POLICE officers are at particular risk of burnout, say experts, with three in four officers admitting to using annual leave to complete work or to taking holiday rather than sick leave.<\/p>\n
A recent research paper called \u2018Leaveism and work-life integration: The thinning blue line\u2019 found that 76% of police officers admitted to taking annual leave instead of phoning in sick or to using holiday to finish work that should be done in normal working hours.<\/p>\n
Mark Smith, Chairman of Essex Police Federation, said: \u201cIt is definitely something Essex Police officers do. It is because of sickness policies \u2013 they are trying to protect themselves in terms of wanting promotions or maintaining roles. The danger is that the force might not realise they have a problem. Our Secretary Phil Suarez is working with the force on this issue and the force has just signed up to the Blue Light programme, with the charity Mind.”<\/p>\n
He added: “I understand why officers are doing it but they shouldn\u2019t. Annual leave is recuperation time with their families. If you are sick then you are sick.”<\/p>\n
Professor Sir Cary Cooper, of Manchester Business School, who co-authored the paper, described leaveism as \u201cendemic in the public sector\u201d.<\/p>\n
Highlighting the trend at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development\u2019s annual conference, Sir Cary said that doing work when you should be recuperating or relaxing is unsustainable.<\/p>\n
He recommended strong guidance for workers on not accessing their emails at night, on days off or on holiday \u201cunless absolutely necessary\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmployers could also give people training in how to prioritise their work. Ultimately, unreasonable and unmanageable workloads simply should not be given to people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Barry Pirie, President of the Public Sector People Managers\u2019 Association, told CIPD that the figures on leaveism \u201cappear to be a symptom of higher expectations during a period of tighter resources\u201d.<\/p>\n
Another concern is said to be the rise of \u201cpresenteeism\u201d when people come into work despite being ill.<\/p>\n
Research by Jonathan Houdmont, Assistant Professor of occupational health psychology at the University of Nottingham, shows that police appear more likely to suffer \u201cburnout\u201d than other public sector workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a growing body of literature from around the world that shows police officers who score highly for emotional exhaustion are more likely to be aggressive, show impaired performance and be involved in assaults,\u201d said Mr Houdmont.<\/p>\n
John Murphy, from the Police Federation of England and Wales, said the police \u201ccannot do everything\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSaying no to things goes against the grain, but we\u2019ve got to look after our staff. The police will have to rationalise what cops do and say: \u2018Actually we can\u2019t do all of this anymore,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.cipd.co.uk\/pm\/peoplemanagement\/b\/weblog\/archive\/2015\/11\/25\/leaveism-the-new-public-sector-epidemic.aspx<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POLICE officers are at particular risk of burnout, say experts, with three in four officers admitting to using annual leave to complete work or to taking holiday rather than sick\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2574,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2573"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2573"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2586,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2573\/revisions\/2586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}