The Challenge
Across the nation, public safety agencies are experiencing staffing shortages that approach crises. Statewide police reforms, COVID-19, and low morale all contribute to this perfect storm of a staffing disaster.
The good news is that a crisis can lead to reactive and positive change. Genasys Protect CONNECT, formerly Evertel, aims to support efforts in law enforcement staffing and progress–working ceaselessly to improve employee efficiency in daily operations. Read on to learn more about CONNECT’s revolutionary intuitive interagency communication app and how it can change your agency overnight.
The Solution
CONNECT focuses its efforts on streamlining communication in order to create more informed, productive, and empowered public safety agents. As a direct result, CONNECT saves agencies time, money, and resources. These critical resources can then be reallocated toward staff development, cohesion, and culture–which in turn support staff recruitment, retainment, and ultimately safer communities.
CONNECT decreases administrative costs as well as time and frequency of briefings through their interoperability agency communication. With one click, your squad is brought up to date with any new directives or intelligence. Radio chatter is finally streamlined and unclogged, leaving you with only the necessary. Furthermore, ‘after action’ reports are transformed when you give staff access to the chat room. Entire operations are automatically logged and stored perpetually in the cloud.
This intuitive interagency communication tool affords you the ability to staff special events faster and decrease dispatcher overtime costs on special events. From the palm of your hand, you are able to keep agents informed directly as event details evolve, thus saving administrative and dispatcher costs. Dispatcher overtime cost isn’t the only savings–crime scene techs are able to view short videos of crime scenes and quickly assess exactly how many and who are needed on-scene.
When Public Information Requests come through the pipeline, it is as simple as giving them access to CONNECT’s audit feature. Within 3-5 minutes, information is secured and staff can go back to keeping communities safe.
The Proof
When the Pandemic hit the public safety sector in late March 2020, it changed everything. Police squad briefings, internal meetings, community meetings, and even how a city’s EOC (emergency operations center) would be staffed and operated, were suddenly flipped on their head. Agencies simply could not risk having employees be in such close quarters for long periods of time.
Agencies used CONNECT for their patrol squad’s ‘team rooms’ to post briefing information and daily intelligence bulletins. This scalable interagency communication provided every employee the ability to actually read and prepare for their shift without having to report to the police station. When ‘in-person meetings’ were canceled, all police officers were able to stay updated instantly. CONNECT afforded public safety officers the ability to keep themselves and their community safe.
In Surprise, Arizona, the city’s emergency manager worked with CONNECT’s support team and created a “Virtual EOC,” activating the city’s full emergency operations center from the CONNECT platform. Every department head was connected and the safety information was immediately distributed city-wide, increasing efficiency, safety, and information flow to all employees.
Agencies that had not yet transitioned to the CONNECT app were left waiting and waiting for information to be distributed to them regarding the pandemic, response policies, safety protocols, etc. In Dallas PD, for example, there were thousands of police officers left unprepared, uninformed, and in harm’s way. Within a few months, there were massive employee infections and safety supply shortages due to a lack of informational updates. The police union took a negative turn–leading to staffing shortages, increased crime rate, and delayed response times across the city.
While the nation is still reeling from a pandemic and cultural change, public safety agencies have never been more needed. Staffing lows are a natural result of a perfect storm of recent challenges facing public safety agents; however, CONNECT is equipping agencies with compliant interagency communication and helping you serve your community like never before.
