Go-cart racing? Laser tag?
Cookout at chongo's?
Breakfast from/at Chick-fil-A?
Custom/fun t-shirts?

quote:

Morale isn't in the crapper...it's just hard on them. My old department had THIRTY officers working the same area/population. For us it's 10 on a good night, 4 on my worst night. It's insane. I'm just trying to find ways to A) show appreciation, and B) try to relieve some of the pressure.

NO JOB IS SO IMPORTANT
AND NO SERVICE IS SO URGENT
THAT WE CANNOT TAKE TIME
TO PERFORM OUR WORK SAFELY

The county budget may be stretched, but most likely their priorities should be improved.

Pizza's at briefing always a good treat.

quote:

Originally posted by chongosuerte:
To clarify...we don't work rotating shifts, we're on permanent nights (1945-0600 for them, 1900-0500 for me). But we end up staying late most days, and then they have court during the days often, etc.


One thing that thwarts any kind of off-duty event together is we don't have two group rotations. There is a bank (17 right now) of officers on third shift, and there are 7 groups made up from that bank that work 4 nights on, 3 nights off, but the groups stagger the 4/3. That's a long way of saying, there is no way to do anything with the whole shift, because 10 or so of the 17 will be working on any given night.

Grabbing breakfast after shift is probably the best group event. I will try to do that next week when the kids are back at their mom's.

Another idea is going in once a week or two while my opposite sergeant is supervising and jumping in with one of the officers to do some real police work. I answer calls as I can, but the tempo does not allow for me to do as much teaching with them as I would like. Most nights it's 100% all night long.


Morale isn't in the crapper...it's just hard on them. My old department had THIRTY officers working the same area/population. For us it's 10 on a good night, 4 on my worst night. It's insane. I'm just trying to find ways to A) show appreciation, and B) try to relieve some of the pressure.

Chongo, what general area are you in now? You helped the wife and me years ago on a trip to the coast. We’d love to do something to help out. Maybe we could help do the breakfast or something.

We do have community events and people whose jobs are to set that stuff up. Excellent idea, but I'm looking at the micro-view rather than a larger organized plan.

As far as call volume--we have an excellent captain over our division. He has made it clear that we aren't expected to handle all the calls. He wants quality work, quality investigations, and quality reports. He's not concerned with us handling 100% of our calls for service. In fact, we are not able to handle all the calls (about 100 a day for our division), and officers from other divisions have to come help. Even with that, we have enough Priority 1 calls (robberies, B&Es in progress, shootings, fights in progress, etc.) that we basically spend most shifts dealing with those. Sometimes even those hold for several minutes.

I'm going to work on bringing in food/coffee a couple of times a month, and trying to go in on nights where my partner is supervising a couple of times a month to do some riding/training with the younger, eager officers.

I sincerely appreciate the offers to help. I am really trying to keep this simple and personal though.

We do try to look out for them by giving them some extra time off here or there, or hooking them up with good training, but the reality is that it's impossible to do when every officer is tied up on major cases two hours past their end of tour time. We have a minimum staffing number that we can't go below on purpose too, so getting training is hard sometimes.

The meat of it is the agency is about 200 officers short of the budgeted positions, despite hard recruiting efforts. The next graduating class has around 20 recruits, and the one behind it has around 40, but has already lost several and will continue to lose several more before they graduate. Divide those numbers by the 13 divisions (plus all the investigative/specialized units that are waiting for replacements due to the lack of bodies)...things are only getting worse.

Simple math...we cannot keep up with retirements/separations. And the true number of officers needed to effectively police is way above the 200 we are already short.

And it's not really a money issue. Our recruits start off at $45,000 with a high school diploma, and officers top out at $86,000. Those numbers are probably closer to $50,000 and $95,000 with court and OT. The issue is there aren't enough people interested in becoming police officers.

It's hard to blame them, honestly.

Yes, but it'll cost money.

Anything that will streamline their day's chores. Gives them a little more free time when their shift ends. Laundered uniforms at the station. Comfortable uniforms. Protection gear in good condition. Vehicles in good condition. Healthy choices at the station. To-Go bags with meals and beverages for (insert number of people in average officer household) to take home. No charge, naturally.

Get a favored food truck to swing by right before shift starts or ends. If you can, make some simple (homeade is key) treats (cookies, pie, bars) that they can take with on their shift. I’m assuming the hot coffee is always perking and that you have a penny jar for everyone to toss in and help out with the next bag of beans- make it a really good brand- I’m pretty sure a forum member makes some good beans (rainman?)
If morale isn’t bad, have a contest (everyone can bring in a homeade treat and you guys can vote and have treats all week long with minimal effort).
Every firehouse seems to have excellent cooks, I'm sure there are some pretty good cop chefs, too- but I know you’re all out doing your work every night, so it’d have to brought in.
Participation in that silly contest will also tell you who is still in good spirits and who isn’t.

Morale goes down in every field, and I agree, I think food together regularly (given work conditions) is bonding. They say it holds families together.

We are on rotating eight hour shifts. We change every four weeks. Third shift to second shift to first shift back to third.

We had two young good officers (4 years and 7 years) just leave because of it. We were on permanent 12 hr shifts by seniority but the chief decided we were too happy. We have interviewed 11 prospects so far and over half of them did not complete the process when they found out we had rotating shifts. Our newest guy (almost one year) is debating going back to his lesser paying job with permanent shifts.

Our morale is in the negative region.


Chongo, break bread with your guys off duty from time to time. I find it helps with my shift.


Only 1,386 days to go...

If salaries were raised $20,000 there would be more recruits and better retention.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: c1steve,

we gave a symbolic trophy to a colleague that was surprisingly beneficial, although in a private setting, not LEO agency:

t-shirt "Floggings will continue until morale improves"

When we merged with another company, the new owners came in and had a professional massage company come in and set up two chair massage and give about 30 minute massages. It was greatly appreciated, it really relaxed you, and helped with the stress.

I’m not a cop, but planned Activities and “team building” crap was always an extension of work for me that I hated doing. Those are all short term fixes anyway. Smart employees see right through that stuff.

True morale boost comes from work culture as a whole. I’ve had shitty managers who’ve tried all this shit and it’s just annoying. It’s also a way for poor managers to try and placate employees with “goodies”. I’m an adult, I’m not 10.

In my free time, I do not want to hang out with people I work with.

Ways to boost morale: more free time, more money...maybe some perks.

In my amateur opinion, there’s just not much that can be done in your line of work, short of more man power, more money etc...

This is probably why I’m hooking a bunch of my cop buddies with recruiters now a days. They’re just sick of the job and most are willing to take a pay cut and start over if it means a better quality of life.

Check to see if one of your local private rec organizations will rent you a pool for an evening pool party for your group and their families. Cook some dogs and burgers and swim. Should be a relaxing evening.