Stop Hiring and Start Retaining
During my 3 years as the Administrative Captain, I hired 43 police officers. 43 in three years. That number becomes amazing when you realize that my department was only allowed 100 cops at maximum staffing. 43% turnover in 3 years.Sadly, only in policing can you get away with that. If I were to address the board of directors for a company and told them that employee turnover was 43%, I probably wouldn’t have my job for very long. But in policing that’s not uncommon. If you add in corrections officers, you will see that number rise even higher.The question we should be asking ourselves is why?Why is turnover so high?Why are officers leaving like crazy?And, what can we do to stop it?Administrations made that bad decision to ignore their employees and only focus on the applicants. But, it’s not too late to change that. It’s time that agencies realize that if I am retaining my proven employees, I don’t need to worry about hiring as many new ones.https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/entire-minnesota-police-department-resigns-due-issues-pay-rcna100008https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/12/15/a-small-indiana-town-doesnt-have-a-police-force-because-all-its-officers-just-quit/https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/29/us/north-carolina-police-resign-black-city-manager-reaj/index.htmlhttps://www.usnews.com/news/cities/articles/2021-06-29/police-salaries-are-rising-in-departments-across-the-us