George Wallace said:
That is a serious problem for the Reserves. Regular Force formulas that forecast attrition rates can not be applied successfully to the Reserves. Reservists have dozens of other criteria to consider when one wants to forecast attrition rates. Graduation from school, university and or college and changes in civilian employment could cause Reservists to have to move away from the geographic location of their unit, or not permit them the hours to attend training. The departure of members after graduation or for civilian employment to locations distant from the unit is unpredictable. As part-time/volunteer members, changes to family and social situations have a greater affect on their attendance. There is a greater number of events in a Reservist's life that could change their ability to volunteer their time and cause them to be NES, than a Regular Force member. There is NO accurate formula to forecast attrition rates in the Reserves.
The Reserves have to be able to recruit a minimum of five pers for every position in order to reasonably be expected to maintain their authorized strengths. Many Reserve units see most of their attrition of their members from among their new applicants who do not complete BMQ or BMQ (L). This factor, slowly whittles down the unit's effective strength. A problem not faced to the same extent in the Regular Force.
Almost completely agree - part that I don't is the NES. There is only one factor that makes a mbr NES and that is the mbr. There is no reason I have ever seen for a mbr to go NES especially these days. They can pick up a phone, call the unit and arrange releases or ED&T, units will mail them paperwork to sign and send back. If they are releasing then everything can be arranged if they make the effort and everyone acts like adults. For example two case dealt with - a mbr of the unit on ED&T contacted the unit as he was in Africa and was not able to return to Canada on time due to the virus scare. Arrangements were made to take care of via emails. At another time a Cpl contacted me to arrange his release and for us to go to his mothers house to collect his kit which we did. The mbr was calling me from jail as he had been sentenced that morning (no, we were not made aware of the case until after the fact). If these 2 can do it I question anyone going NES.
NES mbrs have such an impact on units that I really don't understand why so many stall on getting them released. They impact budgets (based on attendance numbers), SIP (if the posn is filled you can't recruit into it thus a lower SIP), promotions (especially at Sgt and WO level as again no empty posn so you can't promote) and unit function (able to support training, fill tasked positions, even other mbrs obtaining course quals as they cannot get promoted to the rank required for their next course).
For the SCP I see it as a need to balance out as much as possible to the benefit of the military. We need the posns allocated to both mbrs already in transferring over and for mbrs off the street rather than just one so we can have the experience to quickly fill holes plus some new blood to bring fresh eyes to matters.
