There are few jobs out there that require better communication skills than the field of law enforcement. When entering this vocation, it is important that you are always taking steps to ensure you are able to do your duty and deliver justice to the community that you serve.
To help you out, this handy guide is going to take you through some of the ways you can improve yourself at your job and ace your communication skills.
Training Makes Perfect
When it comes to improving any job, seeking additional training is a great way to increase your knowledge and skills, including communication. The more solid your knowledge is of the job that you are doing, the more eloquent and concise you can be.
A great way of doing this is by researching for police courses online that you can’t take in person. These courses are designed by and for police officers to help you improve your job performance and refresh the knowledge you already have. Online courses such as this are easy to fit around your job so that you don’t have to take time off of work or travel far away to complete your studies, as you can instead complete your coursework from the comfort of your own home.
The comprehensive syllabus covers everything from ethics and police accountability, all the way to Indigenous communities and cybercrime. The wide range of topics will allow you to perform your duties with greater confidence and know what you are talking about in a whole range of situations. You will also gain the leadership skills needed to progress and get promoted in the future.
Get Active
An important part of communication is knowing how to listen. On the face of this, it seems like an obvious statement, but there are actually two types of listening: active and passive. As you may have gathered, learning how to become an active listener at work is what you need to better investigate during casework.
Being an active listener is defined as:
The act of mindfully hearing and attempting to comprehend the meaning of words spoken by another in a conversation or speech.
Essentially, active listening means that you are making a conscious effort to show the person or people you are in conversation with that you are interested and understand what they are saying. This can include making noises of acknowledgement, maintaining eye contact, are paraphrasing what they have said back to them to clarify meaning and intention.
These simple changes cannot be underestimated in their ability to have a huge positive impact on your professional communication.
Sort Out Your Note Taking Technique
Another aspect of good communication skills are note taking, which is of particular relevance within law enforcement. Taking the time to go through some needed tips for note taking during an investigation will help you to have a better record of events, make it easier the fill out paperwork, and give accurate testimony if you need to give evidence within court.
The first thing you need to do is make some preparation notes. Ask yourself what information you need from the person you are interviewing or interrogating and design some questions to try and get this information out of them. Additionally, by having a visual aid with you during an interview, you will better be able to stay on topic by being able to refer back to your goals and previous notes.
Another worthy use of your time is to learn shorthand. This will help you to take down lots of information at once in an accurate format. By being able to take notes in a quicker way, you will also be able to make annotations that could prove useful to your investigation. For example, if you bring up a topic related to the case and the person you are interrogating starts getting nervous or stumbling over their words and is unable to get their story straight, shorthand will let you take a quick note of this without having to disrupt the interview process.
With the advice given in this guide, you will be able to start making improvements to your communication in your job as a police officer right away, allowing you to perform your duty to a higher standard and take exceptional care of your community. Police work isn’t just about car chases and adrenaline, it is your communication skills that are going to help you to crack cases and make a real difference.
