Florida Highway Patrol’s Compensation Program Case Study

Introduction

Florida Highway Patrol is currently facing a number of challenges since there is a trooper shortage. In addition, the salary paid to the state troopers is lower than what is paid by both the city agencies as well as the country law enforcement units. In order to effectively recruit, develop, and maintain the patrol officers, the human resources management should incorporate the defined benefit pension strategy in its strategic approaches.

The benefits of employees are calculated based on the already established formula, making the use of factors such as the employment duration, as well as the salary history (Flannery, 2011). In addition, these benefit pension plans usually are in different forms. In accordance with this plan, the employer is the one who bears the risk that assets might at times fail to produce the adequate investment returns, which can support the target retirement benefits’ level.

Besides, employees accept the risk, since the investment outcome might fail to produce an expected level of the retirement income; and this is often witnessed in cases whereby the yields realized are lower than the anticipated ones. In essence, the defined benefit pension plans are often structured in different ways to meet the intended goals of building high performance organizations.

It is important to understand the basic packages, compensation programs, and structures so that a company would be able to effectively lay strategies and plans necessary in helping to incentivize employees so as to achieve the goals of the company. The compensation program that is well designed and implemented would not only benefit pensionable employees, but could also increase the company’s profits. Moreover, other strategies to be explored are highlighted in the following paragraphs.

Management of Employee Turnover/ Migration

Several researches have indicated that there was need for urgent measures to be taken so as to develop a system of managing the high migration of Florida Highway Patrol employees (Pynes, 2009). These studies highlighted the significance of the better facilities and having proper structure of managing human resources in Florida Highway Patrol (Pynes, 2009)). Such strategy needs to be applied at national level so that the impact is felt on the entire Florida Highway Patrol system.

Developing a Human Resource for Florida Highway Patrol (HRH) Plan

Findings have shown that having a plan provides better implementation. As such, it is suggested that the countries needed to have a very strong national plan for managing its HRH (White, Cooper, Saunders & Raganella, 2010). It is necessary to develop the plan that facilitates conducting the needs assessment to ascertain the exact requirements of the system. That would then be followed by devising a plan that provides exact solution to the needs of the population.

The plan should be very effective in perceiving or anticipating the needs of the HRH in Florida Highway Patrol. Creation of a national database for the HRH which can be regularly be updated would be a step in the right direction. The database would be able to provide precise information required to make sure estimated of the existing workforce and even the needs that could arise in future (White, Cooper, Saunders & Raganella, 2010).

Rectification of Human Resource Imbalances

In order to alleviate shortages of Florida Highway Patrol workers, studies indicate that Florida Highway Patrol should still allow non-Florida Highway Patrol to work as officers in the Florida Highway Patrol facilities (Waters & Cox, 2011). However, they should revise the laws that govern and regulate patrol services to encourage more Florida Highway Patrol to enrol and retain them as well.

The government should also recognize different medical degrees, especially human resources management degrees which find recognition in other nations (Waters & Cox, 2011). Finding alternative opportunities for the Florida Highway Patrol professionals not employed would encourage these workers to stay at home and be as a supply in case of deficiency (“Florida Highway Patrol”, 2008). Besides they would be encouraged to work in primarily in the Florida Highway.

Revise Educational and HR Training Curricula

This is the main source of Florida Highway Patrol workers and therefore determines the workers domestic supply. However, the education system and the nursing as well and medicine training school do not produce enough workers or they do not have the variety that Florida Highway Patrol demands (“Florida Highway Patrol”, 2008). Therefore, it is important that the Ministry of Florida Highway Patrol should seek to evaluate and revise its system of producing Florida Highway Patrol personnel.

The new curricula should be designed to adopt the internationals standards and also address the Florida Highway Patrol needs of its people. The education system should be designed also to produce professionals with a wide variety of specializations. This would ensure that the country has a diverse resource in Florida Highway Patrol therefore greatly reducing the need to seek professionals from abroad (Lockwood, 2006).

Provision of Continuous Education and Career Development Programs

There is a dire need to address the importance of developing a continuing education program for the workers of all kinds (“Miami Police Department”, 2011). For this cause it is recommended that providing career advancement programs would enable the professionals to build their career and find attachment to their country.

This opportunity to advance is likely to be an incentive for them to stay at home rather than emigrate to seek similar opportunities (“Florida Highway Patrol”, 2008). Besides, provision of opportunities to advance would satisfy the need of the professionals to improve or better their practice and progress in terms of career ladder.

Developing Financial and Non-financial Motivation

The major obstacle to attaining a sustainable Florida Highway Patrol system has been ability to retain the workers. Many of them leave the Florida Highway Patrol system to seek better options abroad (“Florida Highway Patrol”, 2008). In order to retain top quality Florida Highway Patrol experts, retaining and incentive system should to be developed nationally.

There needs to be very effective financial and non-financial incentives to retain workers in the domestic Florida Highway Patrol system. The Ministry of Florida Highway Patrol in Florida Highway Patrol should strive to offer better salaries to compensate workers for their work as well as offer attractive allowances. The non-financial motivation that is mainly desired is the improved work environment, reward and performance recognition systems (“Florida Highway Patrol”, 2008).

When addressing the Florida Highway Patrol services issue, motivation and compensation are the main options that are being talked about. These two fields have however different problems facing them even though they both comprise the Florida Highway Patrol service system. The attitude against these professionals in Florida Highway Patrol is already highlighted. This profession definitely does not have the same status as medicine in the society.

The Florida Highway Patrol citizens look at it as being an unclean job (“Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office”, 2012). These people need to be educated on this and students need to be encouraged. Studies have shown that college school students had a negative attitude towards nursing and there was very little interest among them to join the career. However, the number of those wishing to join banking and finance was excessively high (“Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office”, 2012).

References

Flannery, T. (2011). People Performance and Pay: Dynamic Compensation for Changing Organizations. New York, NY: Free Press.

Florida Highway Patrol:FHP Current Salaries and Benefits (2008). Web.

Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office: HCSO Careers (2012). Retrieved from https://www.hcso.tampa.fl.us/Careers-Home.aspx

Lockwood, N. (2006). Finding and Keeping the Right Talent: A Strategic View. NewYork, NY: Irvine Publishers.

Miami Police Department:Join MPD Wages & Benefits (2011).Web.

Pynes, J. E. (2009). Human resources management for public and nonprofit organizations a strategic approach. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Waters, R., & Cox, T. (2011). “Public Sector Compensation Panacea or Pandora’s” Box? Public Management , 13-15.

White, M. D., Cooper, J. A., Saunders, J., & Raganella, A. J. (2010). “Motivations for becoming a police officer: Re-assessing officer attitudes and job satisfaction after six years on the street”. Journal of Criminal Justice , 38 (4), 520-530.