Recommendations

Recommendation 54.2

MPD should provide training to patrol and investigative unit sergeants on methodologies to conduct regular, ongoing team meetings with their subordinates, with a focus on helping them understand why such interactions with their subordinates supports their efforts to lead, control, and direct their work.  Consideration should be given to providing such training in the Supervisors course. The training should also include a focus an using such meetings to organize and coordinate community policing activities.

Current:

The department recognizes the importance of encouraging open and consistent two-way communication between the executive command, supervisors, and sworn and civilian employees. The department encourages a team concept and messages consistently to supervisors the importance of members understanding the department’s mission and their engagement in community policing. Department managers at all ranks hold regular staff meetings to share and message important department information. A number of additional resources for information sharing have been made available to department members, such as the LPO Blog, various SharePoint sites, department video messaging from the chief, CERTT Topic Acknowledgements, intranet-based roll call directives, social media sites hosted by MPD and daily conference calls hosted by executive commanders and attended by supervisors and officers of various ranks from all department operational districts and divisions. The ability for two-way communications to occur across the rank structure has improved greatly over the past several years. The department recognizes that continued improvements can occur in communications structures and requests technical assistance and best practices for consistency in messaging from the top down.