NCJ Number
189120
Journal
Law and Order Volume: 49 Issue: 5 Dated: June 2001 Pages: 109-114
Date Published
June 2001
Length
6 pages
Annotation
The five principles of organizational excellence in police management are outlined.
Abstract
The first principle of organizational excellence is quality and productivity. Quality is about the effectiveness of the agency’s service delivery. It is important for an agency to provide service that is consistent, adhere to procedures in place but not to the point where discretion and innovative initiative is stifled, provide professionalism and discipline, and use agency accreditations as a means of quality control. Productivity is the efficiency with which an agency delivers its services. Increases in productivity can be achieved by motivating employees, obtaining better equipment, and implementing a change in procedures. The second principle is performance measurement which, in order to be successful, has to ensure that all employees understand the evaluation process and why measurement is being conducted. An agency’s overall success or failure is a performance measure, in addition to subjective and objective measures. The third principle is a reward system, including financial rewards, employee recognition, assigning more responsibility to employees, awarding perks and promotion along the organizational chart among others. If a reward system is not utilized, an agency risks losing the efforts of productive employees who might perceive their work is not appreciated. The efficiency with which a law enforcement agency conducts its tasks is heavily dependent on its cost structures, which is the fourth principle. Outside of personnel costs, equipment procurement represents the biggest item in an agency’s budget. One alternative to low bid purchasing, which is the usual practice, is life-cycle costing and activity based costing. This is especially helpful in determining the efficiency of the most critical equipment and activities of an agency. Finally, citizen satisfaction, the fifth principle, should be gauged from a standpoint of viability. If the service is deficient, the customer will demand agency change. This can be measured by citizen surveys and focus groups.