Discipline #2 – Color Me Blue
March 6, 2012 – 8:00 am
Years ago, I worked for a very safety conscious outfit that was seeking national accreditation. A coworker of mine was entering his final year of employment before retirement so he was assigned the task of putting together the department’s first comprehensive safety manual. He worked very diligently on the project and about ten months later, he came into my cubical to ceremoniously present me with my copy of the completed manual. He also presented me with document that I had to sign stating that I had received and read the three inch manual. He was quite pleased when I told him how happy I was to receive the voluminous document. However, his smile quickly faded when I immediately placed the three-ring binder on the floor to block open the door to my cubical. To my knowledge, that safety manual was never moved again – and I definitely never read it! (Note: Most of the policies pertained to the lab personnel and I worked in training.)
Are your employees using your policy manual for unintended purposes like blocking open a door or window? How do you know that they have read and understand your policies. Many agencies require employees to sign a document certifying that they have read and understand the manual but face it, many employees will never read the your policy manual. Let’s be realistic, reading agency policies is almost as interesting as reading the telephone book. To make matters worse, the size of the policy manual for many accredited agencies has ballooned to over four inches or even multiple volumes.
I fear that we may be fast approaching the point where it is no longer reasonable to expect employees to be familiar with of the nuances of this great American novel that we call a policy manual. I picture a scenario where an employee’s attorney puts the chief or sheriff on the stand during a grievance hearing and quizzes him on the content of the policy manual. Unfortunately, many criminal justice administrators may not familiar enough with their policy manuals to withstand this type of examination. Of course, if the chief or sheriff is unable to answer the attorney’s questions about his policies, the court may question the reasonableness of expecting his subordinates to know the policies. Fortunately, there are some simple adjustments that can be made to the policy manual to help avoid this scenario.
I know this will sound like heresy to the accrediting entities but not all of those standards, and their associated policies, are equal in importance. For instance, if you knew that an officer was only going to read two policies, would you rather he read the use of force and pursuit policies or the policies that discuss vacation time and educational benefits? No brainer, right? Well why not simply identify the “critical” policies and print them on a different color paper – maybe blue. These “blue policies” should include all of the policies that address high liability enforcement issues. So how will you make sure that the officers have read and understand these critical policies? Test them! That’s right, everyone from supervisors on down should be required to take a written quiz on the key points of these “blue policies.”
Now that you have identified a workable process do not stop with just critical policies. Next, identify the “important” policies and print them on tan paper. These “tan policies” may not involve life and death issues but they should address issues that are important to the effective operation of the agency. These policies, along with the “blue policies”, should be used as the basis for daily roll call training.
The balance of the policies should address “reference” issues and they should be printed on white paper. The “white policies” should be comprised of policies that are not important for the day to day operation of the agency. Vacation, sick leave and educational assistance policies might fall into this group.
This color coding system breaks the policy manual “elephant” into manageable sections. More importantly, all employees are put on notice that they will be held accountable for knowing the “blue policies.” Provided that the number of “blue policies” are held to a minimum, a court is more likely to determine that it is reasonable to expect all officers to be thoroughly familiar with these policies. As a result, if an officer violates a “blue policy” and disciplinary action becomes necessary, the agency is more likely to successfully defend against a grievance.
If you would like to read the other articles in this four part series, just type “discipline” in the search box or click on the “Supervision” category in the right column.
My Essentials of Effective Supervision course includes an extensive discussion of employee discipline and a variety of other topics that will improve your supervisory skills. This four day course is pre-approved for DCJS in-service credit in Virginia so it can be conducted at any location. For more information, send me an e-mail at rich@rlsei.com or give me a call at 540.797.3853.