Morale...it stinks!

Morale…it stinks!

So how is morale currently within your department? Well, unless you give out Xanax or Prozac at every roll call, I’m sure you always have a morale issue. I can truly say after 18 years I’ve never had a time when there wasn’t someone in my department and any other department for that matter, that didn’t have a bad morale problem. So why is morale a recruiter’s issue?

Let’s look at the following equation:

Positive Morale + Positive Retention = Effective Recruitment

What does this equation mean? It means that the best recruiters for any agency are the officers currently patrolled the streets. They are salesmen and saleswomen of every agency and if morale is bad and retention is an issue, then recruitment is definitely compromised. To have effective recruitment by your front line officers they must have a sense of pride, a sense of honor and their morale must be high.

Now as we all know, morale starts from the top and works its way down. If the Chief of Police or top city official is making decisions that directly attack the rank and file officers, you can’t do much to correct the morale issue. However, there are some minor front line supervisor’s suggestions that I do have to make a difference in the morale within your platoon, division, district or unit.

1. Reward officer’s good behavior. Just like we reward our children when they make good grades or good decisions, supervisors should reward their officers when they do the right thing, make a good arrest, or even just overall do a good job. Letters of commendation are always nice, but what about mailing them a letter of gratitude or even throwing your platoon a party at the division or district. Treat your officers like you would like to be treated and the reward really will be yours!
2. Provide officer’s with training. I know during the current recession that rewarding officers with requested training is not an easy thing to do but there are ways around the money issue. For example, look for federally funded courses and take the time to possibly forge partnerships so that funding can come from other sources.
3. Take time to make time. Take the time to allow your officers to have times to vent without negative impacts from supervisors. Make time to allow officers to feel free to do special details or focus on the issues they want to focus on. Heck, we give these officers the ability to take peoples rights away and even use deadly force if necessary, so why don’t we take the time to let them work they want to work.

Morale is something that is always an issue and always will be an issue. You will always have glass half empty officers in every department. The question is can you help them out by occasionally filling their glass?