Human Resources in the Police - Perception of Police Officers on the Characteristics of Their Working environment

Human resources in the police are its fundamental value. Human resources management encompasses the activities of attracting, recruiting and retaining competent and motivated people who will serve the organisation in an engaged and loyal manner in the purpose of achieving its goals. The characteristics of the work environment are an important factor that affects the work motivation and work efficiency of each employee and ultimately, the functionality of his or her organisational unit or the entire organisation. The empirical research was carried out with the aim of gaining preliminary insight into the perception of police officers regarding certain characteristics of their work environment in the police. The survey was conducted using a questionnaire on the subject matter. The survey involved 87 participants'- police officers who were in the status of part-time students of Police College in Zagreb. The instrument of measuring subjects' perceptions (connotations, associations, assessments) was a semantic differential consisting of eleven bipolar pairs of adjectives. There was one negative adjective in each pair of adjectives and the corresponding (opposite) positive adjective. The characteristics of the police work environment for this research was classified into three groups: (a) social components (superior, interpersonal, closest associates and communication), (b) technical components (workplace, work organisation, means of work, and safety at work) and (c) personal components (training opportunities, promotion opportunities). Each component was graded through a 7- point scale delimited by bipolar adjectives. The results of perceptions participants are presented and analysed differently in the paper according to gender and length of the interviewee's experience in the police. The survey found that perceptions of participants of the four social components of their work environment were generally positive. Participants perceptions were divided according to the technical components of the work environment, the first of those two components of this group are perceived mainly as positive, while the other two components are perceived as very negative. Perception towards personal components is negative, the first personal component is perceived as moderately negative, and the second component is markedly negative. The results of this research imply the need to conduct further empirical and theoretical investigations of the police work environment in order to harmonise its characteristics with the professional needs of police officers and with the mission and goals of the police organisation.