Reconstitution

[Ostrozac]

There's always the Legion. But, maybe it's not necessarily the end of the line in a member's working life, but perhaps a new beginning as they transition to a new career.

The Legion seems to be firmly dying as a veterans’ organization. It may have a future as a social organization, but that remains to be seen.

In the last 10 years I have seen a bit of an uptick in participation in various regimental/branch associations from veterans of ‘my’ generation (Bosnia/Afghanistan) — but this seems uneven among the cap badges. The Legion had the advantage that it is/was capbadge agnostic and widely geographically spread.

 

[kev994]

The Legion seems to be firmly dying as a veterans’ organization. It may have a future as a social organization, but that remains to be seen.

In the last 10 years I have seen a bit of an uptick in participation in various regimental/branch associations from veterans of ‘my’ generation (Bosnia/Afghanistan) — but this seems uneven among the cap badges. The Legion had the advantage that it is/was capbadge agnostic and widely geographically spread.

I applied for a free membership because it comes with a discount program, it’s been over a week and they still haven’t processed it or responded to an email so they’re not helping themselves.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Retention problems? What retention problems?

Retention vs. Attrition in the CAF​

The landscape that we work within is constantly changing and we must be proactive in identifying and addressing CAF members’ needs in order to retain our personnel. The CAF must provide support to our members so that they can meet their full potential and serve for the full extent of their career with honour and satisfaction in their service. Retention is also about keeping the right people – those who positively support the organization with their skills, education, engagement, and dedication. When we talk about retention, it is with the understanding that although the CAF has healthy overall retention, there are still specific demographics and occupations in which unique attrition issues have been identified.
A low attrition rate masks the impact of the loss of a few members in key capabilities. When a member leaves, they take with them years of knowledge, experience, education, and skills that are not easily replaced. Even members with fewer years’ experience represent the loss of unique skills, knowledge, and investment in training when they choose to leave the CAF. Members with the technical, cognitive, social, and leadership skills required to carry out the CAF mission must be selected, trained, and promoted from within the CAF at significant expense. The unanticipated release of personnel, even in low numbers, can create critical shortcomings in the ability to maintain operations and can take years and substantial resources (personnel, material and financial) to correct. This effect can be even more problematic with the loss of personnel with key skills and expertise in specialized domains – personnel whose skills and knowledge are also in high demand in Canadian society.

3.0 Retention vs. Attrition in the CAF - Canada.ca

The landscape that we work within is constantly changing and we must be proactive in identifying and addressing CAF members’ needs in order to retain our personnel.

www.canada.ca

 

[Navy_Pete]

Retention problems? What retention problems?

Retention vs. Attrition in the CAF​

The landscape that we work within is constantly changing and we must be proactive in identifying and addressing CAF members’ needs in order to retain our personnel. The CAF must provide support to our members so that they can meet their full potential and serve for the full extent of their career with honour and satisfaction in their service. Retention is also about keeping the right people – those who positively support the organization with their skills, education, engagement, and dedication. When we talk about retention, it is with the understanding that although the CAF has healthy overall retention, there are still specific demographics and occupations in which unique attrition issues have been identified.
A low attrition rate masks the impact of the loss of a few members in key capabilities. When a member leaves, they take with them years of knowledge, experience, education, and skills that are not easily replaced. Even members with fewer years’ experience represent the loss of unique skills, knowledge, and investment in training when they choose to leave the CAF. Members with the technical, cognitive, social, and leadership skills required to carry out the CAF mission must be selected, trained, and promoted from within the CAF at significant expense. The unanticipated release of personnel, even in low numbers, can create critical shortcomings in the ability to maintain operations and can take years and substantial resources (personnel, material and financial) to correct. This effect can be even more problematic with the loss of personnel with key skills and expertise in specialized domains – personnel whose skills and knowledge are also in high demand in Canadian society.

3.0 Retention vs. Attrition in the CAF - Canada.ca

The landscape that we work within is constantly changing and we must be proactive in identifying and addressing CAF members’ needs in order to retain our personnel.

www.canada.ca

What bong watered flavoured kool aid are they drinking where the CAF has a healthy overall retention rate and not fighting with attrition across the board?

At this point, when we have consistent high attrition in specific trades, that should no longer be unexpected releases, but just an ongoing trend we are going to do SFA about.

Don't worry though the RCN is going to somehow recruit and train 4 years worth of people next quarter and fix everything. Pay no attention for the lack of training capacity, limited space for trainees on ships, limited capacity for trades training, and general shortage of supervisors (esepcially for unqualified sailors).

 

[CBH99]

Question

- Why do we have a lack of training capacity? (Is it a lack of classroom space? Instructors? Training materials?)

- I have read that some ships have deployed without a full crew, and deploying with the minimal crew has become fairly normal.

Why would there not be enough room onboard a ship for a trainee?


Agreed overall. The article is pretty tone deaf to our actual situation…

 

[daftandbarmy]

What bong watered flavoured kool aid are they drinking where the CAF has a healthy overall retention rate and not fighting with attrition across the board?

At this point, when we have consistent high attrition in specific trades, that should no longer be unexpected releases, but just an ongoing trend we are going to do SFA about.

Don't worry though the RCN is going to somehow recruit and train 4 years worth of people next quarter and fix everything. Pay no attention for the lack of training capacity, limited space for trainees on ships, limited capacity for trades training, and general shortage of supervisors (esepcially for unqualified sailors).

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

What bong watered flavoured kool aid are they drinking where the CAF has a healthy overall retention rate and not fighting with attrition across the board?

At this point, when we have consistent high attrition in specific trades, that should no longer be unexpected releases, but just an ongoing trend we are going to do SFA about.

Don't worry though the RCN is going to somehow recruit and train 4 years worth of people next quarter and fix everything. Pay no attention for the lack of training capacity, limited space for trainees on ships, limited capacity for trades training, and general shortage of supervisors (esepcially for unqualified sailors).

They made a great movie about this type of military delusion on Netflix:

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Retention problems? What retention problems?

Retention vs. Attrition in the CAF​

The landscape that we work within is constantly changing and we must be proactive in identifying and addressing CAF members’ needs in order to retain our personnel. The CAF must provide support to our members so that they can meet their full potential and serve for the full extent of their career with honour and satisfaction in their service. Retention is also about keeping the right people – those who positively support the organization with their skills, education, engagement, and dedication. When we talk about retention, it is with the understanding that although the CAF has healthy overall retention, there are still specific demographics and occupations in which unique attrition issues have been identified.
A low attrition rate masks the impact of the loss of a few members in key capabilities. When a member leaves, they take with them years of knowledge, experience, education, and skills that are not easily replaced. Even members with fewer years’ experience represent the loss of unique skills, knowledge, and investment in training when they choose to leave the CAF. Members with the technical, cognitive, social, and leadership skills required to carry out the CAF mission must be selected, trained, and promoted from within the CAF at significant expense. The unanticipated release of personnel, even in low numbers, can create critical shortcomings in the ability to maintain operations and can take years and substantial resources (personnel, material and financial) to correct. This effect can be even more problematic with the loss of personnel with key skills and expertise in specialized domains – personnel whose skills and knowledge are also in high demand in Canadian society.

3.0 Retention vs. Attrition in the CAF - Canada.ca

The landscape that we work within is constantly changing and we must be proactive in identifying and addressing CAF members’ needs in order to retain our personnel.

www.canada.ca

 

[dapaterson]

Question

- Why do we have a lack of training capacity? (Is it a lack of classroom space? Instructors? Training materials?)

- I have read that some ships have deployed without a full crew, and deploying with the minimal crew has become fairly normal.

Why would there not be enough room onboard a ship for a trainee?

The CAF divested training capacity as an after-effect of Program Review in the mid 90s. With reduced intake, some folks saw the schools operating at well under capacity as areas for further reduction / reallocation; this ignored that the trough in students was temporary, not permanent.

This has never been adequately fixed; CAF schools continue to have insufficient manning and are reliant on CFTPO to steal personnel from operational units for even their baseline activities.

Regarding ships, my understanding is that while they are large, the spaces are either filled or not amenable to being used for overflow sleeping quarters. The current fleet (excluding AOPS) were designed with accommodation for their operational crew - additional bunks for personnel under training were not a design consideration. With the AOPS, it's my understanding that here is additional space available which can be configured for additional accommodation - and the ship's hotelling (feeding, bathing, fresh water systems) are scoped to support more personnel as well.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

The CAF divested training capacity as an after-effect of Program Review in the mid 90s. With reduced intake, some folks saw the schools operating at well under capacity as areas for further reduction / reallocation; this ignored that the trough in students was temporary, not permanent.

This has never been adequately fixed; CAF schools continue to have insufficient manning and are reliant on CFTPO to steal personnel from operational units for even their baseline activities.

Two way street. Units don't send pers for CFTPOs, training is scaled back or cancelled, new blood isn't filling up the Bns, pers get over tasked Units are frustrated when asked to send someone on CFTPO to support the schools.

At the school I'm at, we have the instructor Cadre we need. We have brought down the number of BTL folks via attached postings or other training opportunities. It's not a matter of there being g too few instructors for students where I'm at.

What we lack is infrastructure. All well in good to waiver a course from 12 up to 48 candidates because you have the instructors... but you lack 36 pers worth of kit, classroom space, barracks, and support staff to see it through properly.

All that happens is quality of training plummets in favour of clearing the log jam.

 

[dapaterson]

Fair, it's not 100% personnel shortfalls. There are also issues in some corps with insufficient equipment / infra for training... We have not kept up with training facilities above Enhanced Reliability.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Question

- Why do we have a lack of training capacity? (Is it a lack of classroom space? Instructors? Training materials?)

- I have read that some ships have deployed without a full crew, and deploying with the minimal crew has become fairly normal.

Why would there not be enough room onboard a ship for a trainee?


Agreed overall. The article is pretty tone deaf to our actual situation…

Ships deploying on HR are overfull with people; you usually are fighting for each department to get spots. If you have trainees they are already qualified at one job and training for the next, or otherwise bringing something to the table (like speaking a specific language). Ships are really complicated, we reduced crew numbers by giving everyone multiple roles, so it takes time to get someone up to a baseline of being useful.

With ships sailing on skeleton crews you don't have enough people to do any supervising and actually train people. MSE departments are rolling with around 25 people total out of the 50-60 they are supposed to have, so while you may have room for another 100 people, unless 25-30 of them are MS-PO (with a few officers), there just isn't enough people to run an entire department worth of S3s through some useful training, handle the admin, or keep them out of danger in an emergency. Having an extra set of hands to help a trained person do a task can be great, having 4-5 untrained people per qualified person is just a huge burden, especially when they already have more work than time.

We've also been pretty good at pulling instructors out of the schools to fill key positions to get ships at sea, but facilities, equipment and experienced teachers is all part of the logjam. We shut down the programs we had to run people through college programs and then provide a bit of delta training/OJT, so those would have to be stood back up again (which also requires a few experienced people to help run/administrate), so even our external surge options are gone.

Things like the DC school also have limited throughput, and those buildings are 25 years old and need some TLC, so that would probably be the most obvious chokepoint for getting people through their initial training before they are on a ship, but even after they get basic fire/flood training, really nowhere for a big chunk of sailors to go.

Our input to the training system has dropped a lot over the years, so the infrastructure has scaled back accordingly. The last SIP I saw from 2019 had something like 120 people recruited that entire year, with comparable numbers before that, and people still spend time on PAT waiting for courses, but gives you an idea of what the system is set up for.

Fixing it is all doable, but some of these things would take a few years to get setup if we start now, IF the RCN takes some significant steps to slow down the OPSCHED, maybe retire some ships, and park others so we could actually have enough instructors, while doing things like night courses or shift training around the limited training spots for the equipment specific stations.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Ships deploying on HR are overfull with people; you usually are fighting for each department to get spots. If you have trainees they are already qualified at one job and training for the next, or otherwise bringing something to the table (like speaking a specific language). Ships are really complicated, we reduced crew numbers by giving everyone multiple roles, so it takes time to get someone up to a baseline of being useful.

With ships sailing on skeleton crews you don't have enough people to do any supervising and actually train people. MSE departments are rolling with around 25 people total out of the 50-60 they are supposed to have, so while you may have room for another 100 people, unless 25-30 of them are MS-PO (with a few officers), there just isn't enough people to run an entire department worth of S3s through some useful training, handle the admin, or keep them out of danger in an emergency. Having an extra set of hands to help a trained person do a task can be great, having 4-5 untrained people per qualified person is just a huge burden, especially when they already have more work than time.

We've also been pretty good at pulling instructors out of the schools to fill key positions to get ships at sea, but facilities, equipment and experienced teachers is all part of the logjam. We shut down the programs we had to run people through college programs and then provide a bit of delta training/OJT, so those would have to be stood back up again (which also requires a few experienced people to help run/administrate), so even our external surge options are gone.

Things like the DC school also have limited throughput, and those buildings are 25 years old and need some TLC, so that would probably be the most obvious chokepoint for getting people through their initial training before they are on a ship, but even after they get basic fire/flood training, really nowhere for a big chunk of sailors to go.

Our input to the training system has dropped a lot over the years, so the infrastructure has scaled back accordingly. The last SIP I saw from 2019 had something like 120 people recruited that entire year, with comparable numbers before that, and people still spend time on PAT waiting for courses, but gives you an idea of what the system is set up for.

Fixing it is all doable, but some of these things would take a few years to get setup if we start now, IF the RCN takes some significant steps to slow down the OPSCHED, maybe retire some ships, and park others so we could actually have enough instructors, while doing things like night courses or shift training around the limited training spots for the equipment specific stations.

The last sail I did before leaving the fleet was just scary. Boatloads of non-NETP qualified people running around. Section Bases filled with untrained pers and were doing a CLAS Sail, TGEX and they also jammed Fleet SWOAD in to there.

We didn't even have any ATLs in my Section Base, I acted as an ATL but I do not have the actual course.

 

[daftandbarmy]

The last sail I did before leaving the fleet was just scary. Boatloads of non-NETP qualified people running around. Section Bases filled with untrained pers and were doing a CLAS Sail, TGEX and they also jammed Fleet SWOAD in to there.

We didn't even have any ATLs in my Section Base, I acted as an ATL but I do not have the actual course.

 

[Weinie]

Leave James Tiberius Kirk out of this discussion. He accomplished all his missions, plus Kobayashi Maru.

 

[Furniture]

The last sail I did before leaving the fleet was just scary. Boatloads of non-NETP qualified people running around. Section Bases filled with untrained pers and were doing a CLAS Sail, TGEX and they also jammed Fleet SWOAD in to there.

We didn't even have any ATLs in my Section Base, I acted as an ATL but I do not have the actual course.

The PRO fire wasn't all that long ago... I had hoped the RCN had learned something.

 

[Halifax Tar]

The PRO fire wasn't all that long ago... I had hoped the RCN had learned something.

Operational commitments trump everything. Be dammed the material and personnel state.

Not saying its right, just saying I know how the monster thinks. Hell, aren't you part of the Ops Dept ? You should know this

 

[Navy_Pete]

The PRO fire wasn't all that long ago... I had hoped the RCN had learned something.

Hard to learn lessons from a Confidential BOI that has never been redacted for distribution.

There is a summary LL document but without the context of the fire investigation and sequence it's not really useful, and worse case, can actually lead to someone running with the recommendation to do something dangerous. A few of the recommendations don't make sense in modern designs due to some changes, or because it was on a steam ship.

FRE was a near miss from the RCN last year (a lot of other ships would have ran aground) and SFA has changed.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I applied for a free membership because it comes with a discount program, it’s been over a week and they still haven’t processed it or responded to an email so they’re not helping themselves.

Keep in mind most of the positions are done by volunteers, so a week is not that long.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The CAF divested training capacity as an after-effect of Program Review in the mid 90s. With reduced intake, some folks saw the schools operating at well under capacity as areas for further reduction / reallocation; this ignored that the trough in students was temporary, not permanent.

This has never been adequately fixed; CAF schools continue to have insufficient manning and are reliant on CFTPO to steal personnel from operational units for even their baseline activities.

Regarding ships, my understanding is that while they are large, the spaces are either filled or not amenable to being used for overflow sleeping quarters. The current fleet (excluding AOPS) were designed with accommodation for their operational crew - additional bunks for personnel under training were not a design consideration. With the AOPS, it's my understanding that here is additional space available which can be configured for additional accommodation - and the ship's hotelling (feeding, bathing, fresh water systems) are scoped to support more personnel as well.

Maybe take one of those AOP's destined for the CCG (that they don't want) and turn it into a training ship, onboard simulator, small bridge ontop of the main, more bunks, classrooms, fit a 57mm as well and a simulated missile system. Not the best choice of hulls, but cheaper and faster than a whole new ship design.