Reconstitution

[kev994]

There are rarely valid reasons to permit accumulation.

What about when there’s a whole section (several of them actually) that is understaffed to the point where we can’t afford to give them their shift days off, let alone take all of their annual. And it’s a pri 1 task 24/7 so we can’t just not do it either. We forego their shift days off and put them on annual? Doesn’t really solve the problem, just renames it.

 

[MJP]

I have had a fair few folks who have been legitimately unable to take leave, due to operational tempo mind you, who are then forced to take 2 months off before end of FY.

This is a huge piss off, mainly because what the hell do they expect a person to do with a full years worth of time off during the most inhospitable time of year in this country? Kids are still in school, it's cold and miserable, and it's the busiest time of year with SLOC verification, PARs, and any numer of other "it's almost April" tasks.

If folks were able to legitimately bank it for use within the next fiscal year, no issue. If they wanted to cash out up to say 10 days within a fiscal year, non-issue.

You would see productivity go up and less people griping about being told how and when to take their PTO.

Yea it would be interesting to see them treat it similar to how Public Servants are in terms of banking/carrying forward. Likely with a few modifications. However I am a big fan of just letting ppl go on leave and CoC should be making sure folks get time. I wish it was bit more grown up and ditch the concept of leave blocks (outside of genuine need to manage readiness) and allow ppl to manage their leave better. It also helps if CoC were quicker on the signing trigger, always hated waiting or making ppl wait for a routine day off

Also have been around enough to know that there are more than a few suspects that somehow always end up "never" having time to take leave and need to accumulate but that also goes back to the supervisors who should be watching for it.

I’m am far from a pension expert but why not use that banked time as a pension credit of some sort. Or tack it on as a bank of “pre retirement leave”. People would go for that I would suspect.

We have the current rules on accumulation because ppl banked years of leave (while magically still going on leave)

 

[KevinB]

What about when there’s a whole section (several of them actually) that is understaffed to the point where we can’t afford to give them their shift days off, let alone take all of their annual. And it’s a pri 1 task 24/7 so we can’t just not do it either. We forego their shift days off and put them on annual? Doesn’t really solve the problem, just renames it.

It’s a valid reason for the individuals, but not the organization. If something is Pri 1, it should be properly manned for 24/7 operations - which is generally a 5:1 requirement.

 

[Fabius]

Why are our timelines for fixing current problems always measured in decades? This order goes out to 2030.
I get phasing and starting with what we can do now but really? I mean World War Two only lasted 7 years by that measure we could not acccomplish anything.

I am tracking that this will continue to mean no to the following items; CAFSAC, Worthington Cup, Canadian Patrol Concentration, and related foreign events.

 

[Fabius]

Additionally FMSD predates F2025 by at least two years if my memory is not to wrong so obviously that planning is well advanced.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I am tracking that this will continue to mean no to the following items; CAFSAC, Worthington Cup, Canadian Patrol Concentration, and related foreign events.

That will change when someone sacred cow is impacted, or the FN's complain about the military showing up. So what about Nov 11th ceremonies?

 

[Furniture]

It’s a valid reason for the individuals, but not the organization. If something is Pri 1, it should be properly manned for 24/7 operations - which is generally a 5:1 requirement.

There are 24/7 sections that are required, but not Pri 1.

 

[dapaterson]

Additionally FMSD predates F2025 by at least two years if my memory is not to wrong so obviously that planning is well advanced.

FMSD is evergreen. Or, at least, continually employs CFD staff to generate options rejected because they could force hard decisions.

 

[SupersonicMax]

There are rarely valid reasons to permit accumulation.

Yet, the PS is allowed to do it.

 

[SupersonicMax]

or the RCAF's desire to keep hundreds of future pilots on the books despite being unable to train more than 100 per year, or any other personnel-rich areas that need a solid scrubdown.

Honestly, without pilot 2Lts, my unit would likely collapse. We have several that do full time jobs that senior Capts in other trades normally carry (A4 Log, Fin, AOO, etc). What I wished we allowed them to do is train in a trade that had training capacity (remaining pilots awaiting training), allowing them to reach an OFP in that trade and start being paid appropriately while being very gainfully employed.

They don’t have to stay home or make pop corn.

 

[dapaterson]

Yet, the PS is allowed to do it.

The PS has limits; 262.5 hours (aka 35 days), as opposed to 25 days for CAF members.

That said, PS leave entitlements are significantly less than those of the CAF.

 

[SupersonicMax]

The PS has limits; 262.5 hours (aka 35 days), as opposed to 25 days for CAF members.

That said, PS leave entitlements are significantly less than those of the CAF.

It’s more than the CAF and there is no getting authorization from the CDS (yes, I am exagerating but I am trying to make a point about an organization that preaches « power to the edge » yet, does the exact opposite). They just get accumulated. If you have more than 35 days, you just get paid out.

In fact, the CAF is 0 but by exception, you may get up to 25 days. But only if big Parent says yes.

I would love to be able to accumulate without have to justify and take extra long vacations every couple of years, when the time is right and that the op tempo allows. Right now, I force myself to take leave at times that don’t really work for the family plans and leave isn’t achieving the effect it is meant to…

 

[dapaterson]

Compare CAF and PS leave; over 25 years, a CAF member will work half a year less (without considering the 4 short every Xmas). When you look at comp and ben, the greatly enhanced leave provisions (among others) need to be considered.

 

[SupersonicMax]

Compare CAF and PS leave; over 25 years, a CAF member will work half a year less (without considering the 4 short every Xmas). When you look at comp and ben, the greatly enhanced leave provisions (among others) need to be considered.

Compare that to being forced to move every couple of years.

The current leave accumulation/pay out policy is actually counter to the intent of leave. People end up « burning » leave. And I think it’s a symptom of the organization treating our people like they are a free ressource, until we have to pay them for leave payout. If we actually had to manage people’s time and pay overtime when people work more than the normal workweek, that perception may change.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Compare CAF and PS leave; over 25 years, a CAF member will work half a year less (without considering the 4 short every Xmas). When you look at comp and ben, the greatly enhanced leave provisions (among others) need to be considered.

Only if you assume both are working normal hours only. You can work side by side with PS doing overtime and watch them rack up time in lieu. I think I would have maxed out accumulated time off last year no problem if I had gotten OT.

We're so short handed if I take a week off I come back to a massive backlog that will take a month or more to pick away at working extra hours, and the organization continually puts on large LOE intensive before/during/after normal leave periods. That's not really uncommon where we're at, but tends to make time off almost counter productive as we're too shorthanded to actually have anyone genuinely able to cover off anything but emergency requests..

I've yet to see anyone actually planning at high levels to do less with less, and continually seems surprised if we don't actually progress items we repeatedly flag as below the cut off line for what we can reasonably do. The trend actually seems to be to just continually add additional processes, so it takes more LOE to do the same tasks on top of it (ie takes more LOE to get less actually done)

I think a better metric for leave accumulation or OT in general would be why is it required in the first place? The organization systematically has killed any possibilty of a real work/life balance by making everything 'no fail' options but not giving us resources/time to do it, and doing things like just saying no to high level requests.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Allowing people to take leave when they want sounds great when your an army unit who goes to the field only a couple times a year.

Unfortunately big grey floaty things go to sea alot more than that and people have to plan around big grey floaty things schedules.

The RCN should be flexible when it comes to crewing and bend it for purpose of the trip.

Unfortunately engineering is always going to get boned.

 

[Fabius]

Allowing people to take leave when they want sounds great when your an army unit who goes to the field only a couple times a year.

Unfortunately big grey floaty things go to sea alot more than that and people have to plan around big grey floaty things schedules.

The RCN should be flexible when it comes to crewing and bend it for purpose of the trip.

Unfortunately engineering is always going to get boned.

True as well for Army units when you factor in courses needing to be run and IRU schedules etc.
However if our units were planned closer to war strength manning vs current constructs and then staffed to 100-110% it would be possible to allow some mission command to lower level leadership to manage personal leave requests and military requirements.

A small establishment filled to 80% (Honestly even a 100% but small numbers of certain qualms and ranks) with 10- 20% on TCAT, PCAT, MELs, life reasons for being unavailable for deployment etc quickly limits all flexibility.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The RCAF has tried little to no new ideas in pilot training. ROTP grads are waiting 2-3+ years post graduation to sit in a cockpit. There are great economies to be found there...

Perhaps even abolishing ROTP...

No ... abolish the Military Colleges. Make ROTP like the UNTD and COTC of decades ago: you, if you are fit, have no criminal record and under the age of 25, get your tuition books and fees paid and a stipend for living expenses IF:

1. You are doing academically well (slightly better then just a bare pass) in a programme that the CF actually needs (i.e. not gender studies);​

2. You appear, at least once a week and one week-end a month for military training; and​

3. You pass your (well paid) summer phase training courses.​

​

Those who do 1, 2 and 3 for the requisite four years will be offered either:

a. A short service commission (60 months) with a firm commitment that the CF will train you to deck, platoon/troop command or wings standard in less than 18 months. In other words, you get useful training and, eventually, 3+ years of "work" to put on your resumé and the possibility (say 50%) of being offered an intermediate (15 more years during which you MUST earn (through as mix of examinations and performance) the rank of Cdr/LCol) and, maybe, later (25% of the surviving Cdrs/LCols) a long service (to age 57) commission with the prospect of Capt(N)/Col, Cmdre and Adm/Gen; or​

b. A commission into a Naval reserve division or an Army reserve unit - and the country, we assume, benefits from your "free" education.​

 

[dapaterson]

The Army seems to have abandoned the concept of units other than as notional administrative organizations, and treats them all as bottomless manpower pools to fill whatever CFTPO related stupidity gets created.

 

[Remius]

No ... abolish the Military Colleges. Make ROTP like the UNTD and COTC of decades ago: you, if you are fit, have no criminal record and under the age of 25, get your tuition books and fees paid and a stipend for living expenses IF:

1. You are doing academically well (slightly better then just a bare pass) in a programme that the CF actually needs (i.e. not gender studies);​

2. You appear, at least once a week and one week-end a month for military training; and​

3. You pass your (well paid) summer phase training courses.​

​

Those who do 1, 2 and 3 for the requisite four years will be offered either:

a. A short service commission (60 months) with a firm commitment that the CF will train you to deck, platoon/troop command or wings standard in less than 18 months. In other words, you get useful training and, eventually, 3+ years of "work" to put on your resumé and the possibility (say 50%) of being offered an intermediate (15 more years during which you MUST earn (through as mix of examinations and performance) the rank of Cdr/LCol) and, maybe, later (25% of the surviving Cdrs/LCols) a long service (to age 57) commission with the prospect of Capt(N)/Col, Cmdre and Adm/Gen; or​

b. A commission into a Naval reserve division or an Army reserve unit - and the country, we assume, benefits from your "free" education.​

My guess is that he was talking about abandoning ROTP for pilots.