Bonita Croft, the new chair of the Calgary Police Commission, poses for a photo at the Calgary Police Commission boardroom on Tuesday, November 26, 2019.
An annual survey of Calgary Police Service employees has found that job satisfaction and morale have increased compared to last year. However, the results indicate that some views of workplace culture and respect continue to decline.
The report, completed by Leger Research on behalf of the Calgary police commission, indicates the number of surveyed employees who are proud to work at the service “jumped significantly” to 73 per cent this year from 64 per cent last year.
Respondents also had more positive answers when it came to morale within the service. In response to the statement “morale at CPS is good,” 18 per cent said they strongly agree — a bump from just four per cent last year — and 33 per cent said they moderately agree, up from 20 per cent in 2018.
The report also found significant increases in the number of surveyed employees who are satisfied with their current job, the proportion of employees who would recommend working for the service, and in employees who indicated they are motivated to go above and beyond their basic job description.
Bonita Croft, who was selected as police commission chair on Tuesday, called the results promising.
“We reached the highest response rate ever this year, which is quite encouraging to see that level of participation, and we saw improvements, some quite significant, in many of the results,” she said. “The report shows a significant turnaround from some recent trends. Those who strongly agree that morale at CPS is good is more than four times higher than it was in 2018, which is really wonderful to see.”
In contrast, just 10 per cent of survey respondents said they strongly agree with the statement that “CPS fosters a culture of respect” — a decrease from 13 per cent last year. The number of employees strongly agreeing with the statement “The CPS values differing thoughts, ideas and perspectives among its employees” also decreased, from 12 per cent last year to nine per cent in 2019.
When asked whether a climate of trust exists between CPS management and employees, just six per cent strongly agreed, and only eight per cent strongly agreed that CPS management and employees are working toward the same goals.
Croft told the commission that “there is still work to be done.”
“The commission has seen recent efforts to tackle many of the issues that are important to employees, and while these efforts are showing results, we aren’t there yet,” she said. “We did see some scores continue to drop, including those related to respectful culture measures and trust between senior leaders and employees.”
Chief Mark Neufeld said this year’s survey results showed “some turnaround in the number of trends that were problematic.” But he also acknowledged that “there is certainly some more work to do.”
“I think that it’s a bit of culture change we’re working on here, so it’s going to be a long march in the same direction,” he said during a police commission meeting Tuesday.
Neufeld said the service will look at specific concerns in particular districts across the city, then charge unit commanders with putting together action plans to address those concerns.
The study was conducted by Leger Research as an online, 12-minute survey between Aug. 14 and Sept. 10 and was available to all 2,947 sworn and civilian members of the CPS. A 60 per cent participation rate was achieved.
