83% reduction
in scheduling time.
Scheduling changes are made in one place and update the schedule and staff in real-time. Toledo PD has been able to reduce manpower requirements for scheduling from 6 staff to just 1!
90% reduction in daily roster creation.
InTime’s live scheduling data automatically updates their customizable daily roster with all relevant information including leaves and scheduling changes. From 1 hour/day for each shift to just minutes!
97% reduction in OT & events management.
Employees receive OT posting notifications via SMS, email and, the InTime Scheduling App and can respond directly through their mobile phone. Overtime is assigned equitably and now only takes 10 minutes of administrative work.
Before, I had 3 or 4 different sheets that I had to update to keep everything accurate. Now, everything is in one place and it’s easy to transfer officers from one shift to another. It’s beyond belief how much time and money is saved.”
MATTHEW BOMBRYS
Lieutenant, Toledo Police Department
Challenges with Manual Processes & Spreadsheets Scheduling
Toledo Police Department boasts over 150 years of dedicated service to their citizens. However, with a great deal of experience often carries over some antiquated practices. Toledo had stuck with using manual scheduling processes until 2013 when they switched to InTime. They suffered from high administrative burden, scheduling errors, and poor communication with their 681 employees!
The Toledo Police Department’s Past Challenges
MAINTAINING MULTIPLE SCHEDULES
Toledo PD has 33 sections and shifts, each responsible for their own monthly schedule. Each section maintained two spreadsheets, one master and one ‘actual worked hours,’ which were often inconsistent with each other. That’s a total of 792 schedules created annually!
ADMINISTRATIVE MANPOWER REQUIREMENTS
Scheduling administration required 6 staff members working 80 hours a month; that’s a total of 480 hours per month! Lieutenants were responsible for manually creating their own daily rosters which took on average 1 hour a day. They would need to keep these updated along with the master schedule and backup.
SCHEDULING ERRORS
Cross referencing between multiple schedules and daily rosters, coupled with other manual processes, produced anywhere between 10-20 scheduling errors a month per lieutenant. Employee timebanks would often become overrun because they were manually being calculated. This resulted in employees having ‘negative timebanks’ that they would have to work-off.
ENSURING UNION COMPLIANCE
Because hours were calculated manually, employees would often go over the 171 hours per 28-day work limit specified by the Union. The other big issue was that it was difficult to manage and distribute overtime equitably according to union rules with the manual paper slip process.
LACK OF COMMUNICATION
Changes to the schedule were only posted in the department 3-4 days before being made. Officers who were on their off days or on leave would often not be notified. It was reported that officers would miss the shift change 25% of the time! Additionally, it was difficult to communicate staffing requirements between Toledo’s two stations because of lack of scheduling transparency and disparate schedules.
MANUAL OT & EVENTS MANAGEMENT
The old process to sign up for special events and OT involved posting a notice bulletin and sign up form. The Operations Office would make the assignment and then post a second notice bulletin with the assignments, which the officer would need to initial to acknowledge. The whole process could take up to 5 hours of administrative work and often resulted in an inequitable distribution of overtime.
Present Day Improvements
Communication at Toledo PD has improved in several ways:
SCHEDULING TRANSPARENCY
All of Toledo’s spreadsheets and schedules have been streamlined into one master schedule in InTime and can be viewed by all command staff between stations, departments and units. Scheduling changes are viewable in real-time and there is now accountability for who made updates, approvals and assignments.
EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATION
Officers can now view their schedules, sign-up for available assignments, request leave, view timebank balances and see scheduling changes in real-time all from their mobile device; whether they are in the department or at home.
MASS COMMUNICATION
InTime gives Toledo’s command staff the ability to send out mass communication to specific groups of staff via SMS and email. Although all scheduling changes and approvals have automated notifications, this feature can be great for sending targeted messages for critical events or last-minute assignment changes.