One more piece of evidence that illustrates perfectly the end result of ASUPD’s mismanagement:
We’re told that a grand total of six more officers will be out of ASUPD by the end of December (this number includes the officer who just went to MCCPD). That is unreal! All six of these officers are intelligent and talented, and we’re so happy to hear that they’ve decided to move on to greener pastures. It’s not rocket science! Treat your people well, impart them with the tools to do their jobs effectively, and trust they will do the right thing! Intervene when necessary, and stamp out fires/conflicts before they fester.
If everything that has been said here on The Integrity Report is not true, Chief Pickens, then why are so many people fleeing from ASUPD in droves? You can keep trying to explain away us and postings on indeed.com as just disgruntled employees, but the proof is in the numbers. There is obvious validity to our assertations here.
All these people who have left and who are actively trying to leave have formulated their own opinions of ASUPD based on their experiences in dealing with the department, seeing how others are treated, and hearing how other PDs in the valley treat their employees.
ASUPD can’t logically function with the staffing numbers they currently have, and aren’t able to staff the satellite campuses now. How much longer are you going to claim that there’s no problem, Chief Pickens?
It’s time to wake up and be honest with yourselves, the cliché about the department’s issues coming from a few disgruntled employees just doesn’t hold water. The challenge is to find people below the rank of Sergeant that want to stay around, not who’s wanting to leave.
If you run a enterprise in a free country like a bunch of petty bitch despots you simply can’t pay people enough money to stay. Is that really so hard to understand? Let’s face the facts, unless you are a Sergeant = 70K or above what are your incentives for staying at the ASU Police Department? Anyone?
It has to either be that you enjoy working here (firearms) or you can’t leave the place because nobody will take you. All it takes is a handful of rotten apples placed in the right decision making areas to make the workplace somewhat less than desirable and not as advertised.
The apples are there to stay because nobody above them cares, it doesn’t affect them…yet. When the chain of command is useless, when supervisors aren’t supervised, then the guys on the bottom start asking why the hell they are there. Ever one of us knows people from other departments we trust, we can make reasonable comparisons, and consequently many of us have whether we are still stuck there or out the door.
If command thinks the number to worry about is six they are only deluding themselves further, avoiding the issues. The number is much higher than six. Bigger agencies will be scaling up their hiring to make ASUPD less desirable than ever. The morale, atmosphere, attitudes, opportunities, incentives, respect from within and without, step pay, top pay, etc. A bunch of people who enjoy where they work, it’s important to you, so why wouldn’t it be important to the people working under you? This is a Sunday school lesson never learned, but ASUPD command has been flunking out under Pickens for too long.
The chief’s bosses need to take corrective action to fix the department for the better before it gets even worse. A complete reboot on the 3rd floor and removal of problem children on the 2nd would be a good start. Mismanagement on this level is unacceptable by any standard.
How many more officers can ASUPD handle losing? That’s a really good question. Has anyone looked at the schedule lately? Now imagine taking six people off it. By the time they’re gone more people will be gone, so let’s take a few more off. Now what do you see? Again the new strategic plan should be called, “Doing Something.”