In the inaugural episode of Public Safety Speaks – Hexagon’s new vodcast series that focuses on timely and critical topics in public safety – experts discuss the 911 staffing crisis.
Hexagon’s Chris Carver (an NYFD veteran) and Leah Hornacek (who is also the north central region director at NENA) and NYPD veteran Christian Gulotta from TEN-4 Consulting talk about the reasons for the crisis and possible solutions.
Chris, Leah and Christian discuss causes of the staffing crisis, from first responders being overworked to centers being understaffed to a lack of job appeal and how that affects communities as well. While it’s important to acknowledge that the public safety industry is struggling, our guests also discuss solutions for the staffing crisis, why people are dedicated to their public safety careers, why they stay and more.
Watch the full vodcast or read the transcript below.
Transcript
Chris Carver:
Hello everyone, and welcome to the inaugural edition of Hexagon’s Public Safety Speaks series. My name is Chris Carver, I’m director of market development for Hexagon Public Safety. Fortunately, I am blessed here today to have our first two guests in this series of shows, Leah Hornacek and Christian Gulotta. I’ll let them introduce themselves real quick.
We are here to talk about one of the most important things facing public safety today in the United States and really beyond, and that is staffing. The staffing crisis is something that is very real. It’s something that’s being faced all over this nation and beyond. And the two guests that we have here today are 911 professionals, industry professionals, industry veterans who have experience with this issue and thoughts. And we’re going to have a discussion today about where we are, and where it is we’re going. And what we can all do to help address this particular issue. But first I’d like to introduce or allow Leah to introduce herself. Hello, Leah. Good morning or good afternoon.
Leah Hornacek:
Hi, good morning. Glad to be here. I’m Leah Hornacek. I’m a regional sales manager for Hexagon, but I am also the North Central Region Director for the National Emergency Number Association – NENA. I started my public safety career probably back in 2004 and worked in a 911 dispatch center. I was there for roughly 15 years, and made my way to deputy director. And I’m still very active in the 911 community.
Chris Carver:
Well, very good. Thank you, Leah. And Christian, welcome.
Christian Gulotta:
Hey, Chris, thank you so much for having me today. So, I recently retired from the NYPD after a 25-year career. I retired as a captain from the department’s Information Technology Bureau. I spent the last decade working in public safety communications, including 911 and overseeing the department’s radio communications system. And upon retirement I created my consulting company, TEN-4 Consulting, to focus on recruitment and retention of 911 dispatchers and operators, leadership and management performance, performance metrics, working as an IT liaison and enhancing 911 and radio operations.
Chris Carver:
So it’s fair to say both of you have significant exposure to staffing challenges inside the 911 world. Is that a fair statement?
Leah Hornacek:
Fair statement.
Christian Gulotta:
Yes, definitely.
Chris Carver:
So that having been said, I made an assumption there, but I definitely want to get your take. How real is the staffing crisis in 911 today? Leah, please go first.
Leah Hornacek:
It’s very real. It’s not every single dispatch center that you’re going to come across, but there are a lot that are short-staffed, shorthanded. They have minimal applicants that are applying, so it’s hard to even get people in the door. And it’s affecting public safety as a whole.
Chris Carver:
Christian, how about you? Public safety, staffing crisis, especially 911, is it real?
Christian Gulotta:
Oh, absolutely. And when you look at data and agencies and you look at the amount of hours that these poor dispatchers are clocking, it’s pretty outrageous the number of days that they give up when they’re supposed to be off and they have to go to work, and over time. And just looking at specific metrics illustrates that this is a very real crisis.
Chris Carver:
So I think you hit a very important nail in the head there. It’s not just that we don’t have enough people to staff shifts, it’s the consequences of that. So I think Christian, you just spoke to at least one of them. Could you elaborate on some additional issues that happen when we don’t have enough people to work in the 911 center?
Christian Gulotta:
Sure. I think 911 is about people, it’s about the people that work there, number one, and it’s about the public. And the public suffers when people are overworked, when staffing is low, when morale is low. 911 dispatchers are there to deliver a superb customer experience. And first responders, too, for that matter. If you’re a police officer or a fireman working in the field communicating on the radio, your life is in a dispatcher’s hands. And when they’re overworked, understaffed, they hate their job, your experience as a first responder and somebody stuck in an emergency, it’s going to suffer.
Chris Carver:
No, thank you for that. And so from your perspective, Leah, being involved in a leadership of a 911 association, right?
Leah Hornacek:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Carver:
So what’s your take on that as far as the impacts?
Leah Hornacek:
Christian, like you said, hit the nail on the head, it compounds. Every little thing compounds and it just seems it has the potential to get worse and worse and worse and worse. You’re not able to complete some of the duties that maybe you did on a regular basis with helping out, whether it’s road patrol or fire or EMS or whatever it is that you’re dispatching. Like you said, the call taking experience could potentially suffer, details could be missed, especially if it’s in a busy time. It’s just the potential for bad things to happen increases.
Chris Carver:
So would you say, it’s fair to say this isn’t just a problem for the 911 center then, this is a problem really that impacts the community and can impact other public safety services? For example, police, fire, and EMS who may see or maybe already are seeing impacts from the staffing crisis in 911.
Christian Gulotta:
Oh, definitely. If you’re a police officer or you work in fire, 911, those dispatchers and operators, they’re your partners. And everybody’s part of the same team, that first responder team, and if dispatchers are suffering, the team is suffering.
Chris Carver:
Wow. So we have a problem that’s real, a problem that’s affecting agencies all across the United States, so it’s large in scale. So now what? What do we have to do? What can we do to make this better? Leah, what are you seeing about solutions in this particular area? Those agencies that are figuring out how to make this better?
Leah Hornacek:
There definitely isn’t one answer. There’s not going to be a, “We can do this and we’re going to fix this problem.” It really depends on, it depends on the center, it depends on what they have available to them, what kind of resources. And so I know some dispatch centers, they’re changing, if they have union contracts, well within the contracts or some sort of understanding or whatnot, but they’re changing their scheduling, how they’re scheduling people.
Maybe they normally worked four days in a row, four 12-hour shifts and they’re finding that that’s too much, and so it’s being scaled back and that whole schedule is getting reworked. Maybe it’s offering assistance for childcare, because they are working more. I think there are a lot of little solutions that can add up to help, depending on what the issue is.
Chris Carver:
Okay. Christian, how about you, in your role, both having worked in a very large city 911 operation and public safety operation, but now from a consulting perspective?
Christian Gulotta:
Well, Leah made a fantastic point. There is no magic bullet to solve this. There is no one way to solve this. You have to take a multi-pronged approach and make many little changes. But I think that the first step is that in 911 centers, when people are leaving, the first thing that has to be done is directors need to acknowledge that they have a retention problem, and they need to recognize that problem. When 10% of the staff leaves, your antennas need to go up, and when you’re at 15 you have a problem. People don’t want to say it, but it’s true.
The second part of that is that in these 911 centers, as people leave, to me, it appears that they don’t know why people are leaving and they don’t know why people don’t want to become a 911 operator. You have to come to an answer as to why people left based on facts and evidence and data. Not, “They didn’t like. It wasn’t for them,” or these assumptions. And hearing things second hand, thirdhand, playing that telephone game, you need to know factually why that job or why you’re a PSAP is not likable for people to work at.
And in terms of hiring dispatchers, you have to make your PSAP appealing. I like to equate it to a restaurant. If you had two restaurants next to each other and there were a lot of people in one restaurant and one restaurant was empty, why are people going to that one restaurant? That’s fault. That’s what you have to do with your PSAP. You have to make people look at it and say, “Oh, you know what, I have to work there. That’s an incredible place.” And it can be done, which we’ll discuss further. But those are a few points in the recruitment and retention scheme of things.
Chris Carver:
Leah, from your perspective, being involved with one of the two primary nonprofit associations that help guide how 911 works, are we starting to share across the industry some of the lessons learned about figuring out why people are leaving or how to address those challenges so that maybe agencies can face it before it becomes a critical issue?
Leah Hornacek:
Absolutely. I think you’re seeing a lot more recruitment and retention presentations at conferences, both at the local, state, national level. I really like what Christian said about addressing the problem and understanding why people are leaving, those exit interviews. I know a lot of people don’t do them, a lot of people do.
But there’s stay interviews too. You have an entire staff of people that are staying. Why? Find out why, and emphasize those things. And I think a lot of ideas like that are being presented at those levels. And those ideas are trickling through the various centers and they’re making those changes that are necessary.
Chris Carver:
So speaking of that, that’s an extremely good point. I think a lot of times we do, and rightfully so, focus on why people leave, but it’s just as important to know why people decide to stay in an organization. Who’s toughing it out through all that? Right?
Leah Hornacek:
Right.
Chris Carver:
So Leah, since you mentioned that, what are some reasons you think people commit to staying in 911? Why do people stay in that profession?
Leah Hornacek:
Oh, man, I think there’s a lot of reasons. It is one of the most important professions, careers out there. It is a very different, particular skillset and those who can do it have a very large sense of pride that they can do that, that they can be the person to help these people, these communities in a time of need, their public safety, their community. I think there’s a sense of family there that people really appreciate when they get into this career and this profession. And they know they’re helping.
Chris Carver:
That’s great. Christian, how about you? What do you see in that regard?
Christian Gulotta:
I think that 911 is such a rewarding career and it gives people the opportunity to help their community, be part of a team, and to work in a law enforcement capacity, in a safe environment to help people to be part of the investigative process, like with detectives, to be part of large incidents like in Ohio, have that train derailment and explosion. And they really get to do something that’s different and unique but in a safe environment, and working with innovative technology, and hopefully a very innovative leadership team too.
Chris Carver:
No, that makes a lot of sense. So for those that kind of figure it out, for those agencies that are getting it right, and I’m going to touch a little bit of a third rail in public safety, maybe not so much a New York City issue, because this is, I think an environment where this wouldn’t happen, but in the rest of the country, do you see that agencies that are getting this figured out perhaps become a place where other agencies consolidate into or maybe outsource their services to? Because maybe that agency is able to do that operation, whereas some of the others that are struggling may not be and that might be one solution as part of this process, a trend towards consolidation. Leah, I’ll start with you on that.
Leah Hornacek:
I think it’s a possibility. I think it’s something that is definitely looked at when you’re staring down the tunnel of we can’t get people in seats to perform these functions and do this job. And so I think it’s a very real possibility that we’re going to see that.
Chris Carver:
Christian, what about you and your role, especially now helping agencies address this issue?
Christian Gulotta:
So I think that when agencies consolidate, potentially, you could be going down the same exact rabbit hole that you’re in now. What’s to say that the consolidating agency isn’t one that attracts people? And it has to follow process to further people’s career and include them and bring a work environment that’s supportive. So that does solve a lot of issues, but be aware of going down that same rabbit hole.
Chris Carver:
So we’re back to the, there’s no one magic bullet situation, really. There’s no one thing that’ll solve it. But for those agencies that, so this is what I’d love to hear your take on, we have directors, I’m sure more than one that are watching this that are going, “Oh my god, I’m so short-staffed. I have to cover night shifts. I’m so short-staffed that I have to come in on Sundays and work a shift.”
I just had breakfast about two weeks ago with the 911 director and the operations manager for one of the largest counties in the United States and their 911 center. And even they are having to come in and work as supervisors on weekends sometimes to cover for vacancies. So how do you find the time if you are dealing with that kind of crazy to engage, to do the surveys, to do the exit interviews, the stay interviews, how do you make that work? Could you offer some suggestions for those that are facing that very real, “How do I balance all the needs of my agency”? Christian, I’ll start with you.
Christian Gulotta:
They could hire me, Chris, and I’ll do all of the work…
Chris Carver:
All right.
Christian Gulotta:
So I think when you’re talking about a director or an assistant director coming in and supervising, they should take that opportunity to just be quiet, to watch what’s happening and to actually engage in conversation with their employees. And just listen, and see what’s wrong and what they can fix? By finding out what’s wrong… A lot of people talk about walking the floor, like, “Oh, you’re a director, you need to walk the floor and sit with people.” That’s all well and good, but when you sit with people you need to listen to what they say and you need to deliver a result and show them that you’re actually doing something.
And if you’re a director working the floor, that is your chance to say, “You know something, I saw what happened there with this procedure or with this person, and I’m going to address it.” And people will see that and they’ll start to feel a little bit better about things. And you can pick up the ball and run from there and try to tackle other issues as they come up. And I would say form a team and have conferences with your staff and speak with them and see what’s on their mind. But the important thing is to deliver a result that everybody sees.
Chris Carver:
Deliver a result everybody sees, I like that. Very good. Leah, how about you?
Leah Hornacek:
Yeah, I like that. I don’t think every single thing warrants an immediate reaction when it happens, when there’s a complaint or whatnot. So I like that, taking a step back, totality of the circumstances and seeing what’s going on, and then starting to pick those off one by one.
I also like empowering your staff and your people to come up with solutions too. Anyone can complain, and there can be issues, but empowering your staff to, “Come to me with a solution as well. What ideas do you have?” I think that that opens those lines of communication and builds trust too, because those are tangible things that you can take care of.
Chris Carver:
So like many other challenges that the 911 center may face, this isn’t necessarily something that a director and a deputy director have to solve by themselves. They’re not on an island. There’s a team of individuals inside that organization who might know or have ideas or be able to solve things.
For example, a friend of mine is chief of a fire department that was having staffing crises, and they changed their advertising approach to selecting applicants or to recruiting applicants. And they went from getting one or two or a trickle to, they got 114 or so just by changing that process. And that was an idea that came out of a firefighter who said, “Hey, why don’t we try X, Y, Z,” and boom, there you go, better results.
So it’s sort of engaging that community of thinkers and problem solvers inside the organization to help get results I think is really important. How else do you think that those in the 911 profession that can reach out and engage with other folks to gain insight into solving problems, what are some of the venues or avenues that are out there for them to engage? Christian, how about you?
Christian Gulotta:
I would like to comment about what you said about the fire department. Recruitment and retention is definitely a team effort. I think that agencies need to discover what their staff’s skills are, everybody has a different skill, and bring their ideas to the forefront. And what you discussed: advertise their agency in a different way and highlight in a different way, what exactly will your agency bring to somebody’s… Let me backtrack, I’m sorry. What are the benefits of working at your agency? And what are the benefits of being a 911 dispatcher? I’m not sure if I’m answering your question, Chris, am I?
Chris Carver:
No, no, you’re fine. You’re fine.
Christian Gulotta:
Okay. All right.
Chris Carver:
And if an agency wants to, and we’ll talk about their vendor world in just a minute, because that’s obviously an important piece of this. Do you think you’re seeing agencies kind of reach out more to their associations and their neighbors and things like that and kind of build a community internally and externally to help solve these issues?
Christian Gulotta:
Okay, great. So agencies need to work with fire, police. I think one great strategy would be to make a nice card that they can give out to their dispatchers, to their local cops, to people in an EMS and fire department, and when they meet people who they think would be a great 911 dispatcher or operator, they should give them a card and say, “Hey, I think you’d be a great dispatcher. You should come and work at our agency. We have a great agency. We have a great leadership team.”
And part of doing that, Chris, is that agencies need to change and they need to define who are we looking to hire? Are they looking for resumes and college? And I see some agencies, they want lie detector tests. They need to understand and define and explain to everybody exactly who they want to hire. They want to hire somebody who’s compassionate, who can talk to people, who can solve problems, who is seeking greater things in life and wants to achieve things. That’s who we want to hire. And we can get everybody on board to find people like that.
Chris Carver:
No, I couldn’t agree with you more. My own life experience involved working in a department where hiring requirements were changed, and instead of focusing exactly on what you just mentioned. Identifying, who is it that works well here? Who here is successful? What type of characteristics do we find in individuals who are successful public safety telecommunications professionals? They changed the requirements without that sort of understanding, and ended up with a retention rate in the first year of less than 50%. So Leah, I know you’ve had some experience with that as well.
Leah Hornacek:
Yeah, I like the idea of changing, because there’s not… You can get an idea if someone might fit that role or be good for the position, but none of us are anything alike. I think if you go into any single dispatch center, whatever they did prior to that is so different than the person that they’re sitting next to. So it really is the compassion, the customer service attitude. I had a director one time that said he rather hire attitude over skill any day, because he can teach skill. So it varies with who you’re going to find.
But it always baffled me that we would have this application process and you would do interviews and you would do the drug screen or whatever it took to get into that position, but nobody ever sat in the dispatch center. They literally applied for a job that they had no idea what they were going to be doing. They never saw the equipment, they never saw the technology or heard the radio traffic of what they would be doing. So that’s one change also that a lot of people are making. You’re starting to see sit-alongs like you would do in law enforcement or fire or EMS or even internships. And I think that that’s going to be very beneficial going down the road as well.
Chris Carver:
Do you think that a part of that will also be us reaching into the high school or vocational school communities?
Leah Hornacek:
Yeah. They are. We are. We have local public safety programs here in our career tech center where they’ve now incorporated 911 as a portion of that. And so I like that, because it’s not just police, fire, EMS, it’s that whole public safety spectrum. Somebody might find that that’s what it was for them. I went through a police academy myself, and I was like, “Nope, this is not for me. But I could absolutely do that.” And that’s what I did and I had a very successful career there. And I was so happy I knew about it. So, yes, high school, big time.
Chris Carver:
And, Christian, your experience, you came more from the uniform, obviously, from the uniform law enforcement side, and ended up in the 911 world and the 911 technology world. So your journey as well was indirect, if you will, into the 911 space.
Christian Gulotta:
Yeah, definitely. I had no idea how… NYPD, 911 and the 911 world overall, just an incredible place with incredible people. The technology and the value that they bring to law enforcement, I just love it. I love the whole thing.
Chris Carver:
And do you think that there’s probably a greater role that our stakeholders, both the elected officials but also police, fire and EMS, can play in helping us address some of these challenges we’re facing as we kind of move forward together? And maybe getting them, the phrase I always use is, in the boat with us, because they depend on us doing it, right?
Leah Hornacek:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Carver:
And maybe that story we can tell a little bit more about how important it is, and making sure they understand that our success is tied to theirs.
Christian Gulotta:
Definitely, every police officer or firefighter or EMS worker who’s in training, they all need to go to that 911 center. They need to sit there for three or four hours, sit with different operators, different dispatchers, listen to their ideas and how they can be a better first responder on the radio, so to speak. And so that they can get that appreciation for the job and enhance that partnership and improve the team.
Chris Carver:
Sounds good. Leah, I know that NENA’s done some advocacy around that as well.
Leah Hornacek:
For a long time, I think 911 was kind of that behind the scenes support, but those successes, that support that needs to be highlighted. And moving forward, I think that that’s going to be really important as well, because without that piece, the whole system doesn’t really work.
Chris Carver:
No, absolutely. So as we start to wrap up here, I do have a question for you both. And Leah, this is a great question to ask you because of your role now and where your background is, what do you see as the role for vendors in helping address this staffing crisis? How can the Hexagons of the world be supportive of public safety as they face this really serious challenge?
Leah Hornacek:
I think keeping your finger on the pulse of what’s going on, being there to support the 911 community for what they need, whether it’s lifting up those praises when good things happen, and being there for them, or even when the bad things happen, being there for them. But also highlighting how we all work together, how all this technology and the vendors and 911, how they all work together and how it really benefits the community.
I just think bringing awareness to all of that. And you can also help with, this backs up a little bit, but you can help with recruitment. I know there are some technologies out there that I would have loved to have had when I was in the dispatch center. And to put those out there and have that be a piece of, “You get to do this,” or, “You get to work with this” and “Look at this map,” or whatever the case may be. I think there are a lot of little things, again, that can happen in the vendor space to help.
Chris Carver:
And technology can sometimes streamline workflows and processes-
Leah Hornacek:
Well, absolutely.
Chris Carver:
… to reduce the strength ASAP to PSAP is just-
Leah Hornacek:
Sure.
Chris Carver:
… probably the best example of that.
Leah Hornacek:
Online reporting.
Chris Carver:
Right. Absolutely. How about you Christian, thoughts on how vendors can help support this process?
Christian Gulotta:
Sure, Chris, in a couple of ways. First, let me say that I think that Hexagon is an incredible company, and in the NYPD, we’ve had such positive experiences with Hexagon. So just to put that out there.
Chris Carver:
Thank you.
Christian Gulotta:
One way that technology companies can help is to include the people that are going to use the software. Bringing these dispatchers and operators into the conversation, and listening to their feedback and implementing changes to improve the technology experience for the user. Secondly, Hexagon is an incredible company, and they have an incredible features within CAD and law enforcement and what have you. Directors need to pick up on these features and these features enhance the role of a 911 dispatcher and operator.
And directors need use this as leverage to get 911 dispatchers and operators paid more money for what they do, because by using all this technology changing their role, you’re changing their duties and responsibilities. And directors need to seize that and take it to their local governments contract negotiations and what have you, and get more money for their employees.
Chris Carver:
Well, thank you for your kind words about us. I appreciate that. But I would say, thankfully, we’re also not the only vendor in the space that offers technology and tools. And really it’s probably paramount for directors to take your advice and apply that same thing to other systems and technologies that they have inside the center as well. And look at it holistically, whether it’s the telephone vendor and how those types of processes can work, whether it’s the radio system logging and recording.
I mean, the entire ecosystem inside the center can probably support at least some degree of workplace and workforce enhancement making processes. But thank you for that. So the last really quick thing. What advice would you give directors? If you had the chance to speak to every 911 director right now and just give them a word of encouragement about how things are going and where things are headed, what would you say? I’ll start with you, Christian.
Christian Gulotta:
Well, I would have lots of things to say to directors, but what I would say is that if things are going the wrong way, that means that you need to change and that you need to do things differently. And the way to find out what you need to change is you need to hire a third party like myself or somebody else. And you need speak to your employees, listen to what they have to say and show them results, show them something new, show them that you care, and change your team dynamic and move in a new direction.
Chris Carver:
Sounds good. And Leah, how about you? You have the last word.
Leah Hornacek:
Oh, the last word. No, I agree. Listen to your staff and hear them, show them results, changes that are being made. Be open and keep them up to date on what the process is or what your view of needs to happen next is. They want to be included. They’re busy, they’re doing their job, they’re cranking out that every single call, every single dispatch, working really hard, but they still want to know what’s going on inside the agency. And meet them where they’re at. They can’t do everything. You have to help them out a little bit and meet them halfway. And then when you do that, I feel like you can move together forward a lot more efficiently.
Chris Carver:
Well, Leah, I thank you. I think that’s great. That’s great closing words for the first of this series of Public Safety Speaks. It’s not just about speaking, it’s about meeting and it’s about hearing and it’s about listening. And no matter what the issue that an agency is facing, that’s probably good starting point advice for how to handle it and how to move forward.
So thank you both very much for being here today and for the conversation. I hope you found it enjoyable and I hope those that watched or attended our session online or will watch it in the future, find it enjoyable as well. Thank you all. Again, my name is Chris Carver, director of market development for Hexagon and host of Public Safety Speaks, a new series of conversations on critical public safety issues that we’ll be hosting and featuring here at Hexagon in the coming months. Thank you, again. Stay safe everyone. Have a great rest of your week.
