Corrections Telecommunication and Technology
F. Warren Benton, Ph.D.
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Shift Schedule Management
A core problem for correctional facility managers involves the administration of the work schedule, a process called "roster management." A supervisor must comply with wage and hour laws and labor agreements, track time worked and leave taken, while assuring that workers are efficiently deployed and receive scheduled days off and vacations. All this has to be accomplished while trying to minimize the use of overtime and involuntary double-shifts, and while trying to stay within budget constraints.
Good places to start on the Internet are provided by GoCrawl at http://gocrawl.com/ or HotBot at http://www.hotbot.com, or Yahoo and http://www.yahoo.com, if you search on the terms "Personnel and Scheduling." These sites maintain and update a listing of web sites related to roster management. Some of the sites offer free services and software, including the following:
Calendars
For many correctional professionals, the challenge of time management is not the work schedule itself, but rather the management of appointments and meetings within the work schedule. Most computers arrive with software packages that include some time management applications. However, for these applications to function in coordination with other colleagues requires a networked application. On the web, a new category of calendaring service has emerged, provided free personal calendaring with the ability to develop and display a group calendar, and the ability to access the calendar from any web browser. Some examples of these free services include:
Group Project Applications
For a small group that collaborates on projects, a new category of web services is emerging the virtual office suite. These are web-based services that include standard applications for word processing, database management, and other standard functions, as well as group collaboration packages such as calendars. Several of these products can be evaluated on the web.
Coming Soon: Open Calendaring Standards for the Web
Internet planning and policy organizations are working a uniform standards for calendaring applications, with the following general goals. Applications should:
In most bureaucracies, the principle applies that "work expands to fill the time available." In correctional facilities and programs, work seems to expand regardless of the time available. Fortunately, there are some resources on the Internet that can help correctional managers to make the best use of available time.
Internet Tools for Managing Time
Correctional staff and offenders both have strong reasons to be concerned about managing and using time for prisoners because they have too much of it, and for staff because they have too little. This column will focus on Internet and computer resources available to improve how correctional professionals can manage the use of time.
Leading commercial programs in this area include "Relief Factor Management," offered by Hatrak Associates at Hatrak Associates. They offer software packages that support the process of designing and administering a work schedule. A competing product is offered by ScheduleSoft, and another competing product is offered by Positive Solutions Incorporated.
These are applications that might be useful for short-term projects when a group of workers are collaborating on a project from separate locations. For example, a team of Deputy Wardens from several prisons might be drafting a revised procedure, or a team of correctional officers might be jointly evaluating a security product.
A good source about the evolving standards is a paper titled Overview Of Calendaring And Scheduling Standards. Another more technical article is "How Calendaring and Scheduling Are Joining the Web Revolution. In both cases, the articles discuss how web site and network designers can plan calendaring applications so that calendars can be shared across organizations, and between people using different brands of software.