THEBACHA/FORT SMITH - Most police officers in NWT feel they have unmanageable workloads and aren’t properly prepared for management positions, according to this year's RCMP Employee Opinion Survey.

om Middleton, RCMP G Division commander. - NNSL file photo

In the spring, RCMP officers across the country answered questions about their job satisfaction and working environments. The results were posted last week on the RCMP's website, revealing only about 57 per cent of members in the NWT G Division know "exactly what is expected" of them at work, yet 81 per cent are proud to be RCMP members.

Of the 110 respondents from the G Division, the majority were unsatisfied with opportunities for training within the police force and felt employees' complaints were not dealt with effectively. Only 25 per cent said they could complete their workload during regular working hours and 18 per cent said the RCMP prepares managers well.

Despite that, 92 per cent said they were committed to making the RCMP successful and 75 per cent said the RCMP is a good place to work.

Chief Superintendent Tom Middleton, commanding officer for the G Division, said he was pleased the officers were "honest and frank about what they thought" and that he wasn't particularly surprised by any of the responses. At the end of July Middleton completed a more in-depth survey of NWT RCMP officers to try to solve some of the problems they pointed out.

"I've written a personal letter to everybody in the division telling them that I understand what's being said, and as a result of that we've had a series of meetings out in the field with the members to explore further some of the concerns that are coming up," he said.

A lot of the concerns stemmed from what Middleton called "a vacancy issue," where the RCMP didn't have enough staff in many Northern detachments.

"That doesn't come as a surprise to me that people had a concern that there was too much work and too few people to do it, but we're fixing that problem now," he said, explaining the force has boosted recruitment efforts and trained more than twice as many new officers last year compared to the year before.

Middleton said while the G Division management team is working to address members' concerns, some of the survey questions might have been misleading.

"Maybe if we'd asked the question 'I know generally what is expected of me,' we might have got a different response. But police work isn't an exacting science, you know, it changes. The phone can ring and everything can go sideways," he said.

"There's another question in here that always troubles me, and that's the number of people that believe as a result of the survey that something's going to be done at the end of it."

Sixty per cent of respondents did not believe the RCMP would take action as a result of the survey.

"That number has a fair bit of cynicism built into it, I think," Middleton said.

He said the results of this survey will help the RCMP implement more of the recommendations brought forward two years ago by a task force aiming to improve the RCMP – including more training, human resources and infrastructure.

"The big thing here is that we have the ear of the government," Middleton said. "So this time around with the results of the survey and the issues and some of the solutions we've got, I'm more confident than ever that the government is going to support us in pushing some of the resolutions through."

Retired RCMP Staff Sgt. Dave Grundy, of Yellowknife, said none of the survey results surprised him.

"It appears to me, by the questions and the answers given, there seems to be a bit of a communication problem within the organization right now," said Grundy, who worked with the RCMP for 30 years.

A lot of the concerns employees had back when he started in 1974 are the same concerns they have now, Grundy said.

"The training has always been an issue. As soon as there's budget cutbacks, the RCMP cut back on their training, and that in my opinion is a tactical error." But he said the RCMP should be proud that most of its employees are committed to helping the police force succeed.

"Even though the RCMP are under huge scrutiny right now across the country, the men and women of G Division are proud to be members here in G Division and I think that speaks volumes of the people that are coming up here," he said.

"I think the RCMP really have an opportunity here, especially in G Division because it's such a small division and everybody knows everybody, to make a big difference within the membership by acting on just even a few of these (concerns)."