FARGO – It's about a quarter to four in the afternoon and phones are beginning to ring at the emergency dispatch center. The 911 calls set themselves apart with their high-pitched trills. This is the busiest time of day for the operators who answer calls from police and fire agencies across Cass and Clay counties. Each is seated in front of eight big monitors that allow them to see where calls are coming from, find the nearest police cruisers and even activate tornado sirens throughout the region. Right now, the calls are more or less routine, but there are a lot of them. Hilery Klein is working with someone who may have talked to a scammer, but she had to put the caller on hold to take an emergency call. Jessie Pangrac is working with someone else complaining about a man driving slowly around the neighborhood and leering at children. She's also handling requests from police officers on their beat. The phones keep ringing. Mary Phillippi, who became the Red River Regional Dispatch Center's director in April, said harrowing calls can always be around the corner, perhaps from a frightened victim of a domestic assault or someone trying to get help for a dying family member. It takes a special breed to juggle all of these calls and cope with the emotional toll, she said. Unfortunately, she doesn't have enough of them, even as the volume of calls continues to increase.
High turnover Last year, the turnover rate among operators shot up to 31 percent, with 11 out of 35 calling it quits, some while undergoing training, according to data provided by Phillippi. So far this year, turnover is at 21 percent with eight out of 38 quitting. "Anytime you have that many openings and people that aren't fully trained, it puts a lot of pressure on the ones that are, and then ultimately it stresses the whole center," said Moorhead Fire Chief Rich Duysen, who chairs the dispatch center board. The loss of veteran operators has been noticeable to his firefighters because of "hiccups" in communication, he said. That doesn't mean there's any danger to the public, he said. At the same time, more calls are coming in. From 2009 to 2014, the number of 911 calls alone have increased 33 percent while the number of operators increased just 9 percent. This includes trainees who can't take calls on their own, so the number of trained operators is lower still. Funding is available for more operators, but the problem is hiring them and keeping them, Phillippi said. So far, she's been able to maintain the minimum of six operators for each shift, she said, but it gets harder every time someone quits. High turnover is a problem for many dispatch centers nationwide, said Michael Thompson, a board member with the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch in Salt Lake City, which sets standards and develops training curriculum for dispatch centers. Thompson said he's visited many dispatch centers in the past 10 years and has never encountered one that was 100 percent staffed. The turnover rate at the Red River Regional Dispatch Center has seen a lot of ups and downs, Phillippi said. Since 2003, the earliest year for which data was immediately available, there have been two years in which turnover was less than 10 percent and six years in which it exceeded 20 percent. The worst was in 2008 when turnover shot up to 40 percent. The second worst was last year. Thompson said 20 percent is high, but these days, 30 percent is not uncommon. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1906213","attributes":{"alt":"Kelsey Olson, left, and Tina Lee monitor their control board at the Red River Regional Dispatch Center. David Samson / The Forum","class":"media-image","height":"741","title":"Kelsey Olson, left, and Tina Lee monitor their control board at the Red River Regional Dispatch Center. David Samson / The Forum","width":"1000"}}]] Recruitment challenge Phillippi said recruitment is her most urgent task. The dispatch center has lost enough workers that the extra work piled on those who remain has prompted more to quit in a mutually reinforcing trend, she said. The six months of training required before a new operator can work alone compounds the problem, she said. "I talk about staffing everywhere I go, I try to recruit everywhere I go," she said. "That is my top issue." For those interested in police and firefighting jobs but prefer to work at a desk, being an emergency dispatcher could be the right job, she said. She's reaching out to high schools now because few students know that this kind of job is available. The pay is decent for a job that doesn't require a college education, she said. Current starting wages are $38,700 a year, maxing out at $56,100, all with full benefits. Supervisors, many promoted from within, earn from $52,300 to $71,900. "If people don't want to go to college, they can come and work for us, saving $20,000 a year on not going to college. They're making almost $40,000 ... after four years you'd be at $160,000," she said, slipping easily into recruiter mode. "That's a quarter of a million dollars in four years while your friends are in college." The challenge for Phillippi and other recruiters is to find the right workers for the job. It's not for everybody. The stress of talking to people who are often very upset and sometimes facing the most emotional moment in their lives takes its toll on some operators, she said. The dispatch center must be staffed at all hours, so working nights and weekends comes with the territory. Phillippi said she still was able to raise a family during her 27-year career at the dispatch center, but not everyone wants to put up with such hours. She said she faces a challenge with Millennials, many of whom value work-life balance much more than generations before them. It doesn't help that the unemployment rate in the Fargo-Moorhead metro area remains low at 2.8 percent as of June. But success in recruitment may bring its own problems because there will be a lot of people to train. "Our veterans perform very well," Duysen said. "Like in any job, they have time to learn and people around them to guide them. When you have such a large number of newer people coming in, they probably don't get the attention they need or that they would normally have. It just impacts everybody."FARGO – It's about a quarter to four in the afternoon and phones are beginning to ring at the emergency dispatch center. The 911 calls set themselves apart with their high-pitched trills. This is the busiest time of day for the operators who answer calls from police and fire agencies across Cass and Clay counties. Each is seated in front of eight big monitors that allow them to see where calls are coming from, find the nearest police cruisers and even activate tornado sirens throughout the region. Right now, the calls are more or less routine, but there are a lot of them. Hilery Klein is working with someone who may have talked to a scammer, but she had to put the caller on hold to take an emergency call. Jessie Pangrac is working with someone else complaining about a man driving slowly around the neighborhood and leering at children. She's also handling requests from police officers on their beat. The phones keep ringing. Mary Phillippi, who became the Red River Regional Dispatch Center's director in April, said harrowing calls can always be around the corner, perhaps from a frightened victim of a domestic assault or someone trying to get help for a dying family member. It takes a special breed to juggle all of these calls and cope with the emotional toll, she said. Unfortunately, she doesn't have enough of them, even as the volume of calls continues to increase. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1906212","attributes":{"alt":"Corey Olson fields a call at the Red River Regional Dispatch Center in downtown Fargo. David Samson / The Forum","class":"media-image","height":"667","title":"Corey Olson fields a call at the Red River Regional Dispatch Center in downtown Fargo. David Samson / The Forum","width":"1000"}}]] High turnover Last year, the turnover rate among operators shot up to 31 percent, with 11 out of 35 calling it quits, some while undergoing training, according to data provided by Phillippi. So far this year, turnover is at 21 percent with eight out of 38 quitting. "Anytime you have that many openings and people that aren't fully trained, it puts a lot of pressure on the ones that are, and then ultimately it stresses the whole center," said Moorhead Fire Chief Rich Duysen, who chairs the dispatch center board. The loss of veteran operators has been noticeable to his firefighters because of "hiccups" in communication, he said. That doesn't mean there's any danger to the public, he said. At the same time, more calls are coming in. From 2009 to 2014, the number of 911 calls alone have increased 33 percent while the number of operators increased just 9 percent. This includes trainees who can't take calls on their own, so the number of trained operators is lower still. Funding is available for more operators, but the problem is hiring them and keeping them, Phillippi said. So far, she's been able to maintain the minimum of six operators for each shift, she said, but it gets harder every time someone quits. High turnover is a problem for many dispatch centers nationwide, said Michael Thompson, a board member with the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch in Salt Lake City, which sets standards and develops training curriculum for dispatch centers. Thompson said he's visited many dispatch centers in the past 10 years and has never encountered one that was 100 percent staffed. The turnover rate at the Red River Regional Dispatch Center has seen a lot of ups and downs, Phillippi said. Since 2003, the earliest year for which data was immediately available, there have been two years in which turnover was less than 10 percent and six years in which it exceeded 20 percent. The worst was in 2008 when turnover shot up to 40 percent. The second worst was last year. Thompson said 20 percent is high, but these days, 30 percent is not uncommon.
Recruitment challenge Phillippi said recruitment is her most urgent task. The dispatch center has lost enough workers that the extra work piled on those who remain has prompted more to quit in a mutually reinforcing trend, she said. The six months of training required before a new operator can work alone compounds the problem, she said. "I talk about staffing everywhere I go, I try to recruit everywhere I go," she said. "That is my top issue." For those interested in police and firefighting jobs but prefer to work at a desk, being an emergency dispatcher could be the right job, she said. She's reaching out to high schools now because few students know that this kind of job is available. The pay is decent for a job that doesn't require a college education, she said. Current starting wages are $38,700 a year, maxing out at $56,100, all with full benefits. Supervisors, many promoted from within, earn from $52,300 to $71,900. "If people don't want to go to college, they can come and work for us, saving $20,000 a year on not going to college. They're making almost $40,000 ... after four years you'd be at $160,000," she said, slipping easily into recruiter mode. "That's a quarter of a million dollars in four years while your friends are in college." The challenge for Phillippi and other recruiters is to find the right workers for the job. It's not for everybody. The stress of talking to people who are often very upset and sometimes facing the most emotional moment in their lives takes its toll on some operators, she said. The dispatch center must be staffed at all hours, so working nights and weekends comes with the territory. Phillippi said she still was able to raise a family during her 27-year career at the dispatch center, but not everyone wants to put up with such hours. She said she faces a challenge with Millennials, many of whom value work-life balance much more than generations before them. It doesn't help that the unemployment rate in the Fargo-Moorhead metro area remains low at 2.8 percent as of June. But success in recruitment may bring its own problems because there will be a lot of people to train. "Our veterans perform very well," Duysen said. "Like in any job, they have time to learn and people around them to guide them. When you have such a large number of newer people coming in, they probably don't get the attention they need or that they would normally have. It just impacts everybody."
