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Emergency call center workers say their centers are understaffed, struggling to fill vacancies and plagued by worker burnout, according to a national survey released Tuesday.
The survey conducted by the National Emergency Number Association in conjunction with Carbyne, a cloud technology company focused on emergency services, polled about 850 workers from 911 call centers across the country. It found that many were experiencing burnout, handling more frequent call surges and felt undertrained. The findings show the widespread nature of staffing problems that have been laid bare in some communities in recent years.
In New York City, panicked callers this month tried to report a Department of Transportation truck that had caught fire and exploded, but said they received busy signals or were sent to voicemail.
In St. Louis, also this month, callers tried desperately to report that a woman was trapped in her car under a fallen tree but said they couldn't get through for nearly half an hour. During the same storm in the suburbs, it took a woman 45 minutes to report that her 5-year-old son had been badly hurt by a tree falling on their home. He died, but he was alive when his mother started calling 911, according to a family spokeswoman.
Tech upgrades could help
Nationwide staffing shortages that in many cases mirror the shortages in police departments and law enforcement agencies have led to longer wait times or trouble reaching operators at centers around the country, according to experts.
"The numbers we're seeing right now are really alarming. It was a major impetus of why we did this study. I knew it was going to be high, but 82 percent of respondents said their centers were understaffed," said Karima Holmes, vice president and head of public safety at Carbyne and former director of the Office of Unified Communications in Washington, D.C.
Holmes said staffing issues in many centers worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, and like many jobs in public safety, it suffered from image problems after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
"People are not coming to the job because of people turning away from wanting to have public safety careers," Holmes said. "But you add to that issues with lower pay, dealing with increased call volumes and people feeling burned out, and it becomes difficult to get people into the profession."
The survey was released at an online national conference of 911 leaders to discuss possible solutions to the staffing crisis and other issues faced by emergency response centers.
Brian Fontes, CEO of NENA, said the group has been advocating for national legislation to change the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' classification of 911 workers from office or clerical workers to protected service workers like other emergency responders. The change would boost morale by more accurately describing the role of 911 workers and open doors locally to include those workers in benefits programs offered to police and others, he said.
"Iowa has been trying to incorporate them into their state retirement system for public safety personnel, but the legal review came back and said they couldn't do that because of how these employees are classified," Fontes said.
The group has also been advocating for a bill that would spend $15 billion equipping centers across the country with newer technology that Fontes and others said would address some of the other issues 911 workers noted in the survey.
The technology, called Next Generation 911, would convert the hard-wired centers to digital internet protocol-based technology. Advocates say the technology would mean more precise location tracking, better access to immediate language translation, the ability to text with callers or take video calls to help see what's going on in the case of a medical emergency.
It could also mean fewer outages to phone or computer systems, which 60 percent of survey respondents said happen regularly. Earlier this month, the 911 center in Oakland, California, experienced two outages that forced operators to manually handle 911 calls and delayed response times.
Holmes said she also thinks the technology upgrade could draw more young people to the industry.
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In my opinion I believe a chance should be given to those who are or were stay at home mothers/ fathers who provided a health environment for there family and sacrificed work and college for various reasons a CHANCE to go into these fields once the go thru serious of training and review of there records that’s is satisfying the criteria that job requires. A requirement is college background ( should be waived ) some weren’t able to do that because they couldn’t afford it , or children obligation or helping there parents in there final years etc… This will open doors to a larger pool of applicants this can be funded by the Union/ State/ City or all combined. The can have a longer probation period and maybe a slight benefit difference compared to those who have College Education and Time on the job. These things can be worked out properly and fairly to all parties. I think Given them an opportunity will help everyone. They will pay taxes , they will have self confidence build up, They fill voids that have been vacant for years etc… it’s a win win I believe. No one should call them free loaders or something else except productive Citizens helping there community. All winners here!! I don’t think my opinion needed a college education to come up with solution or at part of a solution!!!! Is someone in position of authority thinking of this or least give this idea at least a try.
Thursday, August 10, 2023 Report this