Managing an Effective Investigation Unit-How Many Investigators Actually You Need??

The organization of an investigative unit has an important bearing on the unit’s efficiency and the success of the investigators.As such, how you organize the unit should not be taken lightly. To maximize the  unit’s effectiveness and efficiency, carefully consider how the investigative unit fits into the overall goals and objectives of the agency.

Important aspect in organizing an investigation unit is the allocation of resources. Daniel S. McDevitt in his book “Managing The Investigative Unit” mentioned that there are basically two methods for determining manpower allocation for the investigative unit; the traditional method and the manpower utilization method. The traditional method simply outlines that 10-15% of the total personnel must be assigned to investigation unit.

While the manpower utilization method takes into account various steps before coming out with optimum number of investigators to fit in the investigation unit. The steps involved are first the total number of matters  are assigned to the investigation on annual basis is tallied. This will includes cases assigned, to the department, inquiries carried out and other matters that is expected for the department to handle. It is important that all tasks to be included. For example, let us use a figure of 800 matters that are assigned to the investigation unit for a year.

Step 2 is the multiplication of the number of matters with the average time taken to complete the assignment. Some assignments may take a week to complete and some might require less that the stipulated period. Whatever the amount of time spent of all the matters that has been taken into account, it must be tallied, added together, and the divided by the number of matters addressed. Let’s say that you determine the total time spent on all the matters assigned to the investigative unit handled 200 assignments over the sample period and spent a total of 1400 hours working those assignments. That number of hours, divided by number of assignments, gives us the average time necessary to address a particular assignment. Below calculation illustrates further:-

1400 hours ÷200 assignments=7 hours per assignment. Then, 7 hours × a projected 800 Assignments= 5,600 total hours

Step 3 is a process of adding up administrative time such as inspections, equipment maintenance, training, court appearances, and other non investigative duties. In order to be accurate, we must determine the total number of these hours spent by the investigative unit and factor the figure into the formula. If we anticipate the investigators will devote a total number of 400 hours for administrative, we add that time to the running total.

400 hours + 5,600 hours = 6000 hours per year for investigative, administrative, and other duties.

Step 4 is the process of multiplying the figure (total time derived) by the departments assignment or availability factor. Scheduling a 5-person shift is easy if no one ever took day off, sick day, vacation day, or training day. Anyone who ever been involved in scheduling knows that in order to adequately schedule a 5-Person shift, you need more than 5 people. You need to apply an assignment/availability factor, which takes into account these days off. The standard rule of thumb for this factor is 1.66. In other words, you need one two thirds person to perform work of one person. This we need to factor that to the running total.

6000 hours of total time × assignment availability factor of 1.66 = 9960 total hours

Step 5 is dividing the number of hours in a man year, which is approximately 2112 hours a year (results of multiplying 264 working days per year × 8 hours in a day) and the optimum number of investigators required to support the workload will be derived. (S.McDevitt, 2004). This method is much more reliable in determining the accurate manpower allocation in an investigation unit and definitely the data relied on in the calculation will be more defendable and justifiable. Below calculation illustrates the final result.

9960 hours ÷ 2112 hours = 4.7

Above result indicates that the minimum number of investigators required to perform their function effectively is 5 investigators altogether.