Who we help
PowerDMS is a cloud-based policy management and sharing platform that allows our customers to create, update, and manage policies and training securely and efficiently. Our cloud-based service has benefits for governmental departments and agencies of all sizes in their policy and accreditation management.
Cities and large agencies
Over the past year, as the global pandemic spread quickly, cities were forced to create and update policies on the fly. Amid this fast-moving environment, paper-based processes no longer cut it.
Cities discovered they need to be able to make changes fast, and to be able to update all staff instantaneously. Only a cloud-based management system like PowerDMS can accomplish that.
In the wake of the pandemic, civic workforces are increasingly distributed, with many working from home. Agencies and departments need to be able to support remote working while maintaining compliance.
To stay compliant, cities first must have proper policies in place, but it also requires that employees receive, review, and acknowledge those policies, as well as receiving all necessary training. Those steps are essential to abide by laws and city policies.
When employees fall out of compliance, it puts the city at a greater risk of liability and lawsuits. Municipalities across America have spent more than $1 billion per year on settlements, according to governing.com.
With PowerDMS, users have documented evidence that employees received, signed, and were trained on policies and procedures. This protects your city from liability and improves your ability to defend yourself in the event of a litigation claim.
Our policy management platform lets you update and distribute policies up to 4x faster than your existing paper processes, which saves time and money. You save further by cutting down or eliminating printing and paper usage, and our cloud-based platform also improves efficiency, allows for better tracking, and maximizes what you can accomplish with limited resources.
Towns and mid-sized agencies
Increasingly, municipalities face budget cuts that create a resource crunch across departments. This has led to a push for creative solutions that can increase efficiency, allowing you to do more with less.
Using traditional methods, managing policies and dealing with compliance and accreditation can take you weeks. But by automating processes and streamlining your operation, PowerDMS allows you to accomplish this work in days or even hours. You can:
- Update a policy, obtain approvals, and distribute it for signatures all in the same day.
- Collect signatures electronically, which can be gathered in days vs. weeks using paper.
- In the event of an employment discrimination or wrongful termination lawsuit, have the documentation to prove that an employee read and understood the policy. Consistent documentation makes you more defensible.
Villages and small/rural agencies
Doing as much as possible with small budgets and limited resources has long been a way of life for leaders of small municipalities. Investing in a new resource can seem like a challenging expense, but it can increase efficiency and even save money in the long term.
One key way that PowerDMS helps smaller organizations is by providing a solution for policy, training, and accreditation all in one connected platform. Often, these are three separate areas that each demand time and resources.
PowerDMS works with police departments of all sizes, including some that have as few as 10 officers, to help mitigate risk and protect departmental reputation. With cell phone videos, body cameras, the 24-hour news cycle, and the internet, not even small cities are immune to facing high-profile incidents that could result in national headlines, employment discrimination lawsuits, or wrongful termination lawsuits.
Municipalities seeking accreditation
Accreditation is an essential tool to increase accountability, build community trust, and protect yourself from liability.
PowerdDMS partners with state, national, and international accreditation bodies, which publish their standards within PowerDMS.
This makes the accreditation process simple for organizations that use PowerDMS. Your policies and standards are already within the system, and then you simply complete a paperless self-assessment. This takes 50 percent less time than paper-based methods.
With PowerDMS, you have one system for all of your agencies to use in maintaining standards and achieving accreditation, including law enforcement, fire, parks and recreation, and more.
Why we’re a good fit
Since 2001, PowerDMS has worked with more than 3,500 public safety agencies in cities and towns across the United States. Our platform is a time-tested solution that originated with law enforcement agencies and has grown to serve numerous industries.
Keep employees accountable and mitigate risk
With employees increasingly working remotely, managers aren’t able to look over employees’ shoulders to check in on things. Instead, managers need to have systems and processes in place to maintain accountability. And when accountability decreases, it increases the potential risks that cities and departments face if an adverse incident occurs.
City HR departments that use the PowerDMS platform can instantaneously see which employees have received, signed, and understood key policies and procedures. This provides documented evidence in the event of an employment discrimination or wrongful termination lawsuit.
PowerDMS provides version control over policies and procedures, which updates documents automatically for all users. With version control, you never have to worry that an employee has access to an old or outdated file.
HR leaders are able to run city-wide analytics reports to look for trends or identify areas that need focus. Additionally, you can drill down by individual department to see any potential risks, such as identifying employees that haven’t signed off on policy updates. This allows you to be proactive in your policy management, rather than being reactive when a problem arises.
Increase efficiency
Doing more with less can be the unfortunate ethos of under-funded governmental operations. But there are ways to truly accomplish more while using fewer resources (like improving efficiency).
The first step to a more efficient operation is moving away from paper-based processes. When using paper, every time a policy is updated it must be printed out and approved manually, physically replacing the old version.
Even harder is the task of distributing updated policies on paper to all necessary employees. That can take days or weeks, which becomes nearly impossible when policies need to be updated almost constantly to reflect changing laws and standards. And tracking signatures for each employee is even more cumbersome.
Using PowerDMS, you can update your policies in a matter of minutes, a process that previously took weeks for many of our customers.
And with the push of a button, you can instantaneously push those updates to your employees wherever they are, all while automatically tracking whether they have reviewed and signed off on the updates.
Achieve and maintain accreditation easily
If your police, fire, and/or parks department is accredited, then they may struggle keeping up with the process. Building files, developing policies, and compiling proofs of compliance from different areas and departments is time-consuming.
PowerDMS streamlines the accreditation process, by providing one tool that all accredited departments can use, that’s integrated seamlessly with your city’s policies and training.
We partner directly with accrediting bodies, meaning their manuals and standards are already part of the PowerDMS platform. Each department can access these standards and undertake the accreditation process digitally.
Accreditation manuals on the PowerDMS platform include:
- CAPRA accreditation for parks and recreation departments.
- CFAI accreditation for fire departments.
- CALEA or state-level accreditation for law enforcement agencies.
If any other department in your city, such as public works, wants to begin the accreditation process or maintain accreditation, PowerDMS can provide any standards manual in our software.
Our connected solution puts your compliance efforts on the cloud, meaning you can access it any time, anywhere. Which means if your employees are working from home, or if they ever need to in the future, your accreditation efforts don’t have to stop. The file review component of each department’s self-assessment can be completed remotely, which cuts down on on-site assessment days. This adds further cost savings as you cut down your travel expenses and potentially eliminate the need to host an assessor.
What partnering with PowerDMS means for you
Data security
In 2018, the city of Atlanta suffered a devastating ransomware attack that shut down the city’s digital operation. These ransomware attacks are increasing in frequency, with thousands happening every day. Once hit with an attack, cities face an impossible choice to either pay a ransom or to lose their files and have to rebuild their digital infrastructure.
While you can’t completely protect yourself from such an attack, you can be prepared. PowerDMS is a cloud-based platform that is accessible any time, anywhere. Even if your city is knocked out, PowerDMS will still be up and running, and your policies, training, and accreditation will be safe and sound with us.
With multiple data centers, we boast industry-leading levels of reliability and security.
PowerDMS has an organization-wide governance, risk, and compliance program that proactively identifies, assesses, mitigates, and monitors risks to our customer’s data and the infrastructure supporting our services. We also maintain CJIS, SOC 2, and HIPAA compliance.
User friendly solution, designed for you
While some policy management solutions add more technical complexity, PowerDMS aims to simplify our users’ lives. Our platform requires no IT assistance beyond importing and automating user management. For day-to-day operation, we provide all the technical expertise, allowing you to focus on your essential work.
PowerDMS is cloud-based, so when you make an update you can push it out automatically to all required employees.
You decide on the front end who you want assigned to which specific roles, and then the software grants each person the appropriate level of access. This allows you to easily manage the collaborative process between a human resources director, policy owners, and department heads and administrators. You can also control access to content by groups, so some policies and procedures can be viewed city-wide, while others are only available to specific department employees. Users within these groups can also be assigned varying levels of permission, including administrative, so you don’t have to manage every group/department yourself.
Integration with your preferred document editing tool
No matter what software and hosting platform you use, PowerDMS will be able to work seamlessly with your existing operation. Our platform offers integrations with:
- Microsoft Office
- Google Drive
- One Drive
That way you can continue to use the editing tools that you know and love, and it will work smoothly with our platform
U.S. based support and industry leading service
We’re passionate about providing the very best customer service and experience. That starts with an Orlando, Florida, based support team that is ready and waiting to assist you if the need arises. We’ll never outsource your success.
And we’re proud to say that our dedication shows, with a 97% satisfaction rate and best-in-class retention. Our customers have left more than 500 5-star reviews online.
Next steps
Schedule a meeting today if you think PowerDMS might be the right solution for your organization. After completing the form, you’ll be contacted by one of our team members.
Otherwise, check out our next article in this series, How we’re different than the competition, to learn how PowerDMS stands above the competition.