The individual talent within any police workforce must be managed in such a way that the skills and knowledge needed to provide effective law enforcement are recognized, appropriately utilized, and fostered. This occasional paper provides an overview of a RAND methodology for creating an effective workforce development system to better align personnel with current and future force requirements.

Workforce Development for Big-City Law Enforcement Agencies

Nelson Lim, Carl F. Matthies, Kirsten M. Keller

ResearchPublished May 7, 2012

The readiness of any police workforce requires careful and consistent personnel development. Specifically, the individual talent within the workforce must be managed in such a way that the skills and knowledge needed to provide effective law enforcement are recognized, appropriately utilized, and fostered. This occasional paper provides an overview of a RAND methodology for creating an effective workforce development system to better align personnel with current and future force requirements. The paper presents a conceptual framework, its major steps, and its strengths and limitations in a law enforcement context.

Key Findings

Workforce Demand Analysis Assesses What Requirements Are Needed

  • The framework from RAND's Air Force workforce development system may be helpful to police authorities committed to developing a workforce that matches current demand and is equipped for any potential future challenges.
  • RAND's recommended method utilizes a job analysis approach, which gives an expert panel the task of identifying the backgrounds required by the positions within an organization.

Workforce Supply Analysis Assesses the Assets Among the Workforce

  • An expert panel examines the present workforce and assess what background and experience the agency's workforce supplies.

Gap Analysis Identifies the Gap Between the Demand and the Supply

  • Comparing the supply and demand to verify that officers at every level in the chain of command have acquired the skills and experience necessary to fill needed positions will uncover potential problems in organizational effectiveness due to shortcomings in personnel development.

Flow Analysis Can Be Conducted to Identify Optimal Career Paths for Succession Planning and Leadership Development

  • Flow analysis can illustrate how well a virtual inventory of officers could fulfill job requirements and other objectives given ideal career paths optimizing the sequence of developmental jobs, subject to various organizational policy preferences and constraints, such as expected retention and promotion patterns.
  • Flow analysis can help streamline leadership development, mapping out the most efficient paths for gaining the essential prerequisite leadership background and experience.

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Document Details

  • Copyright: RAND Corporation
  • Availability: Available
  • Year: 2012
  • Print Format: Paperback
  • Paperback Pages: 8
  • Paperback Price: $10.00
  • Paperback ISBN/EAN: 978-0-8330-6943-6
  • Document Number: OP-357

Citation

RAND Style Manual
Lim, Nelson, Carl F. Matthies, and Kirsten M. Keller, Workforce Development for Big-City Law Enforcement Agencies, RAND Corporation, OP-357, 2012. As of September 5, 2024: https://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP357.html
Chicago Manual of Style
Lim, Nelson, Carl F. Matthies, and Kirsten M. Keller, Workforce Development for Big-City Law Enforcement Agencies. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2012. https://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP357.html. Also available in print form.
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This research was conducted under the auspices of the RAND Center on Quality Policing (CQP) within the Safety and Justice Program of RAND Infrastructure, Safety, and Environment (ISE).

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