New Dress Regs 🤣

[Navy_Pete]

CAF worker bees: We need more people or an op pause to recover; you are killing us.

CAF leadership: Uh... man buns!

Zero real plans to improve retention, and all our strategic plans actually require us to surge people. We are surging already to do the bare minimum, WTAF?

 

[Quirky]

CAF worker bees: We need more people or an op pause to recover; you are killing us.

CAF leadership: Uh... man buns!



Zero real plans to improve retention, and all our strategic plans actually require us to surge people. We are surging already to do the bare minimum, WTAF?

What we need are town halls and more ideas on what the CAF needs to do!

 

[Remius]

What we need are town halls and more ideas on what the CAF needs to do!

You jest, but that is exactly what we need. But for actual operational and capability stuff.

I would love a cross country town hall about our actual capability.

I am ok with town halls on culture and even this dress reg thing. But the fact that we don’t have any for actual capability is telling.

Or course such a thing requires follow through on what actually has to happen to fix things

 

[Quirky]

You jest, but that is exactly what we need. But for actual operational and capability stuff.

We all know we need stuff, problem is the government doesn't tell us what our priorities are. "Go do stuff when we tell you" is essentially our Defense Policy.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

We all know we need stuff, problem is the government doesn't tell us what our priorities are. "Go do stuff when we tell you" is essentially our Defense Policy.

And coupled with that is that most of the time the government, especially our current one, will not tell us to go do stuff unless they are pressured and cajoled by the international community to do stuff.

Its with this attitude that we have no forethought or capability planning. Its a huge reason why the "Just In Time" logistics, procurement, training, etc. cycle we have adopted is failing miserably. We haven't had a PM, MND, or CDS in the past 20 years or so say "this is where we are, this is where we're going, stay the course, and when we get there we will move on to the next bound."

The same can be seen with the new round of Dress Instructions. While they are needed to foster a more inclusive and diverse CAF, on the outside, it came across looking like a dog seeing a squirrel outside the window: Its not life changing or earth shattering, by my God are we going to make noise because we can.

 

[FSTO]

You jest, but that is exactly what we need. But for actual operational and capability stuff.

I would love a cross country town hall about our actual capability.

I am ok with town halls on culture and even this dress reg thing. But the fact that we don’t have any for actual capability is telling.

Or course such a thing requires follow through on what actually has to happen to fix things

Before we do town halls, we should do a forces wide survey (mandatory) on everyone's (from OD to CDS) opinion on their trust in the equipment and leadership to do the job required by the country. It would be broken down by this

Rank
Environment
Age
No names, service numbers, or gender

Question 1

How confident are you that you could successfully conduct your task in a hostile environment with the current equipment provided? Scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is very confident and 1 is no confidence at all.

Question 2
How confident are you that your leaders (NCO's and Officers) will lead you in a competent manner. Scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is very confident and 1 is no confidence at all.

I have a feeling that the results would cause a little bit of consternation amongst our most senior military and civilian leaders. But with this information the townhalls would become very relevant.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Before we do town halls, we should do a forces wide survey (mandatory) on everyone's (from OD to CDS) opinion on their trust in the equipment and leadership to do the job required by the country. It would be broken down by this

Rank
Environment
Age
No names, service numbers, or gender

Question 1

How confident are you that you could successfully conduct your task in a hostile environment with the current equipment provided? Scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is very confident and 1 is no confidence at all.

Question 2
How confident are you that your leaders (NCO's and Officers) will lead you in a competent manner. Scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is very confident and 1 is no confidence at all.

I have a feeling that the results would cause a little bit of consternation amongst our most senior military and civilian leaders. But with this information the townhalls would become very relevant.

The first, and most important, rule of conducting surveys is to ensure that there is a leader who intends to, and is able to, act on the results.

Otherwise it acts more like a red rag to a bull

 

[rmc_wannabe]

The first, and most important, rule of conducting surveys is to ensure that there is a leader who intends to, and is able to, act on the results.

The problem with our current state of "accountability" in the CAF amounts to a three way fingerpoint between the MND/CDS, PMO, and TBS.

Even if the rank and file of the CAF laid out a 10 point plan with reasonable solutions to fix things, no one would action it because "its not up to me. its a _____ decision."

 

[Haggis]

Before we do town halls, we should do a forces wide survey (mandatory) on everyone's (from OD to CDS) opinion on their trust in the equipment and leadership to do the job required by the country. It would be broken down by this

Rank
Environment
Age
No names, service numbers, or gender

I recall doing a survey on some QoL issue a few years ago. My responses were not all that positive. The demographic questions were mandatory. Being the only Infmn MWO in that particular organization made it pretty hard to be anonymous.

 

[Harris]

I remember having to have the Unit do an optional anonymous survey once. A Week before the final due date the Brigade COS told us that there were not enough returns so we would all be provided with a list of pers who had not yet done it. I raised the issue that it was supposed to be anonymous and that if we had lied to the troops and then did what he suggested, we would never get another troop to ever fill out a survey. List was not provided.

 

[PMedMoe]

Try being the only female PMed MCpl on an "anonymous" survey.

 

[Remius]

Try being the only female PMed MCpl on an "anonymous" survey.

Challenge accepted. I suspect I will fail on many levels…

 

[Good2Golf]

It's probably because of the lack of velcro for flag, name tag, brigade, etc. I'm sure that they will remedy that for the fleece in the new pattern. And let's be realistic, there are probably a few people at NDHQ fighting to have an extra spot for ribbons added to the new combats.

Nope. RCAF fleeces (there are two; one is standard anti-static dissipating, the other for aircrew is FR with FR stitching and FR hook&loop system) have all the required spots for name tapes, flags, patches, slip-ons, etc. RCAF members, at least in this case, are treated like adults and allowed to wear fleece as an outer garment.

It an ‘Army doing it to itself’ issue….

 

[Jarnhamar]

Townhalls are a waste of time. Troops know if they bring up uncomfortable points or questions they'll get shit blasted. At least the Military Police are honest about it. Seen a townhall email from an MP RSM saying "tell your troops townhalls aren't the platform to ask questions! And stop bringing up beards, the answer is no!"

 

[Eaglelord17]

Townhalls are a waste of time. Troops know if they bring up uncomfortable points or questions they'll get shit blasted. At least the Military Police are honest about it. Seen a townhall email from an MP RSM saying "tell your troops townhalls aren't the platform to ask questions! And stop bringing up beards, the answer is no!"

My favourite one was a OS who asked when the speaker was using abbreviations if they could use the full name of the abbreviation the first time so they could understand what was being talked about. He then got pulled aside and given a talking to by the Coxn because apparently wanting to understand what is being talked about is a problem.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Townhalls are a waste of time. Troops know if they bring up uncomfortable points or questions they'll get shit blasted. At least the Military Police are honest about it. Seen a townhall email from an MP RSM saying "tell your troops townhalls aren't the platform to ask questions! And stop bringing up beards, the answer is no!"

I did a 'small hall' with my company once, which was awesome.

People who said they needed help with a bunch of stuff like pay/ claims etc got it dealt with, and I asked the question "What does the ideal weekend exercise look like" and got this answer from a keen young MCpl, which I continue to treasure:

"Sir, when we we hit the ground running on Friday night and pray for death by Sunday morning."

 

[Colin Parkinson]

If your uncomfortable with uncomfortable questions, then don't do townhalls, otherwise all the command staff is doing is masturbation.

 

[kev994]

I recall doing a survey on some QoL issue a few years ago. My responses were not all that positive. The demographic questions were mandatory. Being the only Infmn MWO in that particular organization made it pretty hard to be anonymous.

I had a similar issue stateside… anonymous survey but one question is “what service are you in”… 199 people are in the Coast Guard and 1 person is in the Air Force, it’s pretty easy to figure out what 100% of the Air Force thinks.

 

[Navy_Pete]

I did a 'small hall' with my company once, which was awesome.

People who said they needed help with a bunch of stuff like pay/ claims etc got it dealt with, and I asked the question "What does the ideal weekend exercise look like" and got this answer from a keen young MCpl, which I continue to treasure:

"Sir, when we we hit the ground running on Friday night and pray for death by Sunday morning."

I think the navy equivalent on the engineering side usually happened in the MCR during quiet hours or in one of the engineering spaces on an alongside party (heavy workshop on the 280s, AAMR on the CPFs). The party bit has gone out of style, but we also occasionally did sunday morning coffees in the MCR at sea. Was a lot more informal, but could be enlightening.

I think town halls fall apart when you reach a certain critical mass (and similarly think the critical mass for a WG to be useless is 8 people); just gets to a point where most people won't actually speak their mind, and a lot of people who do speak their mind don't actually represent the masses and have their own axes to grind.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

But those are the real issues and hard to fix. "Treasury board something something pot of money."

Lets give the people beards, long hair and nails to distract them for a bit.

Beards, weed and boots have a expiry date on keeping people happy and / or distracted?