Social Remains in Policing!

It’s interesting how many organisations frown upon their employees talking shop in social network forums. A fear mostly born out of the realisation; it’s difficult to control or influence what employees might say about their employer, never mind who might read it.

It goes without saying, people should always try to avoid any racist, discriminatory, slanderous/libelous comment and any form of incitement; convictions resulting from the recent riots prove the latter at least. But, shouldn’t that be the case in any social forum, be it on or off-line?

Irrespective of a need for individuals to take care in what they say (if only to avoid hurting others), and my personal preference for factual comment, as opposed to opinion based gossip, should an organisation really be running scared of their staff using social networks? It would appear so, particularly in policing circles however, perhaps forces should actually try to do something about the root causes of the issues, instead of berating the platform used to discuss them?

I would suggest this is wholly dependent upon how confident that organisation is at doing what they do well, and/or correctly managing the staff that work for them, ethically. Probably a good reason why many police forces are usually less than happy about social networking?

Despite having been retired for some time now, social networking sites like Facebook offer the opportunity to keep up to speed with all the issues impacting upon friends and past colleagues. Yes, there will always be the odd comment or two that originates from personal angst, or sour grapes about some personal issue or other however, remaining ‘connected’ allows vision of issues indicative of the bigger picture. How my previous employer has managed redundancies born out of government induced austerity measures is a good case in point. To say staff haven’t been happy of late, let alone the fact many have simply been shafted (often with little or no concern for the individual), is something of an understatement.

The whole process has been (mostly) overseen by the Human Resources team (aka Human Remains in derogatory parlance). It would be fair to assume that, any department that has seen such massive growth in recent years, apart from being ideal territory for the austerity knife themselves, would have the resources and ability to get things right. It would appear not to be the case?

Status Update – ********* has just had an email from NYP Duties team offering me paid overtime !!! I emailed back accepting !!! Do they not know I left 2 months ago !!!

Comment: Now I wonder who made the decisions about getting rid of support staff, only to leave the organisation short-staffed. I bet it begins with H?

Today (31st August) my wife received a telephone call from North Yorkshire Police asking her to work short-notice overtime to cover, wait for it… Staff shortages? She also left under redundancy two months ago. She was spoken to by HR via telephone on the Tuesday, received a letter on the Wednesday saying… “Your last day of service was Monday gone!” Since then no contact, no instruction about handing back any items issued by the force and certainly no letter of appreciation for seventeen years of service and hard work… Thanks but fcuk off!

I suspect most of the apparent failures have been born out of poor communications and record keeping; affected staff, their managers, HR teams and IT departments etc, all failing to communicate and effectively record, coordinate, control and update recorded information… These basic skills are required by any effective and professional organisation, not least the police.

The administrative machine of policing has become so large and unwieldly over recent years, is often managed by incompetents and they wonder way staff get angry. A fine example of tail wagging dog! There is no wonder that cuts have been required to save public money, much of which has been wasted and mismanaged in the past by fools.

If any of those managers should fall foul of redundancy (and I doubt it), I for one certainly won’t be booking a place on their celebratory brewery trip any ime soon… Be afraid, be very afraid of Human Remains and managers who speak with forked tongues!