One of my first goals as President will be to explore and pursue the feasibility of conducting SEC meetings virtually to provide more members with an opportunity to address the SEC without having to drive to Salem or another part of the state to do so. Transitioning to a virtual format not only increases the SEC’s accessibility to the membership, it ensures greater transparency and accountability for the entire Association.

Currently, the Association has both a website and a mobile application that allow members to view blog posts, identify who their SEC members are, and retrieve various forms and documents such as the CBA, the OSPOA constitution, and seniority lists.

Our mobile application does not currently send push notifications to indicate to the membership when there is a new blog post, vote, or other type of time-sensitive Association activity going on. For this, we rely solely on an email sent to the member’s personal email and word of mouth. Unfortunately, those emails frequently get caught in our member’s spam folders and by the time they find out that there was a vote occurring, it’s already closed and they’re upset that they missed a valuable opportunity to provide input or participate in the Association’s activity.

My goal will be to modernize our current app or explore other options that will allow our members to receive push notifications or text messages notifying them of various Association activities such as votes, blogposts, etc.

I get it, social media is often viewed by those in law enforcement as a gateway to misunderstanding, bad publicity, and unneeded drama. But unfortunately, it’s a necessary evil in today’s digital age. The vast majority of of law enforcement organizations across the United States have some sort of social media platform that they use to highlight positive interactions with the community, recognize the accomplishments of their members, and serve as a medium for increasing the public’s understanding of law enforcement officers and the challenges of the profession.

As President, I will encourage the membership and the SEC to consider establishing various social media platforms to recognize all the good work that our members do while simultaneously fulfilling the objectives identified by Article II, Section 6 of the OSPOA Constitution which charges the SEC with promoting public respect and understand for law enforcement and the challenges facing the profession.

Employee performance evaluations are meant to be a catalyst for improvement and an opportunity to highlight an employees strengths, but all too often, they’re just used as another tool to discipline employees for failing to meet broad and often vague expectations while simply skimming over the positive accomplishments of our members.

By working to establish a system of evaluation that includes a bidirectional feedback loop, our members will be able to highlight their professional accomplishments while simultaneously improving overall organizational performance through effective individual and leader development.

Law enforcement is a dangerous and often unpopular profession, especially in today’s social climate. Doxxing, stalking, attempts to intimidate members or their family, targeted acts of violence, and criminal mischief are just some of the potential threats that our members face as a result of their service to Oregonians.

There are a variety of ways for the Association to assist out members in the mitigation of these threats. Examples of such assistance might legal assistance programs that walk members through the process of transferring their home or property into a trust to make it more difficult to find out where they live, offering identity monitoring services, and providing our members with free templates for wills, advanced directives, estate plans, etc.

Retirement benefits are great, but we need to actually make it through a 25 year career before we get to enjoy them.

From a health and wellness standpoint, our members have the deck stacked against them. They are at an elevated risks of cardiovascular-related death, depression, suicide, PTSD, and a host of other issues.

Because of these elevated risks, it’s imperative that we focus on advocating for changes in the workplace that reduce organizational stressors and improve our members’ physical wellbeing.

Examples of such workplace changes include opportunities for our members to break up their workday with some sort of physical activity and focusing on employee recognition and other forms of motivational leadership to inspire employees and drive performance rather than simply relying on the threat of punishment or other disciplinary action.

Effective leadership development is critical to achieving high levels of organizational morale and operational performance.

When leaders focus on avoiding mistakes and liability rather than fostering an environment of growth and performance, everyone suffers.

Conversely, when leaders focus on recognizing and building upon their employees strengths while simultaneously working with them to improve upon their weaknesses, it naturally builds organizational loyalty. In turn, employees who feel a sense of loyalty and duty to their organization and its mission will inherently be more cognizant of how their actions will impact the overall wellbeing and reputation of the organization, thereby improving employee performance and decision-making.

Effective employee recognition is a vital component of overall employee engagement and job satisfaction. To be effective, recognition must be authentic, timely, and relationally relevant.

For some employees, effective recognition is acknowledging their accomplishments in front of the peers or the public. For others, effective recognition looks like additional opportunities for advanced training or unique auxiliary duties or assignments.

Our members routinely perform selfless acts that go above and beyond the call of duty. However, many of these acts often go unacknowledged by agency leaders. The reason for this lack of acknowledgement is partly because much of our daily activity occurs outside of direct supervision in one-on-one interactions with community members or agency partners, and partly because the organizational leadership culture within the agency has conditioned many supervisors to become hyper-fixated on liability and risk rather than balancing the need to mitigate liability with the equally important need to maintain organizational morale and employee motivation.

Career progression and individual growth contribute significantly to an employee’s level of engagement and job satisfaction. Unfortunately, due to the geographical location of some area commands, opportunities for promotion and career advancement are relatively limited or may not come around often. Therefore, it’s imperative that our members make the most of these opportunities when they do arise.

Historically, the agency has preferred to shroud competitive processes in secrecy. From hiring managers failing to provide candidates with feedback to making it incredibly difficult to obtain scores detailing areas for individual improvement. This not only degrades our member’s trust in the overall process but it also takes away valuable opportunities to receive critical feedback and ideas for improvement.