Staffing the force: police staff in England and Wales’ experiences of working through a COVID-19 lockdown

Abstract

This online survey (N = 2365) examined the experiences of (non-sworn /non-warranted) staff serving in police forces in England and Wales during the March to July COVID-19 virus lockdown in the UK. Particular attention was paid to staff working from home, those able to partially work from home and those who remained at work in their usual police location. Home working staff were generally less stressed than those remaining partially or totally at their work location. Public interacting staff were particularly stressed. Regression analyses found that for all staff, irrespective of location, tiredness and finding work more difficult were implicated in increased stress. For those remaining at their place of work homeschooling and lacking preparedness for another lockdown were additional stressors. The importance of feeling valued is discussed. Some recommendations are offered in the light of these findings including the concept of moral injury repair.

Exploration of individual and work-related impacts on police officers and police staff working in support or front-line roles during the UK’s first COVID lockdown

“…This paper is the third in an interlinked series reporting some early empirical evidence of the impacts on police personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic experienced by police officers and non-warranted police staff in England and Wales. Results for the female officer respondents were reported in Fleming and Brown (2021a) whilst Fleming and Brown 2021b presented a comparison of police support staff who either worked from home or remained on the front-line. This paper focuses on women personnel, that is, police officers and police support staff and incorporates the dimension of home or front-line working.…”

Telework in public organizations: A systematic review and research agenda

“…However, elements emerging from the studies conducted after the outbreak and already published, lead us to believe that, in spite of hitches and complications, once telework has been experienced, going back is highly unlikely. Surveys and interviews, confirmed by the analysis of gray literature (Williamson, Pearce, et al, 2022), demonstrate the strong preference of civil servants to sustain this workplace practice (Chow et al, 2022;Singh et al, 2021), which gets as far as to influence their intention to stay (Fleming & Brown, 2022). While pre-pandemic studies often reported a priori resistance to telework of superiors, assumed to be the effect of fears of losing sight and control of their subordinates, original insights come from studies based on the experience of forced remoteness.…”

“…Uru et al (2022) suggest that the positive relationship between work engagement and organizational identification is stronger in public employees working remotely. Telework also moderates the relationship between potential stressors and well‐being (Fleming & Brown, 2022; Parent‐Lamarche & Boulet, 2021). According to Giauque et al (2022), telework strengthens the positive association between organizational freedom and employee engagement and perceived performance.…”

Police personnel stress during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Kano, Nigeria

“…COVID-19 regulations restricted people's liberty and freedom of movement, and police efforts to enforce the regulations elicited different reactions (Fleming & Brown, 2022). This type of restriction of movement is usually resisted by a section of the public.…”