New Officers Feeling More Work Strain

NEW officers are feeling less job satisfaction and experiencing more welfare concerns than their counterparts last year, according to the Police Uplift Programme New Recruits Onboarding Survey 2022.

Four in 10 officers told researchers they were ignoring their personal life needs due to work strain and said tension and stress from work adversely affects the rest of their life; compared with 33% in the same period last year.

And the survey showed 38% of new recruits said their job leaves them with little time or energy to do other things.

The experiences of new officers from minority ethnic backgrounds are not as positive as those of their white counterparts, the research found.

Positive responses to questions generally decreased as length of service and officer age increases.

Hampshire Police Federation Chair Zoë Wakefield said officers are getting insufficient support. She explained: “We had a situation where an officer, first day out of training, went to their station and the only person that could take them out on the patrol was another student officer.

“There’s so little experience on the teams and the experience is being pulled left, right and centre to deal with demand elsewhere. Student officers should be welcomed by their tutor who’s going to be there all the time to look after them.”

She said the problem was in part caused by recruiting officers during the Covid pandemic, which was an “extremely difficult time” for them to embark on a new career.

She said: “Their training has been all over the place; some online, some in classrooms. It’s been a really challenging time. I think a lot of their learning is done online which I personally don’t agree with. I think you need to be in the classroom where you can have really involved discussions.

“For a lot of them, there’s no-one to look after them in their stations and they are just run ragged. They are going from job to job to job to job.”

To see the report in full, go to: www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-uplift-programme-new-recruits-onboarding-survey-2022/police-uplift-programme-new-recruits-onboarding-survey-2022-report