The Hong Kong Police Force employs a multi-generational work force, with new generations representing somewhat of a departure from old learning styles and values. This has been recognised by the Force, who have sought to accommodate the web savvy Gen-X and Gen-Y.
As we progress further into the decade, more and more baby boomers will begin to retire from the Force, creating a large number of senior positions that need to be filled. Many of the people filling these positions will be from Gen-Y. As at November 2010, about 6,300 or 22% of staff in the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) belong to Gen-Y and it is forecast that within five years, they will make up 41% of the Force.
Kevin Woods, Assistant Commissioner of Police commented, “We are going to be losing a lot of people over the next few years, and we are having to replenish. We are finding that the cohort at the moment is much bigger, so training demand has gone up dramatically. One of the major problems we face is training extraction, which involves front line units releasing staff to attend in-service training.” He went on to say, “We have had to change the way we deliver our content. We are currently exploring ways to deliver the building blocks, as mentioned with e-learning. We are looking for a way to either get more into courses, or shorten the courses, leading to the ability to train higher amounts of officers, while still keeping to the main values.”
Phillip Sham, Chief Superintendent of Police, highlighted a number of changes the Force has implemented in order to update and appeal to the younger generations, “We have changed content, adopted new methods and teaching. We support self-learning and collaborations, and lastly, we enhanced the data security and awareness.” Sham went on to point out that when they took their training programme to INTERPOL, other police departments were quite amazed at what the HKPF has been able to do with this challenge.
The new generation of employees wants ongoing learning and the engagement of management. Capitalising on Generation X and Y’s interest in technology, the Police College switched to blended learning in 2000, with e-learning packages, game based e-quizzes and interactive simulations proving extremely popular.
In order to enhance the training content offered, the HKPF now also partners with one of the local universities to offer police psychology and social studies classes. Sham quipped that Gen-Y was so named because they always ask ‘why, why, why?’ He explained, “We want to offer them more on: why, instead of the past when it was more on: how.”
There is also a new offering in officers’ training, psychological competency. Gavin Brown, Chief Superintendent of Police explained, “It gives people the skills to emphasise and appreciate how policing effects other people; soft skills in other words. It’s appreciating that you may have to deal with a situation from a police perspective, but you have got to appreciate how the recipient of the interaction is finding the interaction. If we can’t put ourselves in the person’s shoes; it makes things difficult for us, them and everyone else around.
We have to be aware of how people will react and perceive what we do.” Woods pointed out that this was not introduced just because of Gen-Y, as all officers receive the training.
Another aspect of psychological competency training is that it teaches trainees how to manage their life style, and builds up an officer’s resilience and ability to perform their duty and achieve understanding. This program is quite effective and goes a long way to provide officers with a way to achieve work-life-balance.
As noted above, the baby boomers will start to retire in larger numbers in the coming years and this will create a large number of positions that will need to be filled. The HKPF faces the same problems as other organisations: do we hire internally or externally?
Woods pointed out that the HKPF looks for a blended intake of recruits for training as inspectorate rank offices—both internal recruits from within the Force and direct entry recruits from outside the Force. Following selection, both undergo an extensive nine-month training course that aims to give them the skills necessary to do their jobs.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
