Supporting policing wellbeing through research

Reduced funding in recent years has seen many UK police forces have fewer employees. With funding cuts to other social agencies, police, as the service of last resort, has faced increased demand. Understandably, there are growing concerns for the wellbeing and motivation of police officers and staff.

Professor Les Graham led the Durham University policing research project which has expanded rapidly from impacting on a single police force to involve all 43 Home Office police forces within England and Wales, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the British Transport Police and the Ministry of Defence Police.

Balancing wellbeing with Public Service Motivation

Policing staff, as public sector workers, have high levels of public service motivation (PSM). While a high level of PSM is beneficial to the public, society, and organisations within which they work, there can be costs for individuals’ home life and wellbeing due to them overinvesting their personal time and energy into their work. The findings suggest that as work demands increase, the adoption of supportive Human Resource Management practices can lessen these negative effects on employees.

Evidence-led approach

The main aim has been to build a shared body of evidence based on rigorous research in police forces that can inform both local decision-making within police forces and national policing policy. This was achieved through large scale surveys of the workforce with the findings replicated and legitimised in the other forces involved in this project. As a result, the research has:

• had significant and extensive impact on working practices, procedures and policies within forces implemented to achieve improvements in police officer and staff wellbeing and their service behaviour
• had direct influence on the Home Office Front Line Review of Policing Recommendation Report (July 2019) that achieved a step change in context and conditions for the policing workforce
• provided strong empirical evidence to support changes in policing leadership style.

Find out more

• Read Professor Les Graham’s IMPACT article on Researching Police Wellbeing.
• Visit Professor Graham’s staff profile to find out more about related research.
• Professor Graham has also written about the impact of ethical leaders on today’s workforce with Business School colleague Professor Olga Epitropaki.
• Find out more about studying at our Business School.