| Recruitment & Retention News Lower Sackville resident Joel Ingram works as an EastLink sub‑contractor but is 100 per cent committed to becoming a Mountie, no matter where he ends up in Canada. "I'm prepared to go to Nunavut, if they send me there," said Mr. Ingram, 29, who should find out if he passed an all‑important screening exam next week. If he fails, he can't write it again for at least a year. Should he make it through to training depot in Regina, Mr. Ingram will have lots of company from his home province. The RCMP is looking for hundreds of Nova Scotians to hitch up and don their scarlet uniforms over the next few years. "They want 2,000 across Canada per year for the next five years, approximately," said Nova Scotia RCMP Const. Sally MacKinnon, who conducts information sessions for applicants. She said 108 Nova Scotians will take the RCMP's 24‑week training course this year, with the same amount or slightly higher expected for the following four years. She said the force wants to be ready for a large amount of pending retirements. However, she said officers don't return to work in their home communities and few Nova Scotian recruits can return to their province to work. Sun 26 Nov 2006, San Bernardino Sun The San Bernardino police department is concerned about future leadership and a dearth of qualified administrators with fifty-eight of its seasoned police officers expected to retire in the next three to five years. The concern stems from the high number of young officers within the department, about one-third of its sworn personnel, and the apparent lack of succession planning to prime such officers to step into leadership positions. To facilitate recruitmet and retention: any city employee who can successfully bring a new officer to the department will receive a $1,000 bonus, officers transferring to San Bernardino from other departments will get a $5,000 incentive, receiving $2,500 upon being sworn in and another $2,500 upon completion of their one-year probation, a $2,000 relocation-assistance program for recruits who live more than 90 minutes away, a Deferred Retirement Option Program, which allows experienced officers who have retired to continue part-time employment for up to five years. Their monthly retirement benefits are deferred to a special account that accumulates interest. Despite number of medical discharges, Forces ranks expected to hit 70,000 by 2010 "We have a lot more recruiters out there, we are increasing advertising . . . and recruitment is now ahead of plan," Mr. O'Connor said after a Senate committee meeting on national defence. He said Quebeckers are particularly eager to join the military, but he did not elaborate on the specifics. Despite the inflow of new recruits, however, the military's ranks are thinned by an increasing number of medical discharges due to a policy that requires full-time members to be fit for overseas service. The Government has promised 1000 extra frontline police in the next three years, and police last month launched a major advertising campaign for recruits. Accepting recruits with minor convictions was not new, police said. Since July 1 this year, 306 recruits have entered the Royal New Zealand Police College at Porirua in five intakes. Two wings accepted one person with a previous conviction and three wings had two recruits with a criminal history. Police recruitment manager Inspector Dawn Bell told The Dominion Post if an applicant declared a conviction, police would run background checks and review their files. They looked at the age of the person at the time of the offence and what had happened subsequently, and made a decision based on the merits of the applicant. Certain convictions such as serious dishonesty, drug offending, serious violence, and drink driving were automatically rejected. In November 2005, police began fingerprinting applicants before they began Police College. Since then, none had been caught who failed to declare a criminal history. Police from Western Australia are to target experienced Hong Kong officers to make up for a shortage in the Australian state and to meet a Royal Commission recommendation for a more racially diverse force. West Australian Assistant Commissioner for Professional Development Mal Skeffington plans to make a reconnaissance trip to Hong Kong this week to approach retired officers for advice on recruitment. Western Australia Police Union president Michael Dean said the Australian force may even work with Hong Kong police to develop a scheme where officers could work in the state for a five-year period. Of the 5,000 police in Western Australia, only 25 per cent have more than five years' on-the-job experience. The force also needs to fill 250 positions next year. Mr Dean said the force was looking for officers below sergeant level with plenty of experience. The plan to target Hong Kong officers follows the recruitment of 180 police from Britain. Officers from Singapore will also be approached. Mr Dean said there was an "extreme" skills shortage in the force, with many officers and potential recruits seeking work in the booming mining industry. The Australian Federal Police was also believed to be targeting Hong Kong's officers, he said. A spokeswoman for the Hong Kong police said the force offered many incentives to officers, including training and career development and other welfare services. Hong Kong Police are recruiting 1,200 constables and 50 inspectors a year. RCMP Supt. Mike Gaudet has had several careers, and he's never left the force since he started there 32 years ago. He began, as most rookies do, as a patrolman. In the intervening years he's worked as a detective in the major investigations section, a teacher at the academy in Regina, a media relations spokesman and now, a "career manager" in the human resources division. Career flexibility is one of the big draws to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Gaudet says. The force employs 17,000 sworn members and another 7,000 civilians and public service employees. For Shirley Cuillierrier, the flexibility has meant she's spent time on the beat, followed by work in investigations. Ten years ago, Shirley Cuillierrier left the Charlottetown detachment of the RCMP after spending 14 years policing P.E.I. to join former prime minister Jean Chretien's security detail. Currently, she is the officer in charge of aboriginal affairs nationally. To organizers and sponsors of the Hobbema Cadet Corps, for their stunning success in recruiting. The program will not celebrate its first anniversary for another three weeks, but it has already signed up 840 children, RCMP Const. Richard Huculiak told the Advocate. Hundreds more aboriginal children from the Edmonton area are expected to join within few weeks. The program gives children ‑ aged 15 to 18 ‑ fun activities with their peers, some structure and discipline in their lives and a chance to learn about their own culture. "Everything we do is culturally sensitive to where (cadets) live," Huculiak told a Red Deer conference sponsored by the Aboriginal Family and School Frontline Program recently. The Canadian Forces, RCMP, Canadian Pacific Railway, Samson Oil and Gas, and Peace Hills Trust helped create the cadet corps. Their initiative is outstanding. It shows dramatically how young people will respond to adults who genuinely care and share. Hobbema Cadet Corps is getting ready to celebrate its first anniversary on Nov. 22, with an anticipated 1,000 members. "The program has just taken off. We have 840 kids," said RCMP Const. Richard Huculiak. Another 200 to 300 children and youth from the First Nation near Ma Me O Beach are expected to join the ranks in the next few weeks. Youth from Enoch Reserve will join by Christmas. Huculiak talked about the success of the cadet program at a conference on Friday sponsored by the Aboriginal Family and School Frontline Program which attracted about 30 aboriginal students from Red Deer. The Frontline program works to promote culture and community among First Nation, Metis and Inuit youth. "Everything we do is culturally sensitive to where (cadets) live. It's all related to the community," Huculiak said about the corps. The San Francisco Mayor plans to offer $250,000 in financial incentives to veteran police officers. The plan offers retention pay of 4 percent to officers who have completed more than 30 years of service. It also provides for a $1,000 referral bonus if an officer who recruits a successful candidate for a police officer position, and pays $5,000 in signing bonuses to police officers hired from other agencies. In the past ten months New Zealand Police has recruited more staff than in any other full calendar year. At 30 June 2006 Police had 7,763 sworn staff members and this increased to 7,884 at 30 September 2006. The latest recruitment wing (which commenced its training on 23 October 2006) consists of 75 recruits and brings the total number of recruits for 2006 to 755 meaning Police is on track to reach its target of having 1,000 additional police officers by 2009. According to Police National Manager of Recruitment and Appointments, Inspector Dawn Bell "The pleasing news is that the increase in numbers has not led to a reduction in standards - a recent New Zealand Police study indicates that 2006 recruits' results in Police entrance tests are (on average) higher than in previous years". "Police will be launching its recruitment advertising this Sunday (including TV commercials) in order to ensure that the current momentum is built upon and Police recruitment staff have an even greater pool of talent from which recruits can be selected" Inspector Bell said. Sandra Chan is one of eight new RCMP cadets who are leaving the Lower Mainland this weekend to tackle a six‑month RCMP training course in Regina. Chan, a Cantonese‑speaking Canadian who was born in Hong Kong, is also the kind of visible‑minority cadet RCMP recruiters are looking for. "I wanted to be a good role model for my brothers and help people in the community," said the 22‑year‑old resident of Richmond. RCMP Insp. Wendall Davis said the percentage of visible minority people joining the RCMP has gone up slightly in recent years. During the last five years, about eight per cent of the new recruits have identified themselves as someone from a visible minority group. About 5.5 per cent of the current force say they are a member of a visible minority group, or 1,000 out of 18,000 officers. "Our goal, of course, is to make sure the ethnic makeup of the RCMP is reflective, as possible, with the communities we serve," Davis said. "As a national police force, one of the things we need to do is to educate our community ethnic groups of the benefits of being a member of theRCMP, and to encourage them, whenever possible, to join." San Francisco, Oakland and Richmond -- are struggling to find and train enough officers to meet the demands of their cities including rising homicide rates. Political pressure on some departments to beef up their ranks is intense. To recruit officers, departments are going on the road, offering thousands of dollars in incentives, paying for billboard and radio campaigns, and even poaching officers from other departments. San Francisco has the most daunting task -- the city is trying to hire 750 officers over three years. Oakland is hoping to find 100 officers by January. Richmond is trying to fill 48 vacancies, representing nearly a quarter of the Police Department's authorized strength. The hiring efforts pit department against department as they compete for an applicant pool limited by demographic changes and by rules about fitness, drug use and criminal history. Some departments are relaxing those rules, trying to improve their odds of filling openings. It’s the same news across the country. By some estimates law enforcement agencies around California will need to hire 68,000 officers by 2012. The problems facing police departments also include keeping the recruits they train and hire. Retention is an ongoing issue for new hires and veterans. People leave due to many reasons including for other job offers. Officials say the change reflects a bigger problem: recruiting qualified new officers to fill the ranks. Since diversity is difficult to achieve in a police force, anything that widens the pool of potential recruits is a good thing for the city, said Lt. Michelle Donegan of Metro police's recruiting office. Graduates of the Joondalup police academy in Australia are not required to serve in the Western Australia Police service after they have completed their training. Police confirmed today that a British officer had resigned after completing a 12-week course to join the private sector as an engineer. Senior officers yesterday said they will look to extend psychometric tests, which will be introduced to identify applicants who are racist, sectarians, sexist and/or dishonest. The Scotsman revealed last year that psychometric racism tests had been ordered following the BBC's Secret Policeman documentary, which exposed racism within new recruits. A conference organised by the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS) yesterday heard that the tests will present potential recruits with 24 carefully-chosen policing scenarios. They will be asked to say how they would respond and how sure they would be of their action on a scale of one to ten. The scenarios are interspersed with pictures, including some of white, black and Asian people. Each recruit's answers are examined against the average response to detect unusual and undesirable attitudes. The tests have been tried on about 600 recruits. Peter Thickett, secretary of the ACPOS personnel and training business area, said: "One of the biggest issues we face in the service is about integrity and ethics, and I think these tests will be useful to us both in terms of recruits but also potentially for selecting people for promotion and sensitive areas, for example, in CID." Rowlett police are hoping that cash bonuses will bring in more – and more experienced – applicants for open officer positions. The incentives, available beginning Oct. 1, will range from $1,000 for applicants with no experience to $5,000 for those with a Texas peace officer license and at least two years on the job. Applicants with a license but less experience will receive $2,500. Police Chief Matt Walling said attracting experienced officers will help the city put them on the street more quickly. Though many cities offer extra pay for college graduates who are bilingual or trilingual or have extra certifications, far fewer offer cash bonuses simply for getting hired. The Dallas Police Department earlier this year implemented a $10,000 bonus. Its recruits receive $6,000 after graduating from the academy and $4,000 more after 82 weeks on the force. New Zealand police numbers will be boosted next week with the addition of 19 new officers from Britain. The 18 men and one woman from Scotland, Wales and England completed the 10-week conversion course at the Royal New Zealand Police College this week. Mr Beckett said training was ongoing, and the officers would complete a workplace assessment program over the next two years. The officers brought an average of 10 years' operational experience to the service. "These officers are seasoned frontline staff, some of whom have held positions at sergeant and inspector level," Mr Beckett said. Another intake of 20 British police officers is expected to arrive in early October. There is ongoing debate in the policing community over whether the desire to raise recruiting standards can be realized at a time when departments are desperate for new officers to fill the thousands of openings for cops nationwide. Less than 5% of local police departments with more than 100 officers require four-year degrees, says Louis Mayo, executive director of the Police Association for College Education. Most departments give higher pay to recruits with four-year degrees, he says, but have avoided requiring recruits to have them for several reasons. Among them: concerns about recruiting enough minority officers in increasingly diverse urban areas, and fears that not enough college graduates would be attracted by police salaries. The median annual salary for patrol officers nationwide was about $45,200 in 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Rookie cops usually make less. Departments have been reluctant to adopt stricter recruiting standards despite evidence suggesting that better-educated cops perform better due to the emphasis in jobs on dispute resolution. Larry Reynolds retired his gun and badge in 2000 after 32 years as a Fort Worth police officer, but it was far from a final farewell. Reynolds, 60, can be found most days in the Police Department's crime lab, firing guns and collecting the bullets and casings for tests that could solve cold cases. He is one of about 40 retired officers who have returned for civilian jobs. Officers retire with all sorts of futures in mind. Some rarely set foot back in the department. Some open businesses, from deep-sea fishing charters on the Texas Gulf to neighborhood pubs. Some get security jobs that take them to Iraq. Largest-ever recruiting class reflects efforts to hire women and minorities To remove those barriers, the recruitment unit's outreach program vigorously encourages minorities to seek a police career. Recruiters, many of them from target groups, attend ethnic community events, taking along informational brochures, smiles and a handshake. "We want to get the message out: We're here, we're hiring, and we're looking for everyone," said Sgt. James a spokesman for the force. The Canadian Forces are busy developing ad campaigns to attract new recruits. They are trying different version to characterize a military career as an exciting chance to "fight terror." The new action advertisements stand in sharp contrast to earlier Forces recruiting efforts, which emphasized the military as a good place to find a job, career, education and training. The Forces have spent considerable effort researching public opinion and developing key messages that will resonate with youth especially young men inclined to military life at a time when casualties are regularly in the news. DND research has found that men, especially those disposed to join the CF are less responsive to the CF positioned as a place to find a career, but react very positively to the CF as a place to find action and engagement. This research has driven the CF to approach its recruiting communications differently. The newspaper ad, for the Memphis Police Department, says people who failed the psychological part of the police exam in years past are encouraged to reapply. A spokesperson for the department said Monday the language in the advertisement was simply part of department policy, but the ad is important recruitment tool for police. Memphis is desperate for recruits. The city has grown significantly as has crime but officer strength is the same as it has been for the past 2 years. Memphis is competing with other police forces for candidates and is losing potential recruits to higher paying police forces. The Canadian military has relaxed some of the background security checks it does on potential recruits and is considering easing others as it tries to speed up enrolment and meet ambitious recruitment targets. With an exemption from the Treasury Board to shorten the period of time it covers when doing an applicant's background check, “secret” level clearance are done for the past 7 instead of ten years. Also, security checks for those who have spent time outside Canada have been relaxed if the candidate has been in the United States, the U.K. and the original 16 NATO countries. The Canadian Forces conducts its own initial criminal and credit checks on recruits, but then hands off the responsibility for more extensive background evaluations to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP. The Treasury Board determines security policy for all government departments. The changes to the security clearance process are part of Mr. Hillier's broad recruitment strategy — called Operation Connection — which has a budget of roughly $15 million this year and hopes to bring in 12,400 regular force members and reservists by March 31. The biggest increase in federal police numbers in the force's 27-year history comes just a day after Howard announced Australia would increase its number of army infantry battalions to the highest level since the Vietnam War. Howard said the extra police were needed for international deployments, citing Australia's role in controlling flare-ups.
Hundreds of New Zealanders with specialist security skills, including police officers and former Defence Force staff have pursued lucrative contracts in Iraq. Estimates are that about 2000 New Zealanders are working there. Security firms want people with military and specialist police experience but officers are going in defiance of police policy. The officers have specialist experience, such as in the armed offenders squad, and are typically lured by the money. The recruits were county employees training to become sworn police officers. They were in the fifth week of a 22-week training period required to join about 600 officers on Cobb's police force, where salaries start around $34,600. Los Angeles Police Department, the smallest big-city department in the US, struggles to find recruits. Competition is increasing for a limited pool of suitable candidates interested in becoming cops – they are looking for 1,000 officers this year. They have beefed up their recruitment department, from 2 to 12, increased their advertising budget for police recruitment from $1.5 million to $3.5 million, and are offering $1,000 cash to any employee who brings in a successful recruit. They are even considering expanding the cash reward to non-profit organizations who bring in successful recruits. The environment is competitive, as LAPD makes changes so do others: New York City is struggling to hire 3,300 officers this year, Chicago is scrambling and California as a whole is facing a collective 8,500 vacancies (Bob Stesak of the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training). Academies can’t meet the demand – 5 years ago California police academies turned out 4,500 new officers annually; this year less than 3,000. Departments are changing requirements - raising the maximum age for recruits, forgiving some drug use if it was a one-time incident far in the past. Departments are stealing from one another, offering transfer bonuses up to $5,000, and having to increase salary and benefits to compete. Police forces are actively advertising in other cities with tv ads, fliers, recruitment drives that draw comparisons on lifestyle, housing prices, and salary and benefits. Canada is not alone, police departments in the US are facing recruit shortages as well, most notably in big cities. Police officials estimate more than 80 percent of the US's 17,000 law enforcement agencies have vacancies that many can't fill. In Texas, San Antonio needs 500, Dallas needs 800, Houston needs 1,200 and all are struggling to fill their ranks. There are many challenges to the problem of hiring more officers: youth not interested in policing, departments are required to do more, population of cities is growing, city budgets are constrained, and demographics (small youth cohort, baby-boomer retirements). For some departments, it's so bad they've resorted to advertising on highway billboards. U.S. Census Bureau estimates the national average of three officers for every 1,000 people. Back Up The province's plan to hire 42 new traffic sheriffs has been derided by a non‑union association of provincial RCMP officers, who say police work should be left to the professionals. A spokesman for Solicitor General Harvey Cenaiko on Friday announced the new sheriffs ‑ who will be stationed on Alberta's most treacherous stretches of highway ‑ one month before the completion of a provincial traffic safety pilot project. "This is all a hiring process that we're going through right now," said Solicitor General's office spokesman Andy Weiler. "We'll probably have an official rollout sometime this fall." Provincial traffic enforcement officers have been using RCMP detachments for office space, but Weiler said that is also slated to change. But Staff Sgt. Bob Meredith, elected to speak on behalf of the RCMP's Staff Relations Representatives, said the special constables will compound detachments' work. "Our position on it is that traffic safety work is police work and it should be done by police officers," he said. "These people will go out encountering criminal activity on our highways. ... "Our concern is for public safety, for police safety." "RCMP can focus on more serious crimes," Weiler said. "This isn't about replacing the RCMP; this is about complementing them." Back Up Governments and employers made a mistake in the 1990s when they introduced early retirement schemes to push out older employees, according to new research by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. It was thought at the time was that buyouts and early retirement would reduce the persistently high unemployment rates for younger workers in industrialized countries. But here's the wrinkle: “Many older workers were induced to leave by very generous early retirement schemes, but relatively few young people were subsequently hired in their places,” John Martin, the OECD's director of employment, labour and social affairs, said at a forum in Toronto Thursday. The early retirement trend has gained in popularity as life expectancies have increased — with women now living an average of 23 years after retirement and men living an average of 18 years. Governments are now considering ways to slow the expected exodus of baby boomers into retirement. Diane Finley, Canada's Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, said Thursday her government will conduct a review to “ensure that pensions don't serve as a disincentive to older workers remaining in the work force.” The RCMP is looking for you. In fact, the federal force is searching for about 100 New Brunswickers who welcome a challenge and would like to wear the world famous red serge. With a growing demand for RCMP members across Canada, recruiting efforts are at their highest since 1981. Cpl. Pat Thibodeau of the RCMP's J Division recruiting office said the demand for new members is real from coast to coast. "It's wild," Thibodeau said. "There's a national demand for positions." Thibodeau said the RCMP's training site in Regina ‑ known in police circles as "depot" ‑ is going straight out. It has added more buildings in an effort to churn out new officers. The need has been steadily rising for the last few years, she said. "Everyone is short of officers across the country," Thibodeau said. Figures released by the RCMP show a nationwide vacancy of 757.5 positions. B.C. has not had enough RCMP officers to investigate some of the province's most serious crimes for at least a decade, according to a confidential 2005 provincial government document. "There are insufficient resources to address the many serious crime investigations, including homicides, abductions, armed robberies, [marijuana] grow operations, home invasions, sexual predators, child pornography, exploitation of children on the Internet, white‑collar crime and high‑level organized crime," says the briefing note, prepared by the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor‑General, and obtained by The Vancouver Sun through freedom of information legislation. The briefing note, dated May 11, 2005, was prepared more than three months after Premier Gordon Campbell announced the province would add 215 RCMP officers in B.C. communities as part of a crime‑fighting strategy that is investing $122 million in policing, corrections and courts over the next three years. The federal Conservative government also pledged in its recent budget to spend $37 million to expand the RCMP training depot in Regina, and $161 million for more police officers and federal prosecutors. But the RCMP now faces the problem of finding enough recruits to fill the new positions. That has created a growing backlog of unfilled, but funded positions, and vacancies created by attrition, including early retirement. Vancouver RCMP Cpl. Tom Seaman said the force has already received the new provincial government funding to hire more officers to fill what has been called the "capacity gap" to deal with unfilled vacancies and increasing demand to shift investigators to such specialized units as the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT). Asked if the RCMP is concerned about the increased shortfall between funded positions and actual RCMP members, Seaman said: "It's a short‑term problem that is in the process of being addressed by aggressive recruiting." Back Up Sure the Mounties always get their man, but how about 94 men and women? The RCMP is stepping up recruitment efforts all over the country this year in order to replace the many officers who've reached retirement age. Divisions all over the country are being counted on to bring in new recruits and for New Brunswick's J Division, that means they need to land 94 recruits interested in joining the force. "There's a need for more officers, no doubt about it," says Const. Laurent Houle, speaking of both New Brunswick and Canada in general. Houle works with J Division's recruitment section and will be busy this year as they try to attract new people to the Mounted Police. Recruiting is now at its highest rate in 25 years to meet the nation‑wide demand. Houle says one in four or five candidates used to be accepted, but now it's more like one in eight. As an example of what the polygraph might catch, he says a candidate could lie about never being fired from a job. Codiac Superintendant Todd Shean says the national trend is being felt in this region. "This past fiscal year, we've seen six retirees," he says. "Across the country, the workforce is aging.” Back Up
Friday May 05 2006, The Edmonton Journal
Thursday May 04 2006, The Sudbury Star
Monday April 24 2006, Winnipeg Free Press
Friday April 28 2006, Las Vegas Review-Journal
Friday April 28 2006, The Edmonton Sun |
