Retention vs Recruiting

[Humphrey Bogart]

I always thought these ads covered all the bases:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snYeEMRXt2o

Doing awesome shit while drinking on Fridays? This would not hit any of the kinder and gentler metrics we are trying to target!

 

[jollyjacktar]

Not only that, we don't have any flying bars that cater to the hip crowd and jump companies.

 

[Jarnhamar]

We should take platoons or companies of combat arms soldiers (80/20 reg-res) and deploy them around the world for short missions either doing force protection or training/training with local militaries.

2-4 month trips.

Our soldiers NCOs and officers need real world experience.

 

[dapaterson]

Not only that, we don't have any flying bars that cater to the hip crowd and jump companies.

Clearly, you've never had an ACSO make you coffee in an Aurora.


ACSO: For people who can't spell GPS.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Clearly, you've never had an ACSO make you coffee in an Aurora.


ACSO: For people who can't spell GPS.

I'm thinking now, sadly, l don't.

 

[daftandbarmy]

We should take platoons or companies of combat arms soldiers (80/20 reg-res) and deploy them around the world for short missions either doing for protection or training/training with local militaries.

2-4 month trips.

Or soldiers NCOs and officers need real world experience.

So, like, you just kind of described my 8 years in the British Army.

There were definitely pros and cons. But I thought it was mainly 'pro'.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

We should take platoons or companies of combat arms soldiers (80/20 reg-res) and deploy them around the world for short missions either doing force protection or training/training with local militaries.

2-4 month trips.

Our soldiers NCOs and officers need real world experience.

While I get what you are saying, the military must be a servant of government policy and not the other way around. We deploy on such missions that the government deems we need to deploy on to serve the interests of the nation.

 

[Jarnhamar]

While I get what you are saying, the military must be a servant of government policy and not the other way around. We deploy on such missions that the government deems we need to deploy on to serve the interests of the nation.

I wonder if there is a distinction to be made between serving the interests of the nation and serving the interests of the government? Ie sending soldiers to train kurds will make Kurdish-Canadian voters happy.

Is Imbedding platoons or companies with allied nations an option, realistically speaking? Say a low intensity one.

 

[dimsum]

Clearly, you've never had an ACSO make you coffee in an Aurora.


ACSO: For people who can't spell GPS.

Funny - I've only seen pilots break out their personal Aeropress/espresso maker while onboard. 

I think the catchphrase for ACSO (at least in the LRP/MH world) is more correctly "we don't navigate s***."  But I digress.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I wonder if there is a distinction to be made between serving the interests of the nation and serving the interests of the government? Ie sending soldiers to train kurds will make Kurdish-Canadian voters happy.

Is Imbedding platoons or companies with allied nations an option, realistically speaking? Say a low intensity one.

It's always 'low intensity' until an 18 year old private comes home in a body bag, as a result of anything from a GSW to a car crash. Then there'd better be a strong alignment to a really sound national interest being served in some way, or else.

 

[ballz]

I always thought these ads covered all the bases:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snYeEMRXt2o

There are definitely some good recruitng ads out there and we were missing the mark for a while. We seem to have gotten better with our recruiting ads in the past few years, even if there can still be some improvement...

The retention part comes down to follow-up on those ads. We promise a lot in those ads, and you're not in the mix for very long before you realize you've been duped. Tours/deployments etc aside (because those are largely out of our control), we don't do exciting training, we don't do OUTCAN training nearly enough, we don't offer advanced quals to often enough, etc.

 

[donaldk]

I fully endorse the sentiments expressed by HB in his last post.

I just wish to particularize a few naval point, if I may.

First, the naval reserves actually have a lot of the equipment for "expeditionary" if in that you include support of civilian authorities. Witness the Winnipeg floods around the turn of the millennium. About 75% of the deployed boat assets came from the NAVRES, and nearly 45% of personnel to operate also.

But it remains true that the naval reserves, just like the militia, remains organized on model based in World War era's view of augmentation and with a primary purpose of "being visible" in their community.

Well, they are not anymore. Who in Montreal, Halifax, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary or Toronto even knows anything about the activities of Naval reserve Divisions located there?

The year I left the reserves to go on SRR, I had put up a paper on what I felt was the necessary re-organization of NAVRES to fulfill the upcoming role of manning the MCDV's. These were much more sophisticated vessels than the old Gate Vessels, and thus, more advanced training, individual and team, would be required, and extensive use of simulators would be required. For me, any time a reservist spent doing "admin" nights stuff was a waste of training time, as even the higher ranks needed to keep their training up.

So I proposed disposing of all the NAVRES units and to create five Regional Reserve Training Centers (Halifax for the Atlantic provinces, Esquimalt in the West, and then Quebec City for Quebec (already half built as NAVRES HQ and CFFS Qc, then Hamilton for Ontario (kick the Army out of the base at water's edge - it used to belong to the Navy before unification) and then either the Peg or Calgary for the prairies) These training centre would concentrate the regular forces resources currently assigned to support reserve units and they would be the ones doing all of the support administration for reservists for their region and providing the instructors/standards. The reservists would do their basic at St- Jean, like everybody else, and after passing basic, would be contacted by their Training Centre for further administration of their career. All reservist from the given region would basically receive, once a year, a schedule telling him or her which week-end (one every month) to report to the training centre and what training he/she would do on that week-end, and then, when he/she would be expected to report for two weeks full training. Any other assignment would also be coordinated by those centre.

It's basically the US system. This way, you pool and make the Reg force support more efficient, the Training centres would concentrate and use efficiently the expensive training simulators required, and make it possible to dispose of most NAVRES units.

I don't know what happened to this paper (other than the C.O. sent it up to Quebec with a less than enthusiastic cover letter - then I retired before learning of the results, though it's obvious by now it wasn't implemented.  ;D

OGBD - I'd be interested in said paper if you had a copy - current structure of NAVRES is a shit show with most NRD's RSS rendered impotent due to lack of manning and post ins (D Mil C appears to be giving a discrete big FU to NAVRES support billets - they either post in way to junor unqualified pers or are leaving billets unfilled).  Some NRDs have nil Reg F within their lines (e.g. HUN, PVO, CAR) and recently a couple major central region NAVRES training (NRETS) events got shut down over shoddy Admin orders (term OP ORD isn't used anymore to avoid the requisite SECRET classification required).  I never had to dabble with CFTPOs until my current posting and now am tossing them out left right and centre just to have some sort of barely functional 'RSS' at my NRD.

 

[Lumber]

OGBD - I'd be interested in said paper if you had a copy - current structure of NAVRES is a crap show with most NRD's RSS rendered impotent due to lack of manning and post ins (D Mil C appears to be giving a discrete big FU to NAVRES support billets - they either post in way to junor unqualified pers or are leaving billets unfilled).  Some NRDs have nil Reg F within their lines (e.g. HUN, PVO, CAR) and recently a couple major central region NAVRES training (NRETS) events got shut down over shoddy Admin orders (term OP ORD isn't used anymore to avoid the requisite SECRET classification required).  I never had to dabble with CFTPOs until my current posting and now am tossing them out left right and centre just to have some sort of barely functional 'RSS' at my NRD.

PVO has a RegF AdminO, but I get what you're saying.

 

[TCM621]

There are definitely some good recruitng ads out there and we were missing the mark for a while. We seem to have gotten better with our recruiting ads in the past few years, even if there can still be some improvement...

The retention part comes down to follow-up on those ads. We promise a lot in those ads, and you're not in the mix for very long before you realize you've been duped. Tours/deployments etc aside (because those are largely out of our control), we don't do exciting training, we don't do OUTCAN training nearly enough, we don't offer advanced quals to often enough, etc.

That's the kicker for me. Nothing like being turned down for advanced course because the unit can't spare you. We really under deliver on coursing. I would argue the Canadian Military is "well trained" any more, at least not in the sense we used to be. Just enough, just in time is the CAF training philosophy these days. It used to be more training makes a better soldier/sailor/airman.