The New Westminster Police Department is assessing its need for dedicated human resources staff.
The police department, which has 186 full-time employees and 27 auxiliary staff, does not currently have a dedicated HR staff within the organization.
“Other municipal police agencies in the Lower Mainland have specific human resource staff ranging from one to three staff for smaller departments and five to six for moderate-sized departments,” said a report to the police board. “These departments also have additional police officer positions, which provide support in the areas of training, recruiting and wellness.”
A report to the police board regarding the NWPD’s 2023 operational budget, said the department has a recruiting coordinator, whose focus is solely on recruiting. It stated that the department’s human resource management staff primarily consists of a staff sergeant and the inspector of administration, and when needed, assistance is sought from the City of New Westminster’s human resources staff or employment lawyers.
The report, presented at the June police board meeting, said the police department would provide and update on its needs assessment once that work has been completed.
“We are assessing the need for a human resource manager who can provide the expertise to lead our growing human resource management processes, develop our strategic human resource planning and enhance our equity, diversity and inclusion strategy,” said the report. “Current salary ranges for this position range from $110,000 to $145,000 annually (does not include benefits).”
Mary Trentadue, a member of the police board, said she’d like to know a bit more about the HR positions being considered, as they’re new positions and would have a “fair impact” on the police department’s budget in future years.
“I’m pretty sure I can guess the impact of not having HR in the department, how that affects hiring and recruitment, and all that,” she said. “But I think for a budget item that will be fairly significant and ongoing, it would be good to have a much better understanding of what are the blocks that are created by not having the in-house HR and what are the benefits.”
Police board member Heather Boersma said she’s “always a little bit reticent to hire a manager” and suggested it may be worth considering if an HR consultant could be a starting point for addressing the department’s HR needs, possibly at a bit of a lower cost than hiring permanent staff.
Chief Const. Dave Jansen told the police board that no business case has been prepared at this time for the HR position, so more information will be presented to the board at a future meeting. He said Insp. Andrew Perry has been working diligently on this issue and has reached out to other professionals and organizations.
“I think our advantage has always been historically is that we’ve relied on the city and really relied on their expertise,” he said. “But we all know the city has their own (staffing) challenges and … it’s just getting to that stage now where it makes a lot of sense to look at options.”
