Police agencies have long focused on how many officers they have. This question has become more pressing in recent years. Fewer persons have expressed interest in policing as a career, those who do often find other jobs while waiting on long police application processes, and officers leave faster than academies can train their replacements.

Police staffing issues are not attributable to a single problem with a single fix. Rather, police staffing reflects a system that police leaders should manage like one. Managing such a system requires attention not just to how best to recruit, train, promote, and retain staff, but also to the nature of agency workload, the allocation and deployment of resources to meet the workload, the goals and performance objectives of agency leadership and government authorities, and a culture that can support staff and workplace innovation. Police leaders may not have all the resources needed to understand these issues, identify the relevant connections among them, and ultimately address them.

The Police Staffing Observatory (PSO) at Michigan State University was formed to help police leaders navigate these challenges. It applies a systems approach to police staffing, considering the full scope of police organizations as they relate to staffing. In partnership with organizations of law enforcement professionals, including the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, it works with practitioners and researchers to deliver actionable lessons for police leaders to manage their staffing systems.

A recent PSO publication, A Police Planner’s Guidebook for Improving the Workforce Management Process: Lessons from Research and Practice, illustrates its approach. The guidebook provides

• insights from practitioners in several states, including Georgia, on the police staffing experience.
• deeper discussions on select issues such as inexpensive tactics for addressing police staffing challenges, strategies for accelerating the hiring process, the effects of police leadership on personnel in small- and medium-size police agencies, and the effects of span of control for police supervisors on personnel in all agencies.
• short briefs on staffing issues related to recruitment, promotions, turnover and retention, workplace environment, and workforce planning.

Altogether, the guidebook provides an evidence-based roadmap for improving police workforce management by combining research with practical lessons from law enforcement agencies. Though not exhaustive, it highlights a wide range of staffing topics, from recruitment hiring, and retention to leadership, supervision, workforce planning, and professional staffing integration, and how practitioners may think of them. It offers actionable strategies, case studies, and field examples for agencies of all sizes.

The Michigan State PSO Guidebook, prepared in partnership with eight state chiefs’ associations, offers state perspectives on staffing issues, short briefs on a variety of staffing issues, and deeper discussions on select issues.

State Leadership Perspectives

Like many agencies elsewhere, Georgia police agencies have faced difficulties in hiring enough officers. These difficulties can be particularly difficult in the fast-growing counties of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

The Gwinnett County Police Department, for example, in 2023 had 230 vacancies, a vacancy rate of nearly 25 percent. In response, Lt. Collin Flynn and Sgt. Austin Goehrig write, the department introduced several initiatives. These included

• specialized investigator roles. Rather than having a single investigator manage an application from start to finish, the department divided its personnel into Phase I investigators, who managed recruitment through the conditional offer, and Phase II investigators, who completed background investigations and other steps needed before hiring.
• frequent hiring events. The department hosts at least a dozen hiring events each year, with half of these held outside Georgia. Candidates attending these events, including walk-in applicants, can complete the orientation, physical testing, and interviews in less than two hours.
• use of DocuSign rather than paper forms for completion of the background booklet, allowing applicants to complete and submit the form electronically from a phone or computer. This change led to an increase in the number of applicants completing the booklet.
• earlier onboarding of candidates. As soon as candidates accept a final job offer, they are brought on board, assigned to assist in locations throughout the department (e.g., evidence, dispatch), and are required to do physical training and ride-alongs (if time permits). This allows them to become familiar with the department and receive additional preparation before attending the academy.

Of course, recruitment is only part of the staffing system: retaining officers is also necessary. The Brookhaven Police Department does this, Chief Brandon Gurley writes, by prioritizing leadership development, organizational culture, and employee engagement.

Leadership development in Brookhaven, Chief Gurley writes, “begins early in an officer’s career and continues through the executive level. Leadership is treated as a learned and practiced skill rather than something that is assumed with rank.” Training in the department “focus[es] on communication, accountability, and emotional intelligence as essential components of effective leadership.”

Brookhaven has also sought to make transparency and inclusion central to the department’s culture. Chief Gurley writes, “Personnel at all levels are given opportunities to provide input on departmental initiatives, equipment needs, and operational decisions. Regular communication from leadership ensures that employees understand both what decisions are being made and the reasoning behind them. This has increased organizational buy-in and created an environment where employees feel valued and heard.”

To address the problem of limited career growth opportunities in a relatively small department, Brookhaven, Chief Gurley writes, “has expanded access to training, encouraged participation in specialized assignments, and created pathways for professional development.” These efforts, he adds, “allow officers to grow within the organization without needing to leave for advancement.”

As a result of these initiatives, Chief Gurley writes, “Brookhaven has maintained a stable workforce with comparatively low attrition. When employees do leave, it is often for reasons outside the department’s control, such as relocation or unique personal opportunities, rather than dissatisfaction with leadership or organizational culture.”

Research Insights on Accelerating the Hiring Process and the Importance of Agency Leadership

Among the more extended discussions of the guidebook are two that reinforce and extend the insights from the Gwinnett County Police Department and the Brookhaven Police Department. These are on strategies for speeding up the police hiring process and on leadership in small and medium-size police agencies.

Previous research confirms problems with the length of police hiring processes. Many of the delays are self-created by agencies, with internal, optional processes driving unnecessary delays. Agencies should periodically review their application processes to ensure they still add value.

Streamlining and accelerating the process can ensure that qualified candidates attracted to the profession pursue it. High-quality candidates may have financial obligations, such as student loan debt, that preclude waiting through a long hiring process. Faster and simpler hiring processes may expand and improve the applicant pool

Among promising practices for accelerating the hiring process are to

• simplify hiring requirements. For example, agencies might accept a college degree in place of a written exam. They may also continuously review their selection criteria to ensure they reflect community preferences or offer expedited testing processes.
• conduct “hiring days” and one-stop assessments. Hiring days may allow candidates to complete several steps, including written exams, physical agility tests, and interviews with command staff, in a single day, with successful applicants receiving a conditional job offer at the end of the day.
• share hiring processes across agencies. Agencies could standardize and share initial hiring criteria, and potential recruits could complete a common application to be shared with multiple agencies.
• use technology. Technology solutions may include electronic documents, such as Gwinnett County uses with DocuSign, virtual interviews for distant applicants, and reminder messages to applicants to complete steps of the process.
• partner with service providers. Agencies may work with third-party vendors to provide such services as written and physical testing, psychological evaluations, and background processing. Such vendors can help reduce demands on staff time, speed background investigations, and allow staff to focus on other priorities, though agencies should monitor vendor performance and applicant satisfaction throughout the process.
• adopt rolling hiring and testing cycles. Rather than opening applications only during limited windows, agencies may choose to accept applications continuously, test applicants more frequently, maintain active hiring lists, and hire ahead when possible.
• reducing the gap between hiring and academy. To reduce the risk of losing applicants after conditional hire but before academy classes, agencies may hold academy classes more frequently, use smaller academy cohorts, partner with larger academies, or hire recruits into paid cadet positions while they await academy training.

Among officers already on staff, officer morale is an increasingly important issue for small and medium-sized police agencies. Research presented in the guidebook suggests that small and medium-sized agencies may benefit disproportionately from efforts to boost morale—and that morale can vary greatly between agencies, even among agencies with the same resource constraints. In other words, morale in smaller and medium-sized agencies may be shaped less by organizational resources than by supervisor behavior and communications.

Research suggests leadership can have a large effect on small and medium-sized agencies for several reasons. Officers in such agencies may work with the same supervisors over long periods. Smaller agencies may offer fewer opportunities for officers to change assignments or escape ineffective leadership—underscoring the importance of leadership in otherwise boosting morale. Supervisor decisions about schedules, overtime, assignments, and training may be more visible in small and medium-sized agencies. More generally, executive decisions may feel more personal in smaller organizations.

Research also suggests that fairness and transparency can be particularly important for morale in small and medium-sized departments. For example, perceived favoritism will stand out quickly in smaller agencies and erode morale rapidly. Clear communication, consistency, and respect can help provide stability in small agencies, even in times of overwhelming work, and lead officers to view management decisions as legitimate, even when the outcome may not be ideal for them.

Research Insights on Other Staffing Issues

The guidebook also offers insights on a broad range of staffing issues, including recruitment, promotions, turnover and retention, and workforce planning.

Regarding recruitment, the guidebook notes that higher salaries are among the most effective recruitment tools and can boost retention as well. Other financial tactics may include hiring bonuses, tuition reimbursement, housing assistance, bilingual pay, and relocation incentives. Nevertheless, while these tactics can address immediate problems, they are not likely to solve deeper organizational problems related to poor leadership or unhealthy workplace culture.

Mentorship can help applicants navigate lengthy hiring processes and improve job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Similarly, pipeline programs, such as Explorer programs, can expose youths to policing before they are eligible for employment, though more research is needed on their long-term effectiveness. Ride-along programs can help applicants develop realistic expectations about policing work and allow agencies to assess candidate fit.

Retaining officers can reduce recruitment needs. Among the reasons officers may leave an agency are perceived lack of a work-life balance, poor management and supervision, mismatches between job expectations and reality, and perceived lack of opportunities for career development. Agencies wishing to address retention problems may ask officers themselves in surveys or interviews why they stay or leave, provide continuous feedback to officers about their performance, tailor compensation and benefits to specific employee needs, and seek to promote officer health and wellness.

Managing staffing systems should include assessment of metrics on where applicants drop out of the hiring process, where employee turnover is higher, how effective recruiting resources are, and which retention efforts reduce attrition. Such metrics could include turnover and hiring rates from which an agency develops a detailed plan that establishes performance objectives, monitors indicators for them, and assesses what they show about staffing efforts.

Metrics should also be part of organizational learning efforts for police staffing. Organizational learning involves creating systems that generate and retain knowledge, apply new knowledge to operations, and build a culture that supports continuous improvement. Police agencies may institutionalize learning by compiling after action reports following incidents, training, and problem-solving efforts; conducting sentinel event reviews that seek to identify underlying causes of organizational errors; and collaborating with researchers to translate evidence into operational improvements.

From Staffing Issues to Workforce Strategy

Police staffing is no longer simply a question of filling vacancies. It requires agencies to view recruitment, hiring, retention, leadership, workforce planning, and organizational culture as interconnected elements of a single staffing system. The experiences of agencies such as Gwinnett County and Brookhaven demonstrate that meaningful improvements are possible when departments rethink traditional practices, streamline hiring, invest in leadership, and cultivate workplaces where employees feel valued and supported. Research further highlights that evidence-based strategies, continuous measurement, and organizational learning are essential to sustaining improvements over time.

A Police Planner’s Guidebook for Improving the Workforce Management Process offers police leaders a practical framework for approaching these challenges. By combining research findings with field insights, it encourages agencies to adopt a systems perspective that aligns staffing decisions with operational demands, organizational goals, and employee well-being. While no single strategy will address every staffing challenge, agencies that rely on data-informed decisions, continuous evaluation, and adaptive leadership will be able to recruit qualified candidates, retain experienced personnel, and build resilient organizations to serve their communities.

Recent PSO research spanning the staffing system has resulted in an array of practitioner-oriented publications, including those on

• adopting a systems approach to police staffing
• managing staffing studies
• building effective recruitment programs
• recruitment tactics
• selection tactics
• retention tactics.

Ongoing work at the Police Staffing Observatory of Michigan State University is considering such additional issues as work schedule simulations for optimizing deployment, allocation of staff in investigations and special units, workload and span of control for first-line supervisors, changes in standards and training, movement associated with promotions and special assignments, cost efficiency of retention versus recruitment, and correlates of turnover. In addition to our website, we disseminate timely resources and announcements through our LinkedIn page and publish newsletters for sharing information, ideas, and opportunities. To subscribe to our newsletters or submit other inquiries, please write to pso.info@msu.edu.