Community policing is a philosophy that supports organizational strategies using partnerships and problem resolution techniques. The ideology suggests proactive measures to address public safety issues. There is a difference in actual outcomes from anticipated results due to inability to implement set targets or external pressures that may influence the level of production. An organization’s management can set standards to be achieved from research based forecasts, on the basis of standard industrial performance or an organization’s production capacity. A community policing project should incorporate components that ensure achievement of community policing objectives. Key community policing factors include community partnerships, organizational transformation and problem solving.
Abu Dhabi is a capital city and the second largest city in United Arab Emirates. With an estimated population of 896,800 in the year 2009, the community policing project has helped to combat crime. According to Abu Dhabi Government (2012), lieutenant sheikh bin Zayed started the project in 2003. External forces include lack factors such as interest from some community members, legal framework to support full implementation, resources to run the project and existence of terrain that makes combating crime difficult.
3. Problem statement
Staffing in community policing has become a crucial issue in Abu Dhabi. The staffs offer a significant contribution towards the success of the whole project; thus, the necessity to analyze the difference in performance from established standards. Some staff members cannot understand the change management strategy and cannot offer quality service as per the organization’s service delivery charter. Conducting an analysis to identify the gap is essential in setting both staff management and organizational strategies to eliminate the difference between actual outcomes and anticipated targets. The basis of the project’s rationale is on the persistence nature of staffing problems in Abu Dhabi community policing.
4. Gap Analysis
Gap analysis is a tool that identifies the gap between actual performance and potential outcomes . Elements used to identify gaps include service failures, customer priorities and priority problems. According to Chevalier (2010), the two core questions that characterize gap analysis are: where are we? and where do we want to be?, Investment in capital and technology through efficient utilization of available resources directs an organization towards the anticipated outcomes. According to Franklin (2006), identifying gaps between optimized allocation and current allocation reveals areas that need improvement to reach a sustainable level of organizational growth. Documenting and determination of performance levels is necessary in gap analysis to enable a correct analysis. At strategic or tactical level, the management analyzes the difference in performance between industrial outcomes and the organizational performance (Franklin, 2006).
5. Staffing in community in policing
Staffing in Abu Dhabi community policing is an essential aspect to the success of community policing activities. The desired future of the organizational performance is to raise awareness on community policing to 90%, use of technological advancements and system management practices in more than 60% of set organizational activities and decrease the crime rate to 0%. Other anticipated outcomes include improvement of quality of life, increasing effectiveness and responsibility of policemen to more than 90%, promote respect for law, reduce antisocial behavior and reduce dangerous driving to less than 1%. Community policing stakeholders should spread a security culture within society by creating awareness that establishes stability and security .
6. Current Project’s Performance
Awareness levels are 60% while technological advancements are at 30%. Crime rates rages from 3% to 5% making it insecure at some areas of the Abu Dhabi city. Efficiency of police officers to combat crime ranges between 70% and 75% due to lack of commitment from police officers to be involved in community policing. After a considerable effort from community policing officers, dangerous driving is at a rate between 5% and 7% (Abu Dhabi Government, 2012).
Bridging the Gap between Actual Performance and Desired Outcomes
The organization should develop a modeling system to ensure that there are sufficient staffs during increased crime periods. Recruiting additional human resource to coordinate the project and offer skills in combating crime is beneficial to the project’s success. Staff management practices include appropriate recruitment, hiring and selection, personnel supervision and staff training. The project should adopt quality management processes such as resource management, work design, service management, internal communication, document and information management, compliance management, monitoring, internal audit, management review and continual process improvement. Incorporation of technology to the communication system to pass information to many people at different places can promote coordination, which is necessary in goal achievement.
7.0 Selected Perspectives
Experts and expertise from disciplines such as ethics, human resource and operation management are necessary for a sound community policing project. It helps to solve problems leading to reduction of the gap between actual performance and anticipated results.
7.1Ethics Discipline
Community policing require both professional ethics and social ethics to come up with appropriate measures that increase organizational efficiency. Staff management should incorporate police officers’ professional ethics in combating crime, improving the quality of life and promoting respect for law. Ethical behavior cabs antisocial behavior that may affect some of the organizational stakeholders.
7.2 Human Resource Management Discipline
Human resource discipline promotes staff management to maintain employee commitment. Experts from this discipline provide judgment that offers direction on how to manage staff concerns. This may make them offer discretionary efforts that lead to improvement of organizational performance. Human resource management instills professionalism for team work in community policing.
7.3 Operation Management Discipline
Operation management is concerned with activities that ensure achievement of organizational objectives. Experts from this discipline will offer direction on how to implement set strategies. Success of the project relies on how well operation management supervises the execution of activities. Therefore, the community policing should have well organized workgroups to attain organizational cohesiveness.
8. 7S Method
The 7S refers to seven interdependent factors within an organization that influences efficiency levels. According to McKinsey, 7S can be classified as hard and soft elements. Hard elements include strategy, structure and systems while soft elements include shared value, skills, style and staff. Considering elements aligned to the core value of the organization successfully accomplishes organizational transformation. The 7S can be used to identify gaps within the seven elements for an informed decision on how to mitigate inefficiencies (Glowa, 2001). The 7S is a useful tool in determining the organization’s structure and efficiency. This can be achieved through the design of a comprehensive program and an understanding of the need for change within organizations.
An organization should be able to identify the organization’s core values, corporate culture, strength of values and the values that form the organizational foundation. Staffing can determine how well an organization applies its work force in the accomplishment of organizational tasks. Staffing should be concerned with positions to be filled, need for additional competencies and specialized functions within the organization. Management style influence stakeholders’ compliance to set rules and procedures. The extent to which the management influences participation should be noted. Leadership styles should be effective in advocating for employee cooperation and teamwork. Employees’ skills determine work allocation and how well an individual executes a given task. Existence of strong skills and lack of certain skills should be noted to enable availability of required skills.
9. Conclusion
In conclusion, community policing is a philosophy that supports systematic use of partnerships and problem solving to develop organizational strategies. Willingness of the citizens to participate, ability of the police officers to conduct their activities and availability of resources to implement the project to fruition are fundamental aspects in community policing. Abu Dhabi is the second biggest city in United Arab Emirates. The areas terrain and social economic activities necessitate the community to formulate a sound community policing to promote security strategies. Staffing proves to be problematic in community policing, in Abu Dhabi city. A Gap analysis provides an avenue to streamline actual performance and anticipated outcomes. The gap between actual and anticipated performance signifies inefficiencies, which should be eliminated to reach efficient operation levels. 7S method comprises strategy, structure, systems, shared value, skills, style and staff. The 7S can also identify inefficiencies to pave the way for a research based analysis that identifies appropriate means to eliminate the gaps.
10. Recommendations
Community policing project in the Abu Dhabi aims at efficient levels. Therefore, superb factors should be included in operations and management. The organization should adopt the use of technologies to design up to date security features. Technology should also be used to communicate amongst stakeholders and manage data to promote paperless offices. There should be periodic assessments to identify gaps that may exist and avoid piling up of inefficiencies that may reduce organizational efficiency. The problem of staffs’ inability to understand the change management strategy should be addressed by developing a sound communication system. The problem can also be addressed by developing a training curriculum that increases the staffs’ awareness.