By kind invitation of the Sussex Police Federation, I recently attended and presented the support Rank Success has to offer at the force’s ‘Police Federation Engagement Week’. This was a series of federation led support days across different locations and police premises in Sussex for the benefit of members.
In this blog I summarise and debrief from the roadshow itself, the innovative work going on in this local police federation to support its members, and share highlights from my exclusive interview with Chris Thompson, Treasurer and Deputy Secretary of Sussex Police Federation. I’ve embedded free podcasts I recorded several weeks ago for further details.
Federation Roadshow Creates a Buzz
The Sussex Police Federation put on a local roadshow covered Worthing, Crawley, John St, Brighton and Hove, Eastbourne, and Hastings Police Stations. Sussex’s local police federation reps were facilitating everything, by coordinating and bringing together a range of service providers and partners to support members.
The commitment from this local federation team was clear to me and it was interesting to see their work at a local level. Support included mortgage and legal advice, credit unions, insurance, travel deals, savings products, career progression guidance, and even wellbeing dogs. All of this occurred along with federation staff being available to support officers, listening to issues, fielding queries and impromptu conversations in a ‘pop up’ advice surgery.
Over three days where I was at Brighton and Hove, Eastbourne and Hastings, I saw local federation officers who were very active and energetic holding lots of one to one conversations with officers and duty supervisors, discussing issues, seeking federation advice or simply catching up. I noted this all took place in good spirits and with these events creating a ‘bit of a buzz’.
These events were well attended, at times they were very busy around shift changeovers. Cops gratefully snapped up the free merch (e.g. cups, key rings, card holders, drinks bottles, pens) and refreshments. Prize draws for handy electronics and other treats added to the positive buzz.
Being operational police stations, not all members on duty were able to get to the engagement events. Understandably many were out on enquiries, training or shooting out on response calls. Interviews in custody, compiling prosecution files or managing and supervising investigations all required servicing.
Consequently federation staff were to be seen ferrying freebies, cakes and doughnuts around different buildings spread across sites to reach as many members as possible. Reserve supplies of pastries, pens, notebooks and information resources were also left out in parade rooms and communal areas for members working night shift.
A Show of Support
“Earn your success based on service to others, not at the expense of others.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr.
From my perspective this engagement initiative ‘did what it said on the can’ namely bringing a lot of members together to engage with supportive options including information resources, guidance, and wellbeing support. Having previously attended a Sussex Police attestation event, speaking to new joiners about the importance of continuous professional development (CPD), I am aware Sussex Police Federation aim to support new joiners from the outset of their career.
In my time and experience as a Detective Sergeant and Inspector, the local Police Federation provided significant advice, guidance and support to me on various of issues. This is replicated across policing, support that goes on daily and in the short, medium and longer term.
Whilst the national Police Federation deals with more strategic matters like lobbying government on wider issues, local force reps are busy supporting officers with Professional Standards investigations, UPP issues, misconduct and discipline proceedings, wellbeing, advising members on police regulations, and more. Much of this is not always seen or widely appreciated.
The Sussex Police Federation’s ‘engagement week’ initiative is clear indication of their commitment to put as much support in as they can, where they can, at a time members probably need it most. On this point, I saw lots of officers (and police staff) engrossed in conversations, asking questions and making appointments with service providers to discuss options.
Given its success and favourable feedback from officers, plans are in place to repeat ‘engagement week’ as part of an ongoing programme of police federation support in Sussex. Clearly, Sussex Police Federation adopt a proactive approach in supporting their members. Other local federations would do well to learn from this good practice, at a time when the national body is facing a barrage of critique and challenges from its own members.
Conversation-Starters on Promotion
It was a pleasure to speak personally with many officers at John St, Brighton & Hove, Eastbourne and Hastings Police Stations, while offering my own Rank Success pocket note books and pens. My quality free merch items clearly provoked questions and triggered supportive conversations with qualified officers aspiring to promotion to Sergeant, Inspector, and Chief Inspector.
Having the opportunity to speak with so many officers was enlightening. I found high levels of drive, energy, ambition and a strong interest from individuals aspiring to promotion. Despite being ‘run ragged’ with demand, many younger officers (and their supervisors too) stopped to speak, bag themselves a free notebook and pen and chat.
Some individuals have found themselves in the last chance saloon and do not want their hard won exam qualification to expire. Others were demoralised, following previous unsuccessful board attempts. Mounting pressure was clearly felt towards an ‘all or nothing’ final attempt to convert their exam into substantive promotion success and the need to improve the odds of success this time.
These officers and others going for promotion for the first time (or wanting to be successful THIS time), were all genuinely seeking the kind of signposting, guidance and insight available which Rank Success specialises in.
As such, I spoke with many officers curious about the Rank Success posters and stand, including response, CID and others from specialist units. I noticed a couple had walked by previously and done a ‘double take’, not quite sure what was being offered. That became clear from the outset in my first conversation with a response officer at Brighton who (having just acquired one of the poshest doughnuts available on the market) approached me:
“I didn’t even know this kind of thing existed.”
This led to an interesting conversation (one of many I had) highlighting common themes. Namely that many in policing are surprised to discover bespoke resources and loads of FREE stuff exists to support a quantum leap forward in their promotion ambitions. That’s despite of course my best efforts over the last decade to share free stuff (e.g. podcasts, blogs, videos, guides) around the UK, and having supported thousands to successfully achieve police promotions.
Other interesting comments and notable conversation topics and snippets I shared in my podcast from officers and supervisors included…
“This is not for me, I’m happy as a supervisor… but I have aspiring officers on my team so I will direct them to your site.” (support and inspire!)
Another Inspector personally brought their team members down to speak with me about support, tips and options offered. Sent their late turn down too!
“I don’t want my sergeant coming past here and getting promoted, he’s too good, kind, caring and caters for people’s needs.” (Being supportive – no.1 leadership behaviour)
It was good to see many officers interested in developing themselves for the future, taking ownership of their own development. Whilst stood scrolling my Rank Success site on their phone, another officer said:
“Surprised forces don’t offer this kind of support. Can’t believe how much is free!”
Well, yes; the lack of meaningful promotion and leadership support from forces or other policing organisations is why I began Rank Success in the first place! And yes, it is free, thanks in part to my premium podcast subscribers. So fill your boots! Among the interest was learning that an array of free podcasts exist where I have exclusive interviews with senior police leaders.
One officer, recently qualified, aspiring to partake in the Sussex’s upcoming force selection process had “No idea where to even start, butterflies in my stomach”.
All the above led to supportive conversations, signposting and reassurance from me. And thanks to the forward-thinking and broad scope of support the local federation here offers, Sussex officers will also now find Rank Success on their Sussex Police Federation website (including an exclusive discount!) to support their ongoing career progression.
Exclusive Podcast Interview with Sussex Fed
During the engagement week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Chris Thompson, Treasurer and Deputy Secretary of Sussex Police Federation. This podcast episode is linked above and another perspective well worth listening to in my series of interviews with police leaders.
Chris was kind enough to answer questions about what the federation were hoping to achieve with engagement week, shared his thoughts around promotions, fairness of the process, support to officers, the federation priorities, and much more. He also shared information about the Sussex federation’s new informative magazine, ‘Ten Twenty’.
I asked Chris what the Federation do to support members who want to progress their professional careers and if there are there any plans to do more? We discussed perceptions of unfairness around promotion processes, lack of training once officers are promoted, and the poor standard of meaningful feedback for candidates who are unsuccessful in a promotion selection process. Chris kindly shared some of his own experience around that.
Listen to the full podcast entirely free and embedded above, but here’s some of the highlights that resonated with me…
On promotion support I asked Chris “What do the federation do to support its members who want to progress their professional police careers and are there any plans to do more?”
“You’re one of the examples Steve… I’m sure you’ve heard this week that we need to get that message out more… sometimes it’s really hard for officers to understand the role of the federation and what we can’t do is pay for things that the force should be doing, so we can’t go out and commission services to assist people with their promotion, but what we can do and what we have done recently is set up some peer support groups. That has started with new chief inspectors who were promoted and there were two or three focuses on why we did that, firstly the training in Sussex at least for when you are promoted is often ‘there’s some stripes, there’s some pips, there’s another pip, crack on’ and that’s not right.”
“One of our purposes is to make sure that everyone achieves the professional standards and has the opportunity to succeed… when we talk about officers who may not be performing to their best, rather than waiting for the force to try and muddle through a support plan and then go through informal stage and stage 1 and then we get involved and say ’there’s no ‘support’ in that plan… We ask supervisors to come and have a chat with Andy (our equality lead)… and we can help the force help officers reach that professional standard and indeed exceed it.”
“The key to learning is feedback. It is nearly impossible to learn anything without it.” – Steven Levitt
On the PFEW pay and morale survey, I put to Chris, “Many officers in policing still think that promotion is unfair, whether that involves PDRs, application forms, interviews or something else, what would you or the federation ideally want as the fairest process to promote the best candidates into limited positions?” He responds…
“Whether you have a promotion process which is boards and application forms or quizzes… it will always be seen as disadvantage by some groups… I think the key isn’t what the process is, I think it’s the openness, it’s the transparency and it’s the feedback which we often forget that makes a real difference… without feedback, without notes, without transparency how is that fair? That’s not uncommon, I’ve had officers we’ve supported who are waiting for the letter through the door saying your board is coming up – here’s the day – because they were ‘ready now’, and when they call up to say my letter’s not come, have you sent it to the right address? Oh you’re not ready now, you are ’suitable for current role’… that officer’s leaving.”
I’d like to thank Chris again for kindly giving his time and sharing his thoughts on this interview, and also Sussex Police Federation for involving me in their forward-thinking initiative.
What Makes a Good Leader?
As part of my presentation at this Sussex roadshow, I took the opportunity to ask the following question:
“What makes a good leader?”
I wanted to discover from the ‘rank and file’ of Sussex how cops want to be led. It’s also a fantastic example police promotion interview question, albeit laced with boobytraps!
I simply had this written on the side of a large jar and I invited officers if they would be kind enough to grab a post it note and write down their first thoughts. These responses were really interesting, so thanks if you popped in your thoughts! Above is a picture of this very jar safely home in my garden shed office, before I refined the results.
I will share and expand upon the results in a subsequent blog and podcast. But in essence, I’ve organised the collective replies into a new leadership framework, partly to demonstrate how easy it is, to offer an alternative to the “new” CVF, while also demonstrating a timeless set of desirable police leadership behaviours in today’s VUCA world.
So watch this space for more, and until then, I hope you found this debrief of my visit to Sussex insightful.
Kind regards, Steve
Want to go further right now? Hit the ground running with your promotion preparation. Get your personal digital promotion toolkit, and/or my Police Promotion Masterclass. Contact me to arrange personal coaching support, or why not also try my podcast for ongoing police leadership CPD.