GOLDEN, Colo. — Police officers in Golden are trying out some new schedules.
It's part of a new city pilot project: four-day work weeks, with only 32 total hours worked. But officers will earn the same pay and benefits as they did during a 40-hour workweek.
The pilot, called “The Best for Golden,” launched on July 10. If the police pilot is successful, other city departments will likely follow. The goal is to increase efficiency in city operations and improve employee well-being, retention, and recruitment.
“Workplaces are evolving all over the place,” said Golden Deputy Police Chief Mike Hendershot. “Law enforcement, especially, has had a difficult time retaining employees and recruiting employees.”
He said Golden is a smaller community and department, with 53 sworn officers and 18 civilian employees, competing to recruit (and retain) employees against much larger cities within the Denver metro area.
“To compete against other departments, you have to think outside the box a bit. We think the last several years have been very challenging for law enforcement. We’ve been losing a lot of very good employees – they’re burned out, don’t want to do this kind of work anymore,” he said. “This initiative, it’s for the benefit of the employees. It provides more time off. It's much more work life balance, prevent burnout. The idea is they come to work for their 8 hours and they’re more energized. They want to be here. They want to go do good work for community during that time.”
“Everyone on my team has kids, so being able to pick them up from school when normally we weren't able to is a huge thing,” said Sergeant Stephanie Sipes, who works a dayshift.
Like many officers, she was already working 4 days a week, but logging 10 hours a day. Her day is now scheduled to end much earlier – around 2pm.
“The biggest thing is, living in metro, is beating that rush hour traffic. It’s been a huge lifesaver because that adds extra hours to our day.”
With the unpredictability of police work, its not uncommon for police officers to work long hours. Even with the newly scheduled 8-hour days, it's likely officers will sometimes work extra hours. Under this program, employees won’t earn overtime until they reach the traditional 40 hours.
“That’s one of the benefits to the city,” Hendershot said. “We fully expect OT to go significantly down through this program.”
The trial runs through the end of the year. Police say they're tracking more than 100 metrics to measure how the department performs with these new schedules. That includes things like response times, tickets written, arrests made, cases filed by detectives, and more.
“At the end of our trial period in January we want to show the community that we haven’t had a reduction in productivity or service to the city,” Hendershot said.
“In fact, were hoping to show some increases. The philosophy is, if you’re happier, if you’re rested, you come to work with more energy. You want to come to work and do your job. You don't have that burnout of a 10-hour day or longer.”
More reporting by Jennifer Meckles:
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