MdE, Inc. News

Dear Data Doctor, I think we’re losing good people, and I’m not sure why. We’re doing what we can. We have competitive salaries, benefits, and we’ve tried to improve morale. We talk about wellness. We encourage training. We tell our people they’re valued. And yet, people are still leaving. Sometimes it’s someone we expected to stay for years. Sometimes it’s a newer employee who seemed excited when they started. And sometimes, it’s the person everyone thought would be the last one to go. By the time someone hands in a resignation, it feels like we’re already too late. How do we know when someone is starting to check out? And more importantly, what can we do before they decide to leave? – Trying to Keep the Good Ones Dear Trying, You’re asking the right question. Because retention doesn’t usually begin with a resignation letter. It begins much earlier. It can […]

At 2 a.m., the job can change in an instant. A call that begins as a routine response can become a crisis. A routine traffic stop can require communication, de-escalation, technology, and sound judgment all at once. A dispatcher may be the first person to speak with someone experiencing a mental health crisis. A firefighter may arrive at a scene involving technology, hazardous materials, or an unfamiliar building system. The equipment may change. The circumstances may change. The expectations certainly change. But one thing remains constant: the person responding has to be ready. That raises an important question for public safety leaders: Are we training people for the job they have today – or the job they will be expected to do tomorrow? The answer is becoming increasingly important as public safety work expands beyond traditional definitions of the job. Modern law enforcement, for example, increasingly requires officers to be […]

There was a time when everyone knew who to call. If someone needed to know why a particular policy was written the way it was, they knew. If a training requirement seemed confusing, there was someone who remembered when it was implemented and why. If a piece of equipment had a history that wasn’t obvious from the maintenance record, someone could explain it. If a new supervisor had a question about how something had always been handled, there was usually a familiar voice on the other end of the phone. That person might have been a chief, a sheriff, a lieutenant, a training coordinator, a records manager—or simply the person who had been around long enough to remember. Then one day, they retired. And suddenly, everyone realized just how much of the agency’s history had been living in one person’s head. This is the part of leadership transition that rarely […]

No supervisor wants to receive the call. A complaint has been filed. Whether it’s a citizen concern, an internal report, or a policy question, everyone involved immediately understands that the next steps matter just as much as the incident itself. The facts need to be gathered. Documentation needs to be reviewed. Policies must be followed. Every action must be fair, consistent, and transparent. Yet while every agency strives for those ideals, the process behind an Internal Affairs investigation often tells a different story. Files are stored in multiple locations. Training records have to be requested from another department. Policy acknowledgments are buried in email folders. Body camera references are documented in one system while witness interviews are tracked somewhere else. Before anyone can begin determining what happened, they’re first trying to determine where everything is. And when process becomes complicated, confidence begins to erode. Imagine two agencies handling nearly identical […]