New Recruits in Western Australia Police - Case Study Example

New Recruits in Western Australia Police Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Introduction The security of people is the most of the people of Australia. The whole community relies on the policing policies which mean that the police should risk their lives so that they can offer services to the public which can improve their confidence. This led to development of policies like diversity which can help to improve the recruitment to the police training. However, in the recruitment of the police, there are various challenges which are encountered which should be solved to ensure effectiveness in the recruitment process (Western Auatralia Auditor General’s Report 2012). In this essay therefore, the concepts to be discussed include the internal and external factors which influence the recruitment of the police recruits. Further, the recommendations will be provided which can help to improve the recruitment process. Internal factors that affect the recruitment and selection of the police recruits There are various internal factors which have impacted on the recruitment of the police to the training. The first factor is the ineffectiveness in implementing the recruitment process and policies. WAP has effective recruitment policies and processes but they are not followed to the latter (Western Auatralia Auditor General’s Report 2012). From the research which has been conducted, WAP has managed to remove one recruit because of the poor performance. The process of removing the recruits should be concerned with integrity grounds which include criminal charges which are raised against the recruits. This means that the company has not fully implemented the recruitment process which is laid down by the management. In addition, another way in which WAP is not following the recruitment policies is the context of the training time. The recruitment policy requires that all the recruits should be removed from office on the basis of their competency. There are those who perform their functions effectively while there are those who struggle. However, the supervisors instead of removing those who do not perform well, WAP invests much on training of the recruits which consumes a lot of time and money (Fielder 2001). This is the biggest problem when the recruits leave the academy because there are recruits who may not perform their tasks effectively. In this way, WAP has not been able to produce consistent recruits because there are those who perform well while others perform poorly. All this is because of lack of following the recruitment policies effectively thus influencing the quality of training which is provided to al the recruits. However, it is argued that it is important to offer special training to some recruits so that they can act as team leaders. Another internal factor which impacts the recruitment of the recruits to WAP is the lack of benchmarking policy which can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the training which is offered to the trainees. WAP has not managed to formulate effective policy for assessing the skills of the recruits once they have undergone the training. In any training it is important to conduct an assessment which helps to determine the competencies of the recruits by comparing it another training organization (Cohen 2007). Lack of this policy affects the recruitment of the training policies because it is not possible to determine the skills of the recruits. This affects the training because it is not possible to offer critical skills which are possessed by other competitors in the policing service. This is because the academy is competent and operates in a learning environment which means that the training should be evaluated to determine its effectiveness. Further, the competency policies which are upheld by WAP are not effective in improving the performance of the trainees. There is no policy which demonstrates that the trainees should be competent even if they perform poorly in the academy (Lawman 2006). The trainees are not required to increase their competency but the policy requires that the trainees need to attend their training obligations. This policy hinders the recruitment and selection process in that the selection may lead to selecting recruits who are not competent in the policing service. This affects the effectiveness of the training because there are those recruits who may not meet their training needs. However, this could be an encouragement to the trainees as they will not be discouraged from working hard to meet the training objectives. Furthermore, another factor which impacts on the recruitment and selection of the recruits to the police training is lack of adequate experience among the supervisors. This affects the number of recruits who are selected to undergo the training in the police academy (Fielder 2001). The research found out that there are recruits who miss out spending adequate time for special activities during the training and this means that the numbers of recruits who are selected for the training are managed. Lack of training among the supervisors has made it hard to practice diversity at the training because there is no adequate training staff which is provided to the recruits. This hinders the adequate recruitment of the recruits to the police training academy because the number has to be regulated so that the available supervisors can have adequate time to train the employees. External factors impacting recruitment and selection of police recruits The external factors which have impacted on the recruitment and selection of the police recruits is changing environment for recruiting the people. WAP uses 22 dimensions which are used to recruit and select the applicants. However, due to the changing environment it has not been easy to select the most appropriate and competent recruits for the police training (Maximillien 2010). This has affected the implementation of the policies of WAP which can help to select the most competent recruits for the training. In this regard the changing environment has made the 22 dimensions to be ineffective. This has led to recruiting and selecting recruits who are not qualified to attend the police training. In addition, the global changes have led to ineffectiveness in the recruitment and selection of the police recruits. This is because there are changes in laws which are affecting the recruitment of the female recruits to the police academy. This has forced WAP to increase the number of female recruits from 13% in the year 2001 to 21% in the year 2011. This means that the global laws against biasness towards women have enabled WAP to consider increasing the recruitment of the female recruits as one of the strategies of improving diversity at the training academy (Baldwin 2009). Therefore WAP need to increase its recruitment of female police officers so that the force can improve its reputation which can attract more recruits to the training academy. Furthermore, the increasing demands in the police have also impacted on the recruitment and selection of the recruits. There are changing roles in the society which have impacted on the way at which the police supervisors look at the police of the female gender. Initially, police training was regarded as the job which is preserved for male recruits but due to the changes in the societal roles it has emerged that even the women recruits can also undergo the police training and perform duties equally as their male counterparts (Copeland 2009). This has impacted on the recruitment and selection of the recruits to the police force because the supervisors now consider increasing the number of women recruits to the police force unlike in the past when women employees were not considered to be competent as the male police officers. However, there are some tasks which can be performed better by male police officers as compared to female police officers. In this regard, despite the intention to increase the number of female police officers it should be taken into consideration that the police force with more male officers is stronger than the police post with more female officers (Allen & Ombudsman 1999). Therefore there should be an effective balance between male and female police officers. This is because globally there are various policies which are advocating for equality in the public service work like the police service commission. As a result of this, the supervisors should be able to recruit and select police recruits to the training academy based on the fact that there should be equality. This therefore has led to changes in the recruitment and selection polices to promote equality among the police recruits. The increasing population has also impacted the recruitment and selection of the police recruits to the training academy. This is because as the population increases the number of police officers also needs to be increased so that they can provide appropriate security to the people. The population of Australia has been increasing since the year 2007 which has prompted WAP to increase the number of the police recruits so that they can provide appropriate security to the public unlike when the population is small which require limited number of police officers (Padovani 2010). In this regard, the demographic changes in Australia have led to improved number of police officers who are recruited to the police force. The priority of the government is to protect its people so that it can be able to attract and retain more investors when they understand that security has been taken into consideration effectively. In this way, WAP must change its policies to meet the needs of the government. This is because as technology advances the policies also change in any sector thus influencing the processes and strategies of WAP which are implemented to improve the recruitment and selection of the recruits to the police academy (Summers 2007). Recommendations to overcome challenges In order to improve the effectiveness of the recruitment and selection process, there should be strategies which should be implemented so that the application rates can be increased with the aim of meeting the future targets of recruitment and selection. This will help to smoothen the process of recruitment. Furthermore, the recruitment and selection policies should be reviewed occasionally so that it could be ascertained the extent to which the WAP policies are implemented (Egan 2003). Through process auditing it is possible to ensure the policies of recruitment and selection process are implemented successfully. This will help to make any corrections which can otherwise affect the implementation of the recruitment policies. There should be a benchmarking policy which can enable the company to compare its recruitment process with those of other police departments. Benchmarking helps to ensure that the recruitment and selection policies are effective and meet the global standards of recruitment and selection. In this way, it is possible to ensure effective recruitment and selection strategy (Western Auatralia Auditor General’s Report 2012). Conclusion Policing is the process of providing security to the people. Western Australia Community rely more on police for security purposes. There are various positions within the police force and they include police constable and regular police. During the process of recruiting and selecting the police recruits is tedious and faced by a number of challenges. These challenges include lack of effective follow up of the procedure of recruiting the people and lack of benchmarking policy meaning that the company does not benchmark its processes with the other best performing police forces. These challenges can be managed by developing effective benchmarking policy and conduct process audit to ensure the policies and procedures are followed effectively. References Allen, M & Ombudsman, W. A 1999, "Police". in Annual Report, Prentice Hall. Baldwin, P 2009, "Australian police chief shortlisted for Met job". UK News. Cohen, J 2007, "Police Reunion Rumors Reaching Fever Pitch". Billboard. Copeland, S 2009, Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo and Pygmies. London: Harper Collins. Egan, S 2003, "The Police: Every Little Thing They Sang Was Magic". Goldmine. Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 16: 14. Fielder, H 2001, The Police: L'Historia Bandido. New York: Proteus. Lawman, W 2006, Police Aircraft Crash. Australian Government - Attorney General's Department. Maximillien, D 2010, "Hollywood Most Beautiful, Exclusive and Rarest Photos Album: Films, Superstars, Divas, Femmes Fatales, and Legends of the Silver Screen, Prentice Hall. Padovani, H 2010, Secret Police Man. Brighton: Penn Press. Summers, A 2007, I'll Be Watching You: Inside The Police 1980–83. Cologne: Taschen. Western Auatralia Auditor General’s Report 2012, New Recruits in the Western Australia Police, Office of the auditor general. Read More