Cape CopCast
Welcome to "The Cape CopCast," the official podcast of the Cape Coral Police Department.
Hosted by Officer Mercedes Simonds, and Lisa Greenberg from our Public Affairs team, this podcast dives into the heart of Cape Coral PD's public safety, community initiatives, and the inner workings of our police department. Each episode brings you insightful discussions, interviews with key community figures, and expert advice on safety.
Cape CopCast
Chief's Chat #24: Inside CCPD's Promotional Process
What does it really take to become a police leader? In this episode of the Cape CopCast 'Chief's Chat,' we pull back the curtain on the Cape Coral Police Department's comprehensive promotional process that recently elevated eleven officers to new leadership positions as sergeants and lieutenants.
Far from the arbitrary selection that many might imagine, Chief Sizemore walks us through the meticulous, multi-month journey candidates undertake—studying Florida statutes, department policies, city ordinances, and leadership principles before facing a gauntlet of assessments. The process combines written tests, simulated roll calls, scenario-based interviews, and practical exercises designed to identify not just knowledgeable officers, but true leaders who can make sound decisions under pressure.
Most fascinating is the "Rule of Eight" system that allows department leadership to select from among top candidates based on specific needs rather than rigid numerical rankings. As the Chief explains, it's about finding "square pegs for square holes"—matching the right officer to the right position through collaborative decision-making with command staff who observe candidates' daily performance. The resulting promotions create a cascade effect throughout the department, with nearly 50 position changes as officers move up and into specialty units.
We also discuss the department's continuous recruitment efforts and data-driven approach to staffing through "Project 35," which has already yielded impressive crime reduction results despite budget challenges. At around 500 employees and growing, the department operates like what Chief Sizemore calls "a cruise ship—a giant, big, slow-moving vessel with a lot of stuff happening on all these different decks."
Welcome back to another episode of the Cape Copcast Chiefs Chat Edition. I'm one of your hosts, Lisa Greenberg.
Speaker 2:And I'm Officer Mercedes Simons. Together we have Chief Anthony Sizemore. Welcome back.
Speaker 3:Good morning.
Speaker 1:Good to see you how you doing. I'm doing great how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm good. It's been a busy week. It's been busy these last couple weeks. We've been talking a lot about our promotions. It's been promotional season. Our lieutenants and sergeants were up for grabs. This time we were trying to hire a whole bunch more in place and they have a lengthy promotional, not just test, but they have a long time to study before it to prepare. They'll read books, they'll read state statute, they'll cover a lot of our general orders and things like that to get ready. And it's not just a little bit of material, it's a lot of material, which is why we give them such a great extended period of time to study. But this last week we were able to complete that test. There is a written test and then you have scenarios after if you pass that and we had our selection. So through the sergeant's exam we were able to hire six sergeants, and then the lieutenant's is more of an oral board, but we were able to hire five of them.
Speaker 3:Right, and just one little clarification we didn't hire any.
Speaker 2:We promoted, so all of our candidates come from within.
Speaker 3:You have to work for the Cape Corp Police Department, cut your teeth here and gain your experience and then you get promoted within. The hiring will come down the chain, on the backfill, for the line level officers that move up into sergeant. So the voids will be on the line level. We will hire them. But these are internal promotions. A little difference, but it's an important distinction.
Speaker 1:It's been busy. That's why I said it's been busy. There's been a lot of change and I think, as someone who's new to all of this, this is the first time I've really seen this process play out. I thought it would be interesting to have you on today to kind of talk about that process because, like Mercedes said, it's not something where we just say, oh, we want Jerry to be a Lieutenant, so we're just going to pick them and he's our lieutenant and that's it done, deal. It's a lengthy process.
Speaker 3:You're correct. We don't have the ability to just go pick our favorites or punish those that we don't necessarily want to go have dinner with, right. So there's two reasons for that it benefits the employee and it benefits the agency. It's not good for the department to have one person that would be me who's ultimately accountable, even though it's a collaborative process. We'll talk about that. But it would be a bad state of affairs if I just had the ability to walk around and go. You and you, we have a good time doing the podcast, so you're going to be a sergeant, and that's not good for the department.
Speaker 3:Like we said it's not good for the employees because there's other employees that are grinding and building their resume and positioning themselves to advance and they are protected by a collective bargaining agreement or CBA or union contract or however you want to say it, and we have mutually agreed upon stipulations for how a promotion is to go. That gives, I'll say me, but it's the management side. It gives me the freedom to pick the best person that I and my staff believe is ready within the parameters of the CBA. That says, but you can only pick from the people who have achieved these mutually agreed upon steps. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely Okay, and it's great. One of the things we don't just choose people who are smart, we also choose people based off leadership qualities, which is why we've talked a little bit about the books. We integrate in books that have leadership fundamentals, specific leadership skills that you can integrate into your style as a sergeant, lieutenant, wherever you end up going in the department. And those questions are also on the test that we give, the written test that we had talked about.
Speaker 3:Right. So there's study material that several months back we provided to anybody that's eligible to take the test. So you have to be a sergeant, you have to be on the department for five years continuous and you have to have different educational requirements, go to certain schools so you get eligible to put your name in the hat. So we'll have a meeting with all of those eligible candidates and provide them with a study list. And it's not a big mystery what the study list is. It's Florida state statutes, it's our general orders and SOPs, or standard operating procedures, the rule book, if you will, the union contract, specific articles of it that deal with a supervisor dealing with an employee about moving their schedule and overtime and things like that. It's for the make sure that they know what they're doing, so they're applying the right judgment to protect the employee.
Speaker 3:City ordinances, because they don't fall under state statute. But you have noise ordinance, parking violations, Some of the common ones that happen here in the Cape, that in night shift on a weekend when there's no administrative people here. You have to know that, or at least know where to look when you, when you get that. And then we you're right, we have incorporated some corporate leadership books. They're not L, E or law enforcement specific. There is some, but on the reading list there are others that are commonly used in corporate America too. That are general leadership concepts and we derive questions from those too. So you get a more well-rounded person that's not just reciting or remembering and regurgitating statutes and general orders, but they also know concepts of leadership.
Speaker 3:That's the written test. So all of that material that we provided for them. We have a company that comes in and administers the test. They write it for us and we tell them we want X percentage of the job is knowing statute, so X percentage of the job is knowing statute. So X percentage of the written test should incorporate state statute and general orders and leadership concepts, et cetera.
Speaker 3:And we come up with a 100-question test and the first step in the process is the written test and you take it and you must get a passing score. It gets scored by a 90, an 84, 83, but you have to meet a minimum threshold to move on. So if you don't meet that, that's the end of your journey. You go back to work and you try it again the next time. But for those who pass, you move on to the next step. And the next step is an assessment center. So we'll do a mock roll call where you are given a list of topics and you simulate briefing, a new shift oncoming, to see if you have command presence, knowledge of what you're talking about, the ability to prioritize the information and teach.
Speaker 3:Those are micro classrooms, those roll calls at every shift to show do you have the chops to do that? Then, after that that's scored, there's an editing exercise where you edit paperwork and know what's supposed to… you know, be correct and what's not. That's a big component of the job.
Speaker 3:And then there is a scenario-based panel interview where you're sitting there in the hot seat and there's a panel of outside people assessors in law enforcement that we bring in and they ask you a series of questions that are scenario-based. So if you're the sergeant and this happens, walk us through that and you don't just tell a story. You say what you would do and you cite your training, your experience, and it's an opportunity for you to highlight your knowledge of I would do this action and why would I do this action? Because that is what is in our SOP, so it shows that you know the SOP. It shows that you know the statute, so that you're legal and you're within our policy and it's your time to shine. And that gets scored as well. So they measure command, presence, knowledge, did you make the right choice? Did you do the right thing? And all of those things are scored together the written test, the role play there's an employee counseling session that's part of a role play. That's scored. It's a very, very comprehensive gauntlet of a process and at the end you get points for time and grade how long have you been here? What educational opportunities have you done above the minimum requirement? And all of that is formulated into a score and then we get a ranking. All of that is formulated into a score and then we get a ranking. Now the ranking is where the Fraternal Order of Police Collective Bargaining Agreement comes in. We have mutually agreed upon that.
Speaker 3:Anybody in that first group of eight is. Picture them swirling around. They're not ranked one through eight, they're all equally able to be grabbed. So you grab we had six. You grab one. Promotion the person that was. It's a rule of eight, right? So eight names are swirling around. You pick one and promote them. We'll talk about how we do that.
Speaker 3:Then number nine comes into that swirling globe of names and you pick the best, most qualified candidate for the job that's open and you roll like that and it's a one. Reevaluate the landscape, what position is open? Who would be the best fit? I call it square pegs and square holes, right, and we do that very methodical, meticulous, and I find, and we have found, that it's a lot better than what used to be done of. You get a solid, hard rank and you go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. They may not be the best square peg for the square hole that's open.
Speaker 3:So resume comes into play. Seniority is a component. None of these are a deciding factor but they're all ingredients of a stew to pick the right person. And then that person is selected. So Mercedes is selected and she would be the best fit for patrol. So we would put you into patrol. And then Lisa would come into the fold with all these other names, and then there's an opening in school resource officer. Well, you may not be the best fit for that. Another name would be the most, most qualified person. We pick them and put them in, so it's a combination of ranking and then eligibility or or the, the ability to pick from the top eight. It's a very long, arduous but scientific and intentional process to get the right people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's important. Yeah, within this promotional process, who all did you sit down with to decide who you wanted for different spots?
Speaker 3:Ah, good question. So we talked about before. I'm not the king walking around with my scepter.
Speaker 1:Your scepter.
Speaker 3:I have a big conference room with a great big white dry erase board. So we put all of the candidates that are eligible to be selected on the left. We had lieutenants at the same time. It's a different process for them, a little bit less. I won't get into it, it's just. It's more of a scenario-based interview and delving into your leadership style. So they're on the right and then we take the entire organization and write out a skeleton of a roster and then put names of who's there with our vacancies.
Speaker 3:And we have vacancies from retirements, people moved up into acting roles and now's the time to fill them permanently and we have new growth. So when new budgetary growth comes in, there's a combination of those two factors for vacancies and we put them in red. And then, without promoting anybody, you take our existing people who have been doing the job and earning the right to be able to transfer or building their own resume, and put them into the right spot, the right spot for the agency to thrive right now a win right now mode but also to position them to gain experience so that they are better prepared to move up. So there's a lot of factors that go in and then we start doing the where's the hole? There's a vacancy right here. Who is the best candidate to fill that vacancy? And then we move that way.
Speaker 3:And when I say we it's I am more of a facilitator of the process, because the higher I go and the longer I've been at a high level, the least amount of direct contact I have with their work style. I see a lot of the end result, but I don't see the day-to-day. So I rely on the people who do see the day-to-day. So we have the deputy chiefs. Our chief of staff is in there, all of the bureau commanders or captains are in there and they bring the day-to-day knowledge and input of A what do I want for my bureau or my area? Who do I want to get? And then, who has worked for me that has demonstrated these capabilities that would position them to move up and move around?
Speaker 3:So it's a very collaborative process with our leadership team to get the right people, because these are decisions that impact a generation at the police department and if you make the wrong one you could really have some bad consequences. I am very fortunate that the lists that we have do not contain a quote-unquote bad one. If you make it through that process, you would do well it's. Did we not take the best one? Did we not position them for success? Not only for them individually, but does that click and make the machine run better? Because it's not just one individual or one pick. We are a 500-person organization that's growing every day, every year, with high expectations, and that is the exercise that you do to ensure that you're delivering on those high expectations to the community kind of behind the curtain, work that shows them the production that they want to see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so when people see coming up our pictures from the promotional ceremony they'll kind of know all of the work that went into the background of getting that done. And of course, as people move up, that leaves vacancies at the bottom level that we need to hire for. And I think that people don't realize we're constantly, you know, hiring. It's not like, oh, we open this up and only one time of the year we hire a bunch of people. There is a it's a constant process in the background where we are making sure that when we have openings they're being filled.
Speaker 3:That's correct. We have a continuous open job posting all year long. It's the only way to recruit and to attract and onboard and keep this train moving. We, like I said, we're almost a 500 person organization and continuing to grow. You any industry. You factor in a certain percentage of attrition. Natural people leaving the organization, retiring, finding out it's not for them finding better opportunities for, you know, maybe they don't want to be in law enforcement or in a professional staff side would get a different job within the city. So you have to factor in about an 8% to 10% attrition rate. So you need to hire about 8% to 10% of your overall workforce in general. Then you throw on growth and we are a growing community. So you can start to see the numbers that we onboard a lot of people.
Speaker 3:So we have a full-time. We call it the Professional Standards Bureau because they deal with a lot of other things, but one of their components is hiring. So they are our own HR department and it's full-time and it's full speed. So you're right, we just promoted six sergeants to fill vacancies. In October, when the new budget kicks in, we still need three new sergeants right off the bat and one lieutenant because of the growth and that's part of that process that we've been working on for a really long time. So this list is still valid for that and we can quickly promote and then backfill. And then on top of that, we have new budgeted positions for police officer, because we are behind. We talked about that. We've had great success with our crime stat numbers. We talked about that. That's a direct result of the I don't know how many episodes ago we talked about Project 35, our scientific data-driven methodology to determine how many cops we need, and it determined that we were behind. So we already had a very aggressive posture for hiring, but it was not aggressive enough and we stepped on it. We have a great collaborative relationship with finance, city management and our elected officials who represent the people, and we all want more cops to make it better and we got that and you see the results. We bared the fruit of that very, very quickly. But we need to maintain that posture and in October it is a bit of a reduction of what we asked for, but we're able to maintain it because we believe this economic condition is going to be a short blip. So we're able to do our part. Our scientific, you know, deployments and technology advents are helping us with that.
Speaker 3:It's not a long-term solution. We're not going to be positioned to take a reduction on what we need. To take a reduction on what we need. That's the deal, so to speak, that I made with my boss, the city manager, and the relationship I have with our elected officials is needs over wants. Everybody would love to go in there with a group list of wants. I don't have time for that. They don't have the time for that. We need to go with needs. So I provide them with a scientific-backed, data-driven list of needs to meet the expectations, or exceed them, that our community has. These are my needs and you see, when the needs are met, the success that we have Now. It's nobody's fault. They have their job and I totally understand it and I'm a team player with it. But we did have to come off of our needs a little bit. But we will be back foot on the gas as soon as we're able, and even in a reduction. A big reduction for us is still onboarding new people, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean this. Everybody was kind of on the edge of their seat for the last couple of weeks, because promotions are a really exciting time, because even like I, I'm not promoting but I was really interested to see what happens, because it's not just moving. You know, five, five or six people into place, they move, and then you have, say, we have a one of our SVU detectives, she, she got promoted into a sergeant role, so now patrols excited, or whoever else from a specialty unit now they can put in for that spot. So it creates a lot more openings, a lot more movement and everybody kind of gets excited because you had, you can change stuff around a little bit.
Speaker 3:Six sergeants, five lieutenants, that's 11 moves. Yep, but that's only the first domino. By the time this list is expired and we've promoted everybody and backfilled everybody and reshuffled the voids, like you mentioned, an SVU detective moves in there, it could be somebody from patrol right to SVU, it could be a property crime detective moves over and there's a spot for somebody and you multiply that throughout the department. I think we were up to like 40s, almost 50 moves. Very exciting time for the police department. Always call us the cruise ship because it's a giant, big, slow-moving vessel with a lot of stuff happening on all these different decks.
Speaker 1:And we're just chugging along. That's it. We are Well awesome, Chief, Anything else.
Speaker 3:I'm out of gas. That's it.
Speaker 1:Well, that was. I think you did a good job explaining so people understand the entirety of the process. So we appreciate you coming on today and we appreciate everyone listening. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Stay safe, have a good one.
