Low Morale In The Workplace Essay

In today’s society being a police officer is more difficult and dangerous than it has ever been before. An officer has many duties and they consist of enforcing the laws while making sure not to infringe on a person’s property or life. Officers are forced to make many split second decisions and when they don’t react correctly the media heavily scrutinizes them. This causes the community to mistrust its officers and can lead to a bad relationship between both parties. Along with the stresses of the job, officers may face issues with fellow employees and even bring in problems outside of work. All of these factors can lead to stress for many police officers and in result may cause low morale. It is the job of the department to manage their employees …show more content…
A recent internal report on the Fresno Police Department found that two-thirds of the officers are suffering from low morale. According to the Fresno bee, “Low morale pervades the entire culture of FPD but is particularly intense in patrol division and civilian units,” the report says. “Two-thirds of sworn officers (68 percent) and more than half of civilian employees (52 percent) believe the morale problem presents a serious or severe threat to the ability of the FPD to perform its mission” (Fresno Bee, 2016). This is a major problem, because it is bad to have officers on patrol who are not in the right state of mind to perform their job. The patrol division and civil units are arguably the most important parts of the department because they deal directly with citizens. If citizens see this type of dysfunction it could lead to even more problems for the department. When an officer shows up to work and is already upset and does not want to be there, the potential for a dangerous situation is much more probable. This is one of the main reasons why low morale needs to be taken