Morale and Money - Motivation for Movement?
According to the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) Pay and Morale Survey 2018, almost 59% of respondents said that their own personal morale was low. Around nine out of ten respondents felt that morale in their force and morale in the police service as a whole was low.
As in previous years, the treatment of the police as a whole was most likely to have a negative impact on respondents’ morale, with 86% of respondents saying that this negatively affected their morale.
46% of respondents said that they were dissatisfied with their opportunities for training and more than half of respondents (56%) said that they were dissatisfied with the Performance and Development Review (PDR) process. More than one in four respondents said that they had not had a PDR in the last year.
80% of respondents said that they had not applied for promotion to a higher rank. The most common reasons given for not applying for promotion were that it would not be worth it for the pressures of the job, that they enjoyed their current role, that it would not be worth it for the salary on offer and that the promotion process was too time consuming.
More worrying than any of the above however is the fact that 45% of respondents said that they worried about the state of their personal finances either every day or almost every day, compared to 47% who said that they worried occasionally and 9% who said that they either never or almost never worried about the state of their personal finances.
41% of respondents said that they had enough money to cover all of their essentials every month. Put another way almost 60% of police officers in the UK from Police Constables to Chief Inspectors do not feel they can maintain an acceptable financial quality of life purely from their police remuneration. Of that 60%, 20% of them (12% of the total) said that they either never or almost never had enough money to cover all of their essentials.
UK police officers are being asked to contend with all of the above whilst being tasked with protecting the public, upholding the law, supporting and contributing to their families wellbeing as well as maintaining their own physical and mental health. The truth is, on the face of it, the majority do exactly that which is testament to their resolve, strength of character and dedication to the roles they undertake.
One question worth asking however is are these the only options open to them and the simple answer is No. There are numerous other options they can consider both inside and outside law enforcement, inside and outside of public service as well as inside and outside of the UK.
Our next blog post will look at one of these options in more detail, specifically relating to options outside of the country where in June 2018 a survey undertaken found that the public’s perceived level of trust in the organisation in question was 71% and feedback from customers through stakeholder surveys found that, based on their direct experiences, trust levels were higher still. They also happened to be voted the 3rd Most Attractive Employer in the country in 2019.
If you can’t wait until then why not drop an email to srsinternational@servoca.com with “International Possibilities” in the subject and we can tell you more.