather than stationing them at the entrance when there was little or no demand. Realizing these efficiencies required:
• Information and data about the patterns of official visitor “demand” for entrance processing (time of day/day of week, number of visitors, type of visitors, processing time, etc.).
• Specific facility design features (ability to secure the post, location of the entrance post on the site and adjacency to parking, sight lines to identify and monitor visitors from their vehicles to the entrance, etc.).
• Several types of equipment and technology (phones, two-way video communication, remote locking devices, processing equipment).
• Creative managers with authority to change operational practices.
A related strategy has been used to change the underlying demand patterns:
• Change (reduce) the hours the front entrance is open based on analysis of data about visitor demand patterns and to identify times that employees are more available (analyze peak periods of staff demand inside the facility).
• Consider asking stakeholders about their needs and preferences and involving them in the process in other ways.
• Change the hours of operation for the visitor entrance.
• Communicate these changes to all potential stakeholders through various means.
• Assign staff to the post only during scheduled hours, ensuring efficient use of their time.
An earlier article in this series explored scheduling issues and opportunities. Not all demand patterns fit neatly into existing shift configurations. Scheduling practices may be improved by:
• Researching alternative shift configurations that would deliver employees more efficiently to meet demand patterns (e.g. when needed).
• Surveying employees to learn about their schedule needs and preferences, to ensure potential changes would not cause problems for existing employees.
• Analyzing overall employee needs and preferences to identify shift configurations that might better meet their needs and preferences, improving retention and possibly attracting new employees).
We Need to Change Some of Our Attitudes and Expectations
The traditional “Get er done” attitude found in many jails attempts to get everything done on a shift, even when staffing falls short. This noble goal might have been achievable in the past. But in our new staffing reality, it may be dangerous.
Risk increases when we attempt to “do everything” specified in policies, procedures and post orders, without sufficient staff. This may also compel individual line staff to decide what will and will not be accomplished on a shift, and how well it will be done. And this approach increases stress for all stakeholders.
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Rod Miller has headed CRS Incorporated, a nonprofit organization, since 1972. He has authored many texts and articles on staffing analysis, standards, vulnerability assessment, case law, and jail work/industry programs. He is co-author, with Jim Hart and John Wetzel, of Jail Staffing Analysis, 3rd Edition, 2016, funded by the National Institute of Corrections (NIC). For more information, he can be reached at rodcmiller@gmail.com
Jim Hart, CJM, CCE is a Jail Management Consultant with the University of Tennessee’s County Technical Assistance Service where he provides technical assistance and training to counties in Tennessee on jail management and operational issues. Jim is a Past-President of the American Jail Association and is a Certified Jail Manager with the AJA and a Certified Corrections Executive with the ACA. For more information, he can be reached at jim.hart@tennessee.edu
Endnotes
Miller, R. & Hart, J. (2024, November/December). Jail Staffing: The New Reality. American Jails, 38, 39-42.
In 1999, the American Correctional Association (ACA) developed an innovative template for performance-based standards, that has been applied to ACA’s standards for jails, prisons, community corrections, and other correctional operations
See nicic.org
Martin, Mark D. Developing and Revision Detention Facility Policies and Procedures. U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Corrections. Washington, D.C. 2022.
Contents of First Seven Staffing Articles
1. Managing the Jail Staffing Crisis. September/October 2022. Conference attendees identify concerns including recruitment, retention, and resource management. Promising strategies described including Davidson County, TN, Retention Specialist. More strategies found in AJA’s iConnect posts.
2. Increasing Supply by Outsourcing Demand. November/December 2022. Uses “supply and demand” framework to analyze issues and solutions and illustrates in the context of nine steps of the staffing analysis process. Explores shifting work from agency staff to other entities and using task analysis to redefine post duties.
3. Attracting and Retaining Staff with Informed Scheduling. January/February 2023. Identifies elements and attributes of shift configurations, use of staff surveys, and opportunities to improve staffing with creative scheduling.
4. Shift Work, Sleep Deprivation, and Jail Schedules. March/April 2023. Presents research on scheduling and the impact on staff performance and health, and strategies for mitigating the impact.
5. Closing the Gap Between Supply and Demand: Strategies and Tools. July/August 2023. Identifies a range of actions and strategies employed by jail managers and stakeholders to reduce the gap between demand (what needs to be accomplished on a shift), and supply (employees who show up to work).
6. Increase Staff Efficiency by Improving Daily Operations. November/December 2023. Focuses on improving efficiency of daily activities using staffing analysis tools. Provides example of “before and after” daily activity schedules. Also emphasizes the importance of explaining jail operations and needs to stakeholders.
7. Jail Staffing: The New Reality. November/December 2024. Describes the national corrections staffing crisis and the new reality facing jails. Explores responding with new strategies and tools.