The police in North Rhine-Westphalia must and wants to meet current and future requirements. In order to meet these requirements, the 47 district police authorities and 3 higher state authorities with around 56,000 employees and a budget volume of around 3.7 billion euros per year are controlled using a modern management system.
The North Rhine-Westphalian police use these modern management methods to promote citizen and employee satisfaction and ensure effective police work and the economical use of resources in the long term.
Leadership and control
The management concept introduced in the mid-1990s was realigned and further developed for this purpose. The "management and control" of the police in North Rhine-Westphalia is geared towards the effective performance of the police's core tasks of operational management/threat prevention, crime control and police road safety work. The police must ensure and continuously improve the quality of their work and meet future requirements. The quality of police work is not only influenced by the number of personnel, but above all by the way in which personnel are deployed, the organization of work processes and the work results. Police managers are responsible for the quality of work results. It is their task to deploy the available personnel and material and financial resources effectively and economically. Supervisors accept their role as managers and act accordingly. They encourage their employees to perform well, promote their skills, support them and provide feedback on work results. Successful work and a culture characterized by openness and appreciation complement each other.
The task of management is to create the necessary conditions for success. Of central importance here are:
- Results-oriented management
- Personnel and organizational development
- Quality management.
The system also includes the necessary electronic "tools" that support a management and information system and IT-supported cost and performance accounting based on modern information technology.
Quality assurance for the future
Citizens can only contact the responsible police department to record a traffic accident or search for evidence after a burglary. Market mechanisms and the resulting competition for customers cannot simply be transferred to public administration.
So why does the North Rhine-Westphalian police feel obliged to strive even harder for quality than they already do? Because citizens have a legitimate right to the best possible protection from crime and traffic accidents. Victims have a right to qualified help and support.
The quality of police work is visible to citizens when they have direct contact with them: Courtesy, competent advice or a quick response after an emergency call are important criteria for how the public rates the police. Other quality criteria apply, for example, when criminal investigations are handed over to the public prosecutor's offices.
The police in North Rhine-Westphalia also ensure and improve the quality of their work in areas that are not obvious to outsiders.
For example:
- In internal cooperation in order to streamline processes,
- to keep equipment up to date,
- when selecting new employees in order to meet future requirements.
These "internal" improvements have a positive effect on police work results, the citizen-oriented actions of the police and on employee satisfaction.
Employee orientation
The police in North Rhine-Westphalia know that they can only meet the expectations placed on them with motivated, qualified, autonomous and satisfied employees. Because this is the case, employee orientation is a high priority.
Employee orientation means involving employees in shaping their working environment: No one knows the daily requirements better than the employees themselves. It is therefore important to find out what conditions they are satisfied or dissatisfied with and what improvements they see are needed. To this end, annual employee appraisals are carried out. In addition to the constant exchange of information in everyday working life, managers and employees reflect on key aspects of the working environment in a personal meeting, engage in personnel development and agree targets. This tool is supplemented by feedback for managers, which has been introduced across the board since 2015.
In a questionnaire, employees can initially provide their manager with anonymous feedback on key aspects of collaboration. An evaluation of these assessments serves as the basis for a confidential feedback meeting between employees of a department and their manager. The manager receives important feedback on management behavior and the expectations of employees. Employee appraisals are held annually for this purpose. In addition to the constant exchange in everyday working life, managers and employees reflect on key aspects of the working environment in a personal meeting, engage in personnel development and define target agreements.
In addition to this, the authorities also have the option of conducting employee surveys on further aspects.
Citizen orientation
The police rely on the help and support of the public. Dangers can often only be averted and crimes only prevented or solved if citizens actively support the work of the police. Their tips, witness statements or reports are indispensable: nine out of ten crimes are solved with the help of citizens!
Citizen orientation - a cornerstone of police work
Citizen-oriented police work means incorporating the interests, wishes and expectations of the population into police activities. Only those who actually know the needs of the people can work in a consistently citizen-oriented manner. This is why the district police authorities can carry out citizen surveys. Citizens tell us how satisfied they are with the police in general, with their friendliness, expertise or individual services. They are also asked what expectations they have of the police. This provides the police authorities with important information for their security concepts.
Special citizen surveys are aimed at people who have had direct contact with the police, for example as victims of crime, when recording traffic accidents or filing a complaint. Those affected tell us how they experienced the police in the specific situation. The results are used to continuously improve police work.
Transparency and openness create trust
Citizens are willing to help and support the police if they trust them. This presupposes that they also have the opportunity to get to know their police. Continuous press and public relations work is an essential building block for this. Police work only becomes transparent through detailed information.
This is done:
- through daily press and public relations work,
- through regional information events organized by police stations to provide information and discuss current issues,
- and whenever important events require police information.
- via the NRW police website or via newsletters
A current example of transparency is the monthly publication of selected data on crime and traffic accident trends (Sicherheit im Fokus).
