Workplace culture and the Ontario Provincial Police

Overview of the Ontario Provincial Police

Policing is a difficult job, both for the individual member of a police service, and organizationally. The members and the leadership of the OPP navigate difficult decisions and complex human experiences on a daily basis across the province.

The OPP is a large and multi-faceted organization – one of North America’s largest deployed police services - making administration across the variety of business and geographic lines a major undertaking. The scope and breadth of the OPP is massive and the task of fostering and sustaining a healthy workplace culture must be understood in that context.

While the numbers alone do not tell the whole story, they illuminate the enormity of the operation:^{footnote 1[1]}

• more than 5,700 uniformed officers, 2,600 civilian employees and 700 auxiliary officers
• over one million square kilometres of land and water under its jurisdiction
• frontline policing services to 324 Ontario municipalities
• patrolling over 127,000 kilometres of provincial roadways
• responding to over 2 million calls in 2018 within 12 seconds or less, with over 1 million requiring police presence
• over 525,000 charges laid in 2018

The OPP’s mandate in Ontario is very broad, encompassing:

• patrolling all provincial highways and numerous provincial waterways
• investigating province-wide and cross-jurisdictional major crimes and major cases
• providing front-line municipal police services under contract to 324 communities
• providing air support for search and rescue, offender transport and investigation
• providing administrative support to several First Nations Policing programs
• providing specialized response services including for terrorism, organized crime and security
• and providing provincial offender transport services^{footnote 2[2]}

In order to fulfill this mandate, the OPP’s leadership team is made up of the Commissioner, three Deputy Commissioners who oversee Traffic and Operational Support, Investigations and Organized Crime, and Field Operations, as well as a Provincial Commander in charge of Corporate Services. The OPP is a division of the Ministry of the Solicitor General at the provincial government level in Ontario.^{footnote 3[3]}

The workforce of the OPP is very large. At the time of this Report, it comprises 4,520 constables, 478 frontline managers (sergeants and staff sergeants), 3,553 civilians in non-supervisory roles and 204 members at the Commissioned Officer level and above.

The majority of the OPP’s programs and services that presently respond to mental health, bullying, harassment and workplace culture issues are administered by Corporate Services, through the Career Development Bureau, located in GHQ in Orillia.

Identifying the challenges

The issues

Ensuring a resilient workforce able to meet society’s needs and safeguard the health of its members is the goal of every police service. This is a complex undertaking, impacted by evolving scientific and social understanding of health and wellness, budgetary constraints, administrative hurdles, geography, workplace relationships, and human frailty.

There is no police service the Panel has been able to identify that has successfully navigated all these issues with the ability to provide a perfect workplace to its members. Internationally and across Canada, police services are grappling with myriad issues surrounding mental health, workplace conflict and the nature of police work.^{footnote 4[4]}

The OPP struggles with these common issues - inadequate provision of support and services to members with mental health concerns, inability to successfully respond to workplace conflict bullying and harassment and, overall, the erosion of confidence in the organization’s capacity to provide a healthy workplace with resilient employees. These issues are multifaceted, without a singular cause or solution. Members experiencing trauma or workplace conflict may have multiple and exacerbating injuries as they work through the system. The organization must manage its workload, managerial needs, geographic diversity and fiscal constraints.

These issues have been raised before. The report by André Marin, the Ontario Ombudsman in 2012, “In the Line of Duty”,^{footnote 5[5]} was an important call to action. While the OPP was responsive to the Ombudsman’s report, the OPP’s activities had limited success. Significant advances in understanding and dialogue with respect to mental health have occurred in the intervening years.

The challenge for this Panel was to identify workplace culture issues facing the OPP with a specific focus on mental health, bullying and harassment. Through our inquiry we have identified a number of key themes that constitute the culture of the OPP.

Leadership: Significant weight has been placed by members on the impact, positive or negative, that leadership can have on the health and resilience of both the organization and its individual members. Members indicated that while they are hopeful the new Commissioner will bring positive change, there is much work to be done to drive a people-focused leadership mentality throughout the organization. Leadership is viewed by members as both organizational – from the Commissioner down – and personal – at the detachment or unit level and among peers. Only 45% of the survey respondents answered that they would feel supported by their supervisor or manager if they raised a mental health concern.^{footnote 6[6]}

Trust and credibility: Trust and credibility are, unsurprisingly, prominent principles in police culture and neither is given lightly. The Panel heard repeatedly that there are deeply ingrained trust and credibility issues between and among members and particularly with respect to management and headquarters. As a result, members are unwilling to appear vulnerable or fully engage the available supports or services.

Isolation: Members identified isolation as a critical challenge to wellness and to feeling supported in the workplace. Isolation occurs in a number of forms for members, including:

• Physical isolation - in a remote region, when working alone or when there are a limited number of other members working nearby.
• Isolation arising out of workplace conflict – when a member does not get along with other members of the unit or the supervisor.
• Isolation arising out of difference – when a member is ‘different’ than the majority of their colleagues due to gender, ethnicity, Indigeneity, or identity.
• Isolation due to stigma – when a member has struggled with mental health or has returned to work with accommodated duties.
• Self-isolation – when a member isolates themselves for fear of reprisal, stigmatization, bullying or harassment, they may isolate themselves from the workplace, colleagues, supports, family or friends.
• Isolation when out of the workplace – when a member is on leave or retires and finds themselves ‘out of the loop’ and out of contact with colleagues.

Current wellness services and pilots: It appears there is a significant gap between members in the field and the internal teams at GHQ with respect to the knowledge, understanding, availability and utility of the wellness services offered to support mental health and workplace culture issues. The services that seem to resonate most deeply with members are those involving direct contact with local and credible supports. These include the CISR peer support program and pilot projects that bring mental health professionals to the frontline of policing, supporting a better response to mental health-related calls in the community and opening a safer dialogue about personal mental health referrals with officers.

There a number of service options available to members, including those within the OPP, through the WSIB, through the associations that represent OPP members, and through workplace insured benefits. Ensuring that members access the appropriate service for their needs often falls to the member in crisis and their immediate supervisor. The Panel has heard repeatedly that support for members and supervisors in navigating the services and managing the paperwork is insufficient. This often causes confusion, error and member alienation. When members are suffering, these tasks become even more challenging.

Identity and stigma: The Panel has heard extensively from members and former members about the value of a police officer’s identity. There are real and perceived impacts to that identity when one acknowledges a mental health issue or a workplace concern, which might result in the removal of use of force (i.e. access to tools including a firearm), alienation from other members, assignment to less satisfying duties, and the loss of promotional or other job-related opportunities such as access to in-career training.

Family relationships: Members have described how their workplace experiences impact their family and other relationships. 64% of survey respondents indicated that all or most of the time, they feel significant stress as a result of the pressure their work puts on their relationships with family and friends^{footnote 7[7]}.

Families are ill-equipped to support members when they experience workplace trauma and members are often reluctant to engage their families in a dialogue about their mental health or workplace experiences. In some cases, members cannot share details of their work with their family for reasons of confidentiality and public safety. The family relationship further compounds the mental health challenges and the isolation members experience. Conversely, the Panel also heard from some members that the support of their spouse, partner and family was a critical element in resilience and recovery from trauma.

Administration/organizational pressures: Budget constraints, staffing shortages, recruitment, deployment and retention in remote communities, scheduling and overtime and the promotional process have all been identified as contributors to and compounding factors in workplace culture issues in the OPP. These issues are felt by members and by supervisors alike who struggle with the additional burden these issues introduce into the workplace.

“The stress of the job gets too much sometimes and sometimes you just need a break. It’s hard to get that when you feel you can’t take a break due to lack of members working and then you feel like you are letting your shift down. So you just keep pushing through when truly you need some time to refuel.” - OPP member

The Panel heard that these issues may deter individual members seeking to access health supports. Members may be concerned that their own absence will further compound the pressure felt by their colleagues.

Recruitment and promotional policies: Member confidence in the integrity and fairness of the recruitment and, in particular, the promotional process appears low. The Panel heard repeatedly that the promotional process, including a lack of transparency and the appearance of conscious and unconscious bias, is perceived as a means of perpetuating and reinforcing workplace culture issues. Members directly raised concerns about cronyism, an ‘old boys’ network, and a limited value placed on merit.

The consequences

The issues facing the OPP and its members have consequences for the health of members and to the functioning of the organization.

At the time of this Report, about 875 or 21% of frontline members were off on some form of approved leave, including parental leave and short- or long-term sick leave. In the majority of cases, these positions are not backfilled, causing increased reliance on overtime and/or reduced availability of frontline officers, increasing the stress experienced by members who are working.

Over half of the survey respondents said they have experienced bullying, harassment, discrimination and/or rejection in the workplace in the past year. Less than 30% of those reported it citing concerns that “nothing would be done”, “fear of reprisal” “impact advancement opportunities”.^{footnote 8[8]}

Survey respondents reported missing 7.7 days on average due to work stressors, with uniform members reported missing on average 8.5 days, constables with a mean of 10 days.^{footnote 9[9]}

People who reported a constant experience of harassment or discrimination reported missing over 38 days on average due to stressors.^{footnote 10[10]}

66% of survey respondents experienced stress related to staff shortages and resource pressures constantly/very often/often, with 47% of constables and members in investigations and organized crime feel ‘constant’ stress as a result of staff shortages and resource pressures.^{footnote 11[11]}

Survey respondents who said they would not feel supported by managers for mental health concerns reported missing a mean of 24 days compared to 5 days for those who would feel supported.^{footnote 12[12]}

Finally, and most upsetting, there have been 17 known deaths by suicide among current members and retirees since 2012. The impact of these tragedies has a ripple effect, as colleagues and families wrestle with the trauma of losing a loved one. The survey results suggested that over half of the organization experiences emotional impact at the death by suicide of a member.^{footnote 13[13]}

Reason for hope

In the face of these real issues and their consequences, the Panel feels there is much to be hopeful about.

“The frontline officers are excellent, hard working people that day in and day out work extremely hard to make the lives of the people we serve better. I am proud to work with these people…” OPP member

Members of the OPP feel evident and justifiable pride in their work and their service to the community. Many members expressed their view of policing as a ‘calling’ rather than a ‘job’ enabling them to balance the stress against the value of the result. There is a strong sense of team/family among colleagues fulfilling this important mandate.

The work of the OPP and its members is highly appreciated by Ontarians. In 2018, 97.5% of respondents to the OPP Provincial Community Satisfaction Survey indicated that they felt “very safe” or “safe” in their community.^{footnote 14[14]}

There is an increased dialogue inside the policing community and in the general public about mental health, the impacts of harassment and bullying, and the particular challenges facing police, the military and other first responders. A common language is developing that acknowledges the real impacts of policing on mental health and wellness and there are communities of support for members to join.

“We have a great group of employees who are family. We need everyone to start truly believing in that and looking after one another everyday.” OPP member

There is also renewed vigour and dedication to improvement at the most senior levels of the OPP. There is a new Commissioner and a leadership team with a demonstrated commitment to bolstering mental health, workplace culture and people-focused programs and leadership.

The OPP Suicide Review and the Mental Health Review are important examples of the increased dialogue and the leadership focus on improvement. The honest discussion at the Roundtables conducted as part of the Mental Health Review and the concrete nature of the recommendations may not have been possible some years ago. We are hopeful that real change will come as a result of these reports.

We are convinced that this is an important moment for the OPP and its members and partners to make meaningful gains in building a healthy and resilient workplace. The findings and recommendations that follow are intended to spur practical and responsive actions and to build on the current positive momentum.

The consequences - numbers

• 875 (21%) frontline members were off on some form of approved leave including parental leave and short- or long-term leave.
• 17 known deaths by suicide among current members and retirees since 2012.
• Over 50% of the survey respondents said they have experienced bullying, harrassment and discrimination.
• 66% of the survey repondents experienced stress related to staff shortages and resource pressures constantly/very often/often.