FEATURE 

QUALITY CALL MONITORING 101

By Carol Hubacheck

With talk of training standards and core competencies now in the forefront, police services are realizing the importance of having a designated person in quality assurance. Ensuring quality service and protecting against liability are just two of the reasons the need for such a position is growing. Deciding what quality assurance is all about and how a quality assurance program could apply to a communications centre is challenging. Quality assurance involves some type of auditing which can be either preventive or detective. Preventive is designed to discourage errors or irregularities from occurring. Detective is designed to find errors or irregularities after they have occurred. Both of these use methods or procedures to ensure two things that are of high importance in the communications centre. The first is reliability and integrity of information and the second is compliance with policies.

Most police services already have several preventive measures in place such as policies and procedures and training standards. Usually there is a separate manual that gives clear instructions to guide communicators in their duties and a manual to process call priorities. When I started thinking about establishing a quality assurance program for our communications centre, the preventive part seemed well covered so the detective method was my main focus.

Back in 2002 I decided to launch a call monitoring program as part of quality assurance. I found that it was a relatively new concept with Canadian police services. After some extensive research I hit a dead end here in the Great White North and started to look south of the border. Even then I found very few police services with this type of program. I’m not sure exactly why but there are probably several reasons. When you look at private industry, call monitoring is everywhere. Even when ordering a pizza there is a recording stating that the call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes. Who knows if anyone actually reviews the call to ensure the pizza arrived with the ordered mushrooms and green peppers. Nevertheless, I was determined to get a call monitoring program off the ground in my communications centre.

Before coming to the quality assurance position I was a communicator for 10 years and decided the first step would be to write a list of what I really wanted when I was a communicator. I came up with the following: to know exactly what was expected of me; to know how I was performing on a continuous basis; the opportunity to develop my knowledge, expertise, skills; and finally a sense of purpose and belonging. With these things in mind I began the task of creating my call monitoring forms.

The first step was to ask for input from the platoon supervisors, training supervisors, and communicators. A questionnaire was sent out asking what elements of a call they felt were important to get right every single time. Most of the list consisted of information and skills that were taught right in the classroom to new call takers. The list also included some best practices that we had used consistently throughout the years. It was decided that, while developing a monitoring form for call takers, a form for dispatchers would be developed as well. After both forms were created I went back and changed them two or three times or it may possibly have been four or five times or even more. It was very difficult to decide what should be included and ensure there was no repetition.

On the call taker form I wanted to ensure I hit on different aspects such as call processing, CAD documentation, procedure compliance, and communication skills. The dispatcher form included similar categories. Each category was then broken down into four specific questions or skills that I call checkpoints. For example, on the call taker form under “Call Processing” there is “Obtains Correct Location” and three other checkpoints. On the dispatcher form under “Communication Skills” there is “Controls Conversation” and three other checkpoints.

After the forms were completed a decision on what type of marking scheme was discussed. Should it be yes/no, a scale of 1-5, 1-10? The decision was made to use the same terminology that is used on our annual performance evaluations. The call taker or dispatcher would be rated “Meets Standard,” “Needs Development,” or “Unacceptable.” Anything other than “Meets Standard” would need some explanation in the comments section left blank at the bottom of the form.

Each form then needed a rating guide. This is a very important part of the development of the call monitoring program and one that is often overlooked or not known about. How do you know if something needs development or is really unacceptable? It shouldn’t be left to personal opinion. Parameters should be very clear for each rating. The rating guide is a separate form that should list how to “Meets Standard”, what “Needs Development” means and what “Unacceptable” is.  All the checkpoints should be listed and then explained. For example, on the call taker form under “Obtains Correct Location,” “Meets Standard” would list – asks for or verifies correct location of incident from ALI at the beginning of the call or before officers are dispatched if applicable. “Needs Development” would list – does not ask for or verify location at the beginning of the call. “Unacceptable” would list – does not ask for or verify location. This rating guide was completed for each checkpoint under every category and took considerable thought and time. Development of this rating guide was truly challenging but absolutely essential.

As far as what to use for the actual scoring, that was trickier. There are pros and cons to actually arriving at a number when the call is assessed. Why not start at 0% and work up to 100%, or work from 100% down, or forget the percentage altogether? The decision became easy for us as we had just purchased software that worked alongside our voice recording logger and it used percentages to score. The software would also provide individual or platoon reports which would be beneficial in identifying trends and assist in keeping the platoons consistent with each other. The weight for each checkpoint still needed to be decided so I again asked for input from the platoon supervisors, training supervisor, and various others in the communications centre. Weights for each checkpoint were based on the feedback I received.

Another challenge was how to decide who to assess and when. It was decided that it would be beneficial to do a call assessment on a communicator whose annual performance evaluation was due, which would assist the platoon supervisor with the evaluation. Also included for assessment were call takers and dispatchers newly on their own or anyone identified as having some issues. An added bonus would be that I would also be able to identify examples of excellence that could be recognized or passed onto training for future use.

The process after a call was assessed needed to be established. Time was spent with each platoon supervisor going over the forms and the process of how to review the assessment with their platoon members. This is their opportunity to take comments and observations of the assessment and provide coaching and education. There may also be areas identified where additional training may be needed and this would be passed on to the training supervisor. If an area of improvement is identified as being needed and is reoccurring than an action form would be completed and the platoon supervisor would follow up on it.

Before we were ready to launch the program I got the assistance of the communications training supervisor and we did a training session so every communicator would know what was being assessed. The call taker and dispatcher forms were shown to all communicators in a presentation and questions were answered. We discussed all the checkpoints and how to achieve “Meets Standard” as outlined in the rating guide. The communicators commented that it was just normal everyday things they did for all calls taken or dispatched. No big deal. The other two on the rating guide, “Needs Development” and “Unacceptable” were only shared with the supervisors in a separate training session so they would be aware of anything that did not “Meets Standard” according to the rating guide. It is very important that it is known that there is a set criteria in writing and the marking or scoring does not come down to just a decision made at the time the call is being assessed.

It was after I had developed our call monitoring program that I took a course on call monitoring and coaching. I was surprised how well I had done setting up our program with the limited information I had at the time. However, it was difficult throughout the course to squish the information I was learning into the police “world” due to our unique environment. What I did discover is that all these private companies have been doing this type of quality assurance for years and were taking the course not to build a program but to get ideas for improvement.

Industry standard is that 2 to 3% of all calls are monitored for quality. When you’re looking at over 550,000 9-1-1 and non-emergency calls into the communications centre every year it is understandable that one person alone may not be sufficient. There are benefits to having multiple assessors and some private industries use peer monitoring quite successfully. Peer monitoring allows for a person from the work floor to assist in assessing calls for a period of time. When they return to their duties they have new insight and prove to be better at the job. This is something that we will be looking at in the future. However, if more than one person is doing the assessing then calibration sessions must be conducted. This is where all the assessors listen to the same call and fill in the assessment form. The results are then discussed to ensure everyone is scoring the same. This needs to be done on a regular basis to keep assessments consistent.

Call monitoring assessment in a police environment has its challenges. Creating forms with input from others and developing rating guides makes the process both credible and consistent; however, we must always be open to changing the forms and processes as our quality assurance program evolves. Ensuring compliance with policies and procedures is crucial and quality service is something that every organization is striving to achieve. Having a full-time dedicated person assessing calls for service can assist with both as we continue to strive for excellence in our communications centres.

Carol Hubacheck has been with Peel Regional Police since 1989. She served as a Communicator for 10 years and has spent the last 9 years in Quality Assurance in the Communications Centre as the Quality Performance Specialist. She is the current Chair of APCO Canada's Recognition and Awards Committee.