This centre is the “heart” of the website. It presents articles, tools, and “good” practices gathered from various policing sources to support all those working and involved in the HR planning and management of Canada’s policing community.

The organization of information in this centre reflects our strategic approach to HR planning and management. Information to support your activities is laid out in the 6 “rooms” found in the left-hand side navigation. They are as follows: Environmental Scanning & Labour Market Analysis; Competency Frameworks & Job Analysis; Recruitment, Learning, Training and Career Development; HR Policy & Planning; and, Performance Management & Organizational Effectiveness.

A simple click on the “room” of interest will give you access to all of the relevant information, articles, current research, and tools related to the chosen topic. Feel free to contribute your own approaches, strategies, plans, policies, structures, programs, processes, systems, methods - tools that you consider successful in improving the planning/management of policing resources. To post to the website, please submit information to pdewhirst@policecouncil.ca


1. Environmental Scanning & Labour Market Analysis

This room contains information and tools related to scanning and labour market analysis - the activities that begin the process for effective, integrated HR planning and management. A broad based focus and commonly understood sense of the environment - where we are and where we are going - is critical to good management and administration.

To be effective, we need to understand the dynamics of both the strategic and operational policy environments - especially the dynamics of the workforce demographics and the labour market. Changing and increasingly complex operational demands, increasing officer knowledge and skills requirements, regional demands, and requirements for employment diversity and equity, compound the urgency for effective planning and management.

We need to ensure that we identify the kinds of employees required and are able to meet the demands of both today’s and tomorrow’s environment.

We will use this room to present the findings of the Policing Environmental Scan each year and post new information on key trends as they break.

In this room you will also find recent articles of interest, research, scanning summaries, and tools/good practices to assist you.


2. Competency Frameworks & Job Analysis

This is the foundational room for policing management – where information and tools are presented on competencies. Understanding and documenting policing functions/roles in terms of the knowledge, skills and abilities required to perform jobs to a high standard is essential to all aspects of police operations.

In this room we will focus on developing and implementing a national competencies framework and role profiles for the various jobs within the policing sector. This is a critical building block to drive efficient and effective HR planning and management - we will focus on tools and methods, applications, recent research and opportunities to collaborate.

Effective HR planning and management is based on our ability to understand and define these “competencies” and apply them in a dynamic framework - incorporating the processes of recruitment, education and training, skills development and performance and productivity management.

The policing environment is constantly changing. Today, and into the foreseeable future, effective policing is going to cost more, be more time/resource consuming, more complex - and will require new skills and knowledge, and a continuous learning culture. To be relevant, police services will have to periodically re-assess the essential skills and competencies required for effective policing.


3. Recruitment & Retention

In this room, we will examine the sector’s approach to recruitment and assess the opportunities for an approach that is more sector-wide, competency-based and horizontal. We’ll identify “good” practices and processes and make available recent articles of interest, research summaries, tools/methods to assist the process, and offer interactive opportunities.

In policing, recruitment strategies must inform, attract, and select the best and brightest candidates - ensuring representation of the population in terms of gender, and culture. Due to a wide variety of environmental factors, the recruitment challenge has become a serious issue - there is increased urgency to understand the demographics and the changing dynamics of labour force, and share “good” recruitment practices.

All industry sectors are facing significant challenges around the demographics of an aging workforce and competition for the best and brightest of a diminishing youth candidate pool.

Historically policing has had more than enough good candidates to fully meet the recruitment and employment needs at all levels and careers tended to be “life” choices. But recruiting passively in jurisdictional silos is no longer going to be successful, considering the extensive and changing demands for service, increasingly high demands for skills and knowledge in technology, emerging criminality, jobs that are sometimes dangerous, physically demanding with an exceptionally high moral and ethical standard.

Most policing services have not had the capacity/resources to be more pro-active or to fund research, analyse the career drivers, or respond to the changing dynamics. This room gives you the opportunity to share and be pro-active together.


4. Learning, Training and Career Development

This is a critical room supporting more integrated HR planning and management in policing. Although policing is carried-out in many separate legislative jurisdictions, the basic functions of the policing profession are similar in all parts of Canada, and there are significant opportunity for efficiencies in the area of education and training.

This room is a cornerstone and contains the tools and methods relevant to all stages of the career life-cycle - from selection and staffing to retirement and everything in-between.

The costs of differing training and education standards and the variations in curriculum design and development lead to inefficiencies and gaps, especially in innovative skills or advanced knowledge requirements.

New and upgraded curriculum, changing legislation and new police accountabilities, require a concerted and focussed effort to optimize resources. Uniquely/independently developed practices and mechanisms are no longer affordable and lead to persistent disparity in proficiencies and capabilities.

We have an opportunity to build professionalism - commonly sanctioned standards and police certifications. Meeting that goal requires a practical and useful hub of information/knowledge “by policing and for policing.” We need to be able to identify, assess and recommend effective and “police-proven” tools to enable improved employee performance and support effective development throughout employee careers.


5. HR Planning & Management

This room is devoted to practitioners in the areas of HR planning and policy. This information will be for those who sense the environmental shifts, and require support to think through policy/plans to cope with the dynamics of change.

This room will include information related to organization design and development, leadership development and succession planning, the issues of ethics, behaviors and a national culture of police professionalism.

This area should also network strategic planners to the HR policy-makers to ensure HR policy development aligns with the direction and evolution of policing.


6. Organizational Effectiveness & Performance Management

This room will provide the key processes and tools HR managers require to monitor and evaluate the impact and relative success of both planning and management in the sector.

This is the final stage of the process - the feedback and the focus here is on understanding the impact of the tools and techniques, and optimizing the implementation and execution of the “good” practices.

This room will feature both broad organizational level and specific employee level performance monitoring and reporting. You can find information on scorecards and techniques to bridge performance gaps, audit and evaluate methods and practices, and assess workplace well-being.