Page 131 - Anne Bruce - Building A HIgh Morale Workplace (2002)

Hard-Core Morale Cases 111

Compressed Work Schedules
Bolster LAPD Morale
Officer morale within the Los Angeles Police Department
(LAPD) was dangerously low.A USC/UCLA survey reported in
October 2000 that 57% of officers would leave the department if they
had a chance.And in 2000, over 300 officers resigned from the LAPD
for a variety of reasons, the highest number in years.
That’s when the LAPD decided to address the root of the prob-
lem—low officer morale.
Instead of spending millions on recruiting efforts, the LAPD
launched a program to fight sagging morale—a compressed work
schedule or a “4/10” (a four-day, 10-hour work schedule) for officers.
This is the same successful program offered for years by the Los
Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and other law enforcement
agencies in San Diego, Orange County, Long Beach, Burbank, and other
places.
When implementing the new 4/10 schedule, supervisors had to be
more creative with their scheduling, but it’s been worth it.The com-
pressed scheduling programs have greatly increased officer morale and
productivity everywhere they’ve been tried throughout California.
In a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, compressed work sched-
ules for law enforcement officers were the number-one suggestion
from female officers and third overall among respondents for improv-
ing morale.The program is especially popular among younger officers
and potential recruits who tend to be very family-focused.

knows of the program. “Sometimes you wonder if you’re really
making a difference. So when something comes along that

actually tells you that you’re saving lives by taking certain dras-
tic steps, then you begin to feel good again about why you’re
out there on the streets in the first place.”

Managers Must Re-energize Employee Morale in

Tough Environments

As a manager, it’s important to acknowledge that sometimes
the people you need most in the organization—the ones who

will keep you in business and make you look good—are the
ones handling the most difficult, most stressful, and often most