Examining the Work Schedules: Satisfaction of Organizational and Personnel Demands

Abstract

With modern policing approaches, police agencies have been required to question their efficiency and effectiveness to match their limited resources with increased public expectations. As an essential aspect of policing, work schedules have been reconsidered not only to use their resources efficiently and effectively but also to enhance officer's welfare. The purpose of this mixed method study is to examine the work schedules of the Turkish National Police (TNP) in terms of organizational and personnel demands. Organizational demands were investigated based on legal requirements, efficiency, flexibility, and manageability through the collection of secondary data. Personnel demands were measured in a schedule satisfaction survey. In addition, structured interviews were conducted with managers to explore their schedule satisfaction levels and thoughts on the optimum solutions for the work scheduling problem.

This study is expected to contribute to the shift work and scheduling literature as well as to the police work scheduling literature. Also the results of this study which is the first its kind in Turkey, are expected to be a crucial step for solution of the work time arrangement problems which has became a subject of Courts. Recommendations and alternative work schedules are provided to satisfy demands of the TNP and its officers based on work schedule.