Institutional Knowledge and Retention

 When I first came on the job in 1997, the typical retirement occurred at 30 years of service, and it was a full retirement (Ie, no more work, just hobbies).  Recently, however, we have seen early retirements in which the officer then goes and works another full-time job (Which they consistently report back to us is much better than the job they just vacated).  Beginning in 2020: 2 left at 27 years, 1 left at 26 years, 2 left at 24 years, and finally 2 left at 21 years.  In the same period, only 4 retired with more than 30 years on, and 2 left due to improper actions that occurred off-duty.  All of these officers who left early left for other public law enforcement positions outside of our city, so burnout does not account for this trend.  The other six did not go into sworn law enforcement positions (Obviously, 2 of these really did not have that as an option).

My department and I believe the city as a whole has no thought of incentivizing retention and stemming the loss of institutional knowledge.  If everyone stayed until they had accomplished 30 years of service, the department would have retained/gained 50 years of experience and expertise.  A recent positive development is that we have, finally, been allowing lateral hiring of officers from other departments, and they have been universally successful.  In this period, we have only had two entry officers replace these departing officers; the rest of the open positions were filled by laterals.   This has stemmed the receding knowledge tide to some degree.

What I wonder and have suggested is whether having a retention police would benefit the department and the city.  A simple calculation of the cost of training and equipping new employees and creating an incentive that is less than that amount would probably have retained all 8 of our "leave early" officers.  It needs to be noted that all of these officers left for second pensions, so they definitely can be motivated by money and benefits.  I took a quick poll of our day shifters, who all have timelines to leave before 30, and asked what it would take to stay another five years.  The final answer was 30 grand.  Since it costs more than $130,000 to get even a lateral up and running, I think that would be a great deal for the department and the city.  Hopefully, one that they will take advantage of one day, and maybe before I also retire.