Recruiting for the police is a tough sell. People tend to have very binary attitudes towards them. So how do you approach it?

A lot of that, those kind of challenges and those problems, is exactly why Police Now exists. We exist to transform our communities as well as policing. We do that by finding these brilliant, diverse graduates that ultimately will become brilliant officers who really challenge policing culture, but also bring the kind of innovative thinking to be able to solve long-term challenges that society is facing.

You can only really do that by making sure that you're finding individuals that really are value driven, believe in our mission, and want to change the direction of travel when it comes to policing.

It's not an easy sell. If you look at some of the numbers with final year students, policing often ends up at the very bottom in terms of where people are thinking of applying.

One of the biggest challenges we have is that we try to outline the reality of what it is to be in these roles. But no amount of marketing can fully prepare you for really being in the frontline until you're there. However, we try our best and have really open and honest conversations with candidates

Erik Rivas | Head of Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing, Police Now

That becomes a bit of a challenge, especially when you also think about the diversity that we're trying to bring into policing. Because, like you said, people do have quite big opinions on the police, and I think those opinions differ depending on the different intersections of society that people come from.

The reports coming out which highlight policing culture challenges and what it means to be of an ethnic minority background, or another underrepresented background in policing, is something that will be a barrier for people in understanding how they can fit into that picture and what change they can bring.

So, you're approaching it from the point of view of if you want to change policing, you have to be within it. If you want policing more in line with your own community, whatever that may be, the only way you can do that is to affect change by being part of the force.

I suppose it allows you to have the greatest power of change. Definitely, there are influencers that can bring change into policing, in government and outside of policing. But for us, we acknowledge through our employer brand and through our attraction that policing has its challenges and the only way that we're going to solve them is to bring the right people into policing and create a more diverse force, where there are people from all different backgrounds that can drive that change internally in policing.

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Generally, you want sheer numbers. But you also want greater diversity within those numbers as well. So you are fighting on a few fronts with your employer brand marketing.

Our programme is open to anyone that meets the criteria. Through our attraction efforts we make sure that our employer brand and the way that we're communicating the opportunities available aligns with our mission, to ensure we’re recruiting the right people for the role.

One of our main goals is to drive more diversity within those pipelines, and we do that by removing those barriers of entry, by supporting people through the beginning stages of attraction, through resources, coaching, and dedicated support. Where we need to along the way we will help create a level playing field to support those from underrepresented backgrounds and with protected characteristics.

What’s the EVP that you're mapping out for potential candidates?

There are three different programmes. And different employee value propositions for each. So, for our neighbourhood programme, where they're going to be neighbourhood officers, our EVP is called For Every Neighbourhood. And that has a few strands around what makes up a neighbourhood, and in each of those strands, you have areas where they can have the maximum influence on policing. Part of it is understanding the impact that they're going to have within their communities, and the collaboration they're going to have within those communities.

Once they're fully equipped and have completed our initial training academy, they will be placed in a neighbourhood and continue our programme in force. They will spend time working with local charities, partners, business owners, and look at what sort of crime or anti-social behaviour takes place and try to work with those community members to drive that down over the long term.

Our second programme is our detective programme. And that evokes curiosity. Our EVP is around ‘question everything’, and it is the skill set that we are looking for with individuals of how they're going to work with some of the most vulnerable people through some of the hardest times of their lives.

They're going to work to solve crime that requires a level of critical thinking and innovation. Thinking about how that is built into our employer brand is around this idea of ‘question everything’ - questioning that the things that are presented to you might not always be what they seem.

And some people have that kind of view of the world. They can spot differences. If you think about, for example, people who are neurodivergent, they have different ways of viewing the world. So, we think about how we draw out skill sets and understand how people can bring their different backgrounds to the role, regardless of whether they might perceive themselves to have the skills of a detective.

We're the first and only to offer a national programme for direct entry detectives across England and Wales with our partners. And more recently, we've opened up new streams into Counter Terrorism Policing and Economic Crime as well.

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Our third programme, the Frontline Leadership Programme, is actually for existing officers who want to develop their leadership skills further and progress to sergeant rank. This really focuses on preparing police officers with high potential, especially those underrepresented at higher ranks, for promotion to leadership roles in frontline policing. It is designed for officers who want to positively change the destiny of communities, leading from the front in ways that build confidence in our police service.