Common use of Project Goals Clause in Contracts

Project Goals. The Sacramento Police Department sought to create major changes in recruitment and hiring by addressing four critical functions: • Recruitment and community outreach • Occupational screening • Psychological testing • Institutionalizing change through revised policies, procedures, and longitudinal validation of hiring processes Use of Focus Groups: Recruitment, Community Outreach, and Marketing Sacramento relied heavily on focus groups to achieve project goals. In contrast to open-ended discussion groups, however, their focus groups had an applied research orientation that was used effectively to address recruitment, community outreach and marketing initiatives. a marketing company that helped the groups brainstorm ideas and identify service-oriented traits. These discussions were structured around behavioral dimensions identified by the California POST (see Appendix A) which became the research protocol for collecting data on service-oriented traits in a consistent and uniform manner. This protocol was used with all focus groups. One focus group was comprised of officers while three other groups were composed of citizens. In addition to consensual agreement on the service-oriented traits reflected in the behavioral dimensions, all reached the conclusion that the department was understaffed, under–funded, in need of training, and experiencing morale problems. Three additional sworn focus groups were convened to counterbalance what was initially limited involvement of sworn participation, and to ensure adequate representation from the department. These groups were identified as “branding” groups and were designed to generate information that would shape a marketing message reflective of service-oriented traits. Much later in the project, a separate set of focus groups were established to assess specific concerns of female and minority employees. These groups were developed in response to the realization within the department that they needed to do more to improve their success rate in recruiting a diverse applicant pool. Recommendations from this latter group included dispelling negative images of police officers, recruiting young, early, and repeatedly, and creating diverse images in the advertising while also communicating a “you can do it” attitude (see Appendix B for the report). The community focus groups were composed of community leaders who represented neighborhood and community organizations, minority group organizations, and business owners. All were paid a $50 stipend to participate. This factor was seen as responsible for the 100 percent show rate, an experience that was quite unlike that of the sites that did not pay a stipend. However, since all participants were seen as fans of the department, the police department subsequently questioned if the perception of service-oriented traits would have been different had they enlisted those who were not fans. In all likelihood, the structure provided by using the California POST behavioral dimensions as guidelines for discussion may have overridden this concern, but at this point it remains an unknown (see Appendix C for focus group discussion guidelines). Notwithstanding the above concern, the results of the focus groups were instrumental in revising selection processes to include a formalized recruitment plan. Subsequently, community members were invited to participate as members of police cadet oral interview panels and these panels are now convened routinely. They consist of one community member and two sworn personnel per panel and all panel members have an opportunity to question and independently rate each candidate for the patrol position. Despite some initial trepidation about working together, the experience proved to be fruitful as sworn officers began to see value in community input. Moreover, the candidate ratings by trained citizens are remarkably similar to those of the sworn panel members. Given this success, the department now includes community members on police sergeant appraisal oral boards. Finally, the results of the focus groups substantially influenced other department functions and their impact was decidedly strong in arriving at the decision on how the department would market itself. The groups did not believe that these traits were adequately represented in the existing print or television advertisements used by Sacramento. Also, they did not feel that service or diversity, including non-stereotypical roles for women, were emphasized. Consequently, they called for substantive change in the image that the department presented to potential recruits and to the community. Given that feedback, the marketing firm used the identified traits to develop the message that best described what focus group participants defined as important to portray to the community. The results were a series of major themes that defined core values embedded in the service-oriented traits. They included courage, involvement, compassion, dedication, commitment, integrity, and communication. These themes then drove the marketing group’s recruiting campaign. However, the focus groups rejected the first offering from the marketing firm that portrayed the officers in the department as heroes through the message, So Many Ways to be a Hero. All had concerns that the hero theme would be perceived as over-used and of less relevance to the concept of service orientation. The officers, in particular, expressed the concern that it did not capture their motivation to join the department. Rather, they supported a message conveying that law enforcement was a calling to make a difference. Thus, A Call to Serve was born. A Call to Serve has become the Sacramento Police Department’s brand and is now at the heart of a multimedia advertising campaign that received the Employment Management Association’s Merit Award for Full Page Campaign. That message is the lead on all recruiting materials including brochures, a video, recruiting ▇▇▇▇▇▇, billboards, an Above and Beyond television series, and a new web site. In all products, these key words reinforce what the police department is looking for in its employees. This reinforcement is particularly important for the updated web site, an integral part of the recruitment strategy, because initial research demonstrated that 60 percent of candidates typically learned about the department and hiring opportunities from the web site. As of this writing, that figure approached 70 percent. At the conclusion of the project, the Sacramento Police Department was compiling statistics to identify its most effective recruiting methods and was rolling out a Community Recruiter Program. The program will train community leaders to recruit qualified police candidates from neighborhood and business associations, faith-based and educational institutions, and ethnic community groups. The goal of the Community Recruiter Program is to provide a more personalized style of recruiting to attract and hire diverse candidates who reflect the city’s demographics. By increasing diversity in hiring, it is believed that relationships with the community will be enhanced. Collaterally, Sacramento is developing a series of manuals for candidates that will address issues in oral examinations and in the pre–employment psychological assessment; they are also preparing a writing skills assessment video. The Sacramento Police Department is a clear example of how community outreach started with basic focus group research to identify service-oriented traits but then became entrenched in other significant recruitment and hiring processes.