Editor’s note: This video is excerpted from the Lexipol webinar, “Beyond the Hiring Crisis: Strategies for Strengthening Recruitment and Retention in Public Safety.”
The standard for excellence in public safety is changing. Lexipol is your partner in understanding how your agency measures up and setting a course to achieve performance excellence. Schedule a consultation with our team today to learn about our holistic approach built on Gordon Graham’s 5 Pillars of Organizational Success.
Public safety agencies across the country face a critical challenge in finding and keeping the right people to staff up their ranks. During a time when job applicants are in short supply and lateral moves are on the rise, leaders can no longer afford to rely on outdated recruitment tactics or ignore their retention gaps.
In the Lexipol webinar “Beyond the Hiring Crisis: Strategies for Strengthening Recruitment and Retention in Public Safety,” Battalion Chief (Ret.) Bruce Bjorge and Police Chief (Ret.) Dave Funkhouser share honest insights and practical solutions drawn from decades of experience. Their message is clear: If you want to recruit and retain well, it’s time to take a long, hard look in the mirror.
Below are important points from the webinar that every public safety leader needs hear.
1. We may be the problem
While multiple factors are involved in the public safety recruiting/retention crisis, one specific element stands out to the presenters. “We may be the problem,” Bjorge says bluntly. “We being the leaders of the organization. And that’s an important acknowledgment.”
As the panelists emphasize, recruitment and retention issues aren’t just about budgets or generational shifts. Leadership and culture both play a defining role. For example, if your own people aren’t talking up your agency and encouraging others to join, that’s not a people problem. That’s a leadership issue.
Funkhouser adds: “If your newest recruits aren’t telling their friends to apply, ask yourself why. Have the courage to go to them and ask what brought them here and what might make them stay.”
And what should you do if your people are leaving? Ask them why, too. Whether you conduct formal exit interviews or more casual (but frank) conversations, this information is crucial to your agency leadership. After all, the only way to come up with an effective treatment is to begin with an honest diagnosis.
2. The Hollywood set problem
Bjorge describes what he calls the “Hollywood set” issue. In highly produced recruiting videos, glossy websites and Photoshopped social media posts, agencies often look polished and professional from the outside. But what’s behind the scenes?
“It looks great on the outside. But you open the door, and it’s empty. It’s an empty organization,” he explains. “That starts from the top.”
For all their foibles, this new generation of recruits can spot inauthenticity from a mile away. Culture isn’t what you claim in a press release — it’s what people live every day. If there’s hazing, toxic leadership, poor camaraderie or lack of support, Gen Z isn’t sticking around and hoping things get better.
“They’ll go find that same sense of purpose in a different career,” Bjorge says. “One where they feel welcome.”
3. Retention before recruitment
Funkhouser makes the analogy: “If you’re losing people faster than you bring them in, you’re pouring water into a leaky bucket.”
Too many agencies focus heavily on recruitment while doing little to ensure their existing employees are happy enough to stay. That’s a mistake. In public safety, your best recruiters tend to be your own people — if they believe in the mission, they’ll spread the word.
“If you take care of the people you have, they’ll become your best ambassadors,” Funkhouser says. “They’ll say, ‘Come work for us. Our leadership is outstanding. We take care of each other. We have an amazing wellness program.’”
Retention must be a deliberate strategy, not an afterthought.
4. Recruiting needs to be part of your strategic plan
Bjorge and Funkhouser are clear: You can’t treat recruitment as an HR task or something you only think about when a position opens up. It needs to be permanently embedded into your agency’s long-term strategic plan.
“We specifically use the term marketing,” Funkhouser says. “Because that’s what it is. We have to get into a business mindset.”
That means leveraging social media, creating recruiting videos, building partnerships with schools and local organizations and engaging your current staff in outreach. It also means updating your website — your 24/7 recruiter — so it reflects who you are now, not who you were 10 years ago.
Even better? Involve college students in marketing programs. “They know how to connect with their peers,” Funkhouser says. “Why not let them help you craft your message?”
5. Gen Z seeks purpose, not just pay
If you think bigger bonuses and better benefits are the key to attracting younger applicants, think again.
“Looking at what motivates Gen Z, it wasn’t pay and benefits,” Funkhouser notes. “It was purpose. A supportive culture. Work-life balance.”
Today’s younger workforce wants to be part of something bigger than themselves — but they also want to know they’ll receive mental and emotional support. Mental wellness isn’t just about crisis intervention or suicide prevention. It’s about fostering a culture where it’s safe to ask for help, and where life outside of work is respected.
“We don’t have to be the highest-paying agency,” Bjorge says. “We just have to show them that we have their back, that they matter and that this career is worth their time and energy.”
Final thoughts: Culture is the brand
At the heart of it all is culture. Hiring and retention at your agency is primarily driven by your agency’s culture. It’s what draws people in … and it’s also what can push them out. And whether you’re aware of it or not, culture starts at the top.
“Leadership is everything,” Funkhouser says. “Have the courage to look inward. Ask the hard questions. Empower your team to help shape the solutions.”
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the hiring crisis in public safety. But the agencies that are thriving all have one thing in common: They’re not sitting around complaining about the problem. They’re doing something about it.
Let this be the year you do the same.
What recruitment pitfalls have you encountered?
EMS1 readers respond
“EMS has an identity crisis. The crisis being, EMS has no identity. It has lost its identity, but we don’t want to talk about that. We continue to sell EMS based upon its foundation, its ‘old’ identity, and its intended identity. This industry lies to people, and once you’ve lied, there’s no trust. Recruitment is focused on saving lives and responding to emergencies, as with the old EMS. Coast-to-coast, I’ve seen EMS insiders actively advising people to steer clear or to use it as a very temporary stepping stone. I see an industry abusing those within it, and then telling them how lucky they are, and that they should feel privileged to ‘serve’ their community. 90-180 days inside the industry, discovering that the least thing they do is the very thing that they came into EMS to do, recruits/providers begin to realize that they are now legally obligated to manage those things that big medicine has been allowed to abandon, without recourse. They begin to realize that the relationship they thought they were entering is suddenly the ‘good guy...until he drinks’ vocation/profession, which depends on a set of psychological and emotional manipulation techniques that trap you into believing that you’re the problem if you aren’t able to find meaning in sacrifice and abuse, and that you owe it to those who are having their worst day (really only about 15% of calls). If not, something is wrong with you. In many places, organizations depend on one’s trauma to obligate them to selfless service, knowing that individuals who live with trauma often attempt to provide for others, the very thing that they are missing in their own lives. Guilt disguised as privilege has been a powerful, powerful tool. Those who are figuring this out are growing in number and warning others to stay away from the pseudo-heroics of obligated servitude. Word is out that those with the least capability are the ones with the greatest risk and obligation, all for a wage similar to many entry-level, low-stress jobs. How do we get people to deny their lived experience for the sake of recruiting, and are we in the right to punish those who elect to avoid additional moral injury? If we were honest with ourselves, we would look a little deeper into who stays and who leaves. There’s a telling tale there. These are not new pitfalls in recruiting. They are the same pitfalls that have existed for more than 3 decades because ‘leadership’ doesn’t fill in those pits, or call to get the roads fixed. Industry leadership is far too quick to use those shovels to dig in a little deeper. Perhaps someone will notice all of the hard work that comes with digging in a little deeper and pat us on the head for working so hard at a job no one else will do. Fix the industry, and you’ll fix a lot of the recruiting problem.”
This article was originally posted June 11, 2025, It has been updated.