Police commission survey results paint dismal picture of morale in CPS
Morale within the city police service is at historically low levels, according to results released Thursday from a survey by the Calgary police commission.
Produced by Illumina Research Partners, the survey paints a bleak picture of morale with both sworn and civilian members of the service — illustrating marked declines and record low numbers in all four of the poll’s categories compared to the past six years.
Results are split into four distinct categories: safety and service delivery, working at CPS, workplace satisfaction and employee feedback.
According to the survey, employees reported a decline in their perception of Calgary being a safe place to live, along with opinions of the quality of service they’re able to deliver.
While slow response times and an inability to thoroughly investigate matters were cited as reasons, a shortage in front-line patrol ranked well ahead for respondents, at 73 per cent.
The survey also rated employee engagement at its lowest point ever, with 60 per cent saying workplace satisfaction was lower than it was a year ago.
Leading factors for these declines include inadequate staffing, poor leadership and support from senior management, tenure limits for sworn officers in specialty postings, and this year’s launch of the SENTRY information management system.
Meant to replace the more than 30-year-old Police Information Management System (PIMS,) SENTRY has been panned by CPS personnel as difficult to use even in the most basic tasks.
As well, problems importing the legacy PIMS database resulted in decades-worth of data being jumbled, incorrectly formatted or missing altogether.
To gauge employee engagement, the survey indexes data based on responses to four statements: “I am proud to say that I work for CPS,” “I am satisfied with my current job,” “I am motivated to go above and beyond my basic job description,” and “Working/Policing with the CPS is a career I would recommend to a friend or family member.”
These sentiments continued to decline, with the index’s high engagement level falling from 26 to 18 per cent.
Employee pride and job satisfaction also hit record lows, while one-half of current employees are unlikely to recommend a career with CPS to others.
Motivation to go above and beyond also fell among police employees, with 40 per cent of respondents saying they feel no incentive to perform past their basic job descriptions.
Not every aspect of the survey showed declines, however — satisfaction with immediate supervisors shows stable and even improved scores from previous years.
Most CPS members felt their supervisors are skilled, duly acknowledge their contribution and provide constructive feedback.
As well, respectful working relationships among co-workers were pegged at 43 per cent — the highest in six years.
When asked what they like best about working for CPS, good relations with co-workers ranked highest among respondents at 43 per cent — well ahead of making a positive impact in the community (19 per cent) and job satisfaction (17 per cent.)
As for what employees want out of the organization, good leadership topped the list at 14 per cent, followed by fair and respectful treatment (11 per cent), while hiring new personnel, greater educational opportunities and improving the goals and direction of the service tied for third.
In all, 939 sworn officers and 383 civilian members took part in the survey — a 47 per cent response rate.
This year’s results come as no surprise to the city’s police association, who say the responsibility for low morale levels start at the top. “This chief is in the third year of his action plan, and this plan is not working,” said Les Kaminski, president of the city’s police union.
“This isn’t personal, just as the results of the survey are not personal — this is about strong leadership and how to effectively police a major Canadian city.”
Kaminski said the city’s rank and file have lost confidence in senior leadership, which has a trickledown effect on all levels.
“The survey shows that there are members who feel this city is less safe because of the lack of confidence in the current leadership under this chief,” he said.
A request for comment from police Chief Roger Chaffin was not immediately returned.