Monitoring activity and measuring performance

Activity Analysis and Timesheets

An activity analysis is an evaluation of people and processes, breaking all activity down into smaller segments and analysed to assess its effectiveness and where efficiency can be maximised and monetary costs minimised.

Police Activity Analysis

Twelve Police Constabularies wanted to analyse the activity of their officers whilst on duty. All staff were handed an activity analysis sheet where they would record the following:

- The activity

- The time of the activity

- The incident the activity is related to

- Location of activity

- Collar Number

- Date of shift

Each activity and incident had its own code and each incident had a related activity. The details of what the codes meant were on the rear of the timesheet, which officers could refer to. All officers submitted their activity daily to their supervisor.

The activity was carried out for a period of two weeks. Once completed, the timesheets were handed back to DCC where our verifiers scanned, verified and quality checked the sheets. It is important to note here that had the constabularies manually entered this data into a system, there most likely would have been errors in entry. In addition the time taken to manually enter and analyse the data would have seen a delay in discovering any flaws or inefficiencies.

The data from the timesheets were present on a dynamic interactive dashboard where an array of analysis is facilitated. Similar to the stroke dashboard (link it), this was powered by graphs and charts. The controls on the dashboard enabled supervisors to formulate their own patterns by single activity, the type of activity, staff rank, the time of activity as well as the particular station.

The dynamic interactive dashboard allowed the constabularies to identify an activity that was causing time delays in the work of an officer. An arrest of a convicted felon for example results in the officer being at the station for an average of 3 hours. The knock-on effect of this was that for those 3 hours the officer was not on the street (and this is visible to the public) which is their main job responsibility.

In response to this, community support officers were hired on a voluntary basis, and they spent their time registering the criminal which allowed the officer to remain visible on the streets.

Concluding Points

Activity analysis is a useful exercise for any sort of business. Automation of activity data and a unique visual representation of the data further add value because it will graphically paint out the slightest of inaccuracies, and of course, automation reduces errors and speeds up the processing of data, allowing you to respond immediately, therefore the inefficiency does not continue for longer than it should.

If you believe such an exercise will be beneficial to your organisation, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us today.