ASSOCIATE Magazine FBINAA Q4-2024

During the last several years of my career as a police officer (ok…police administrator), I found myself learning more about protected leave, labor contracts, and disciplinary matters than tactical or officer-safety training. I still received all my operational training and maintained those proficiencies, but I was also becoming proficient in the human resource arts. I was building relationships with my city’s human resources staff and find ing them to be a tremendous asset with resources to address my most pressing needs — leave compliance, recruiting, retention, and organizational wellness. They were human resources, but I was armed with human resources. ARMED HUMAN RESOURCES JEFFREY WILLIAMS, MPS, MS, SHRM-CP, APHR, NA SESSION 270 M uch has been written about retirement from public safety careers. I spent much of my time envisioning retirement

Our public safety administrators are too busy leading their organizations and managing core public safety functions, whether a single member organization or organization of several thousand. The demand for transparency, community engage ment, safe communities, and responsiveness requires resources to be efficiently and effectively managed. Here are three sugges tions to help manage the impact of human resources issues on public safety organizations. The challenge in managing a return in investment regarding these efforts is that bad outcomes do not occur — or at least not often. HUMAN RESOURCE COMPETENCY Public safety leaders do not necessarily need to earn an HR certification through organizations such as SHRM, HRCI or PSHRA, but they should know the warning signs of protected ac tivities — and know how to respond and when to involve human resource professionals. Imagine an employee stopping by your supervisor’s office during the last five minutes of the work week to advise the supervisor that during that foot pursuit yesterday they “twisted their ankle,” but it's fine, just “a little sore.” Few employees want to stay at work longer than neces sary — and the weekend is calling at the end of the workweek. Imagine your supervisor replies, “Ok, have a great weekend,” and does not inquire further or document anything regarding what the employee shared. Fast forward six months and this employee files a workers’ compensation claim — or they are requesting an ac commodation due to the injury. Having no record or investigation continued on page 31

eligibility, but not much beyond that. As I worked with human resources, I realized I had substantial knowledge, and earned a human resource professional certification. I could feel how proud my human resource partners were of this achievement and my in terest in their world of work. Whether police supervisors, manag ers, and administrators earn a professional certification in human resources, the importance of a working knowledge and collabora tion with human resource partners cannot be overstated. While the criticality of maintaining operational readiness and response posture to the needs of our communities is unques tionable, the provisions of protected leaves do not honor this fact. Denying protected leave due to “no room on the schedule” or “it’s hunting season” or “we have a search warrant next week” or any other prohibited reason can have far-reaching conse quences. Some of these consequences worth considering are: • Being found in violation of federal or state statutes or regulations resulting in civil penalties and reputational damage • Being the defendant in civil litigation — something potentially resulting in financial consequences, loss of time and resources, and reputational damage • Negative impacts to recruiting — applicants hear about what is happening in the organizations to which they apply • Negative impacts to retention — employees lose confidence in the organization’s ability to honor legally protected leaves and wonder when it will happen to them

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