Reconstitution

[daftandbarmy]

It shouldn't have to be solely about money - or at all.

If you can offer adventure and/or opportunities for cost free (in fact paid) training for a future career in civilian life it should go a long way.

The CAF, and especially the army, needs a whole new model for recruiting and service which entices the herds of young graduates that come out of high school each year without prospects. There are roughly 300,000 graduates every year. 10% of graduates are unemployed, 14% of those who didn't graduate are unemployed. Roughly 420,000 reach military age annually. That's a broad pool to draw on if we offered something and advertised and did it right.


Why don't we skip all that and just hire a mercenary army from third world countries at a pittance?

There's a valid role for civilian contracted services. But we've already gone too far and lost many of our capabilities to maintain our equipment fleets in house. Those programs are constantly criticized in audits as crippling our capabilities.

Our problem is that we are still using 1950s and 60s service models (slightly tweaked) and yet degraded through recruiting and IT processes that are only a fraction as effective as those from seventy years ago.

Can the CAF beat $16.75/ hour ($135/day), plus tips, for an entry level job that just about anyone can start tomorrow, just around the corner from where they live, that doesn’t require them to work 24/7/365?

Minimum wage

In B.C., employees must be paid a minimum wage per hour unless they are a liquor server, resident caretaker, live-in home support worker or farmworker

www2.gov.bc.ca

 

[FJAG]

Can the CAF beat $16.75/ hour ($135/day), plus tips, for an entry level job that just about anyone can start tomorrow, just around the corner from where they live, that doesn’t require them to work 24/7/365?

Minimum wage

In B.C., employees must be paid a minimum wage per hour unless they are a liquor server, resident caretaker, live-in home support worker or farmworker

www2.gov.bc.ca

Does a restaurant in BC let you sit on a sunny hill and throw 93 pound bricks of steel and high explosives at an innocent copse on a range?

Target your audience. Amongst the many photos we've collected I have several of a young blonde ponytailed female gunner loading and firing an M777 in front of Sperwan Ghar. They're out there if you give them a purpose in life.

Let's be honest, the CAF really sucks at selling itself and the opportunities for young people. There's lots of them out there looking for a challenge. The biggest challenge the CAF gives them right now is the glacial pace of their recruiting process and IT training. No wonder the CAF has a bad rep.

And yeah. I agree wholeheartedly about the job around the corner from where they live. If I was king, the majority of our units would be in the cities where the recruits are. Careers would be possible without ever leaving town. Stay close to extended family; let the spouse have a relevant career; let your kids make friends for life and not transient relationships. As I said, we're still stuck in a 1950s/60s service model. The mould needs breaking. That's why I think merely throwing money into the pay envelope is not the real solution--I won't argue that it won't help--but the CAF needs to look much, much further than that.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Does a restaurant in BC let you sit on a sunny hill and throw 93 pound bricks of steel and high explosives at an innocent copse on a range?

Target your audience. Amongst the many photos we've collected I have several of a young blonde ponytailed female gunner loading and firing an M777 in front of Sperwan Ghar. They're out there if you give them a purpose in life.

Let's be honest, the CAF really sucks at selling itself and the opportunities for young people. There's lots of them out there looking for a challenge. The biggest challenge the CAF gives them right now is the glacial pace of their recruiting process and IT training. No wonder the CAF has a bad rep.

And yeah. I agree wholeheartedly about the job around the corner from where they live. If I was king, the majority of our units would be in the cities where the recruits are. Careers would be possible without ever leaving town. Stay close to extended family; let the spouse have a relevant career; let your kids make friends for life and not transient relationships. As I said, we're still stuck in a 1950s/60s service model. The mould needs breaking. That's why I think merely throwing money into the pay envelope is not the real solution--I won't argue that it won't help--but the CAF needs to look much, much further than that.

FWIW, I agree with you.

There's a need to look at a developing, and properly articulating, a more compelling 'value proposition' than just letting people wear purple hair...

 

[quadrapiper]

There's a need to look at a developing, and properly articulating, a more compelling 'value proposition' than just letting people wear purple hair...

I don't see that as a value proposition, as an endeavour to clarify the brand and avoid devaluing the appealing bits (whether service, helping people, doing something new, getting a job far away from home that also feeds you, things that go boom, career, boats/tracked things/planes, challenge, whatever).

 

[Halifax Tar]

Does a restaurant in BC let you sit on a sunny hill and throw 93 pound bricks of steel and high explosives at an innocent copse on a range?

Target your audience. Amongst the many photos we've collected I have several of a young blonde ponytailed female gunner loading and firing an M777 in front of Sperwan Ghar. They're out there if you give them a purpose in life.

Let's be honest, the CAF really sucks at selling itself and the opportunities for young people. There's lots of them out there looking for a challenge. The biggest challenge the CAF gives them right now is the glacial pace of their recruiting process and IT training. No wonder the CAF has a bad rep.

And yeah. I agree wholeheartedly about the job around the corner from where they live. If I was king, the majority of our units would be in the cities where the recruits are. Careers would be possible without ever leaving town. Stay close to extended family; let the spouse have a relevant career; let your kids make friends for life and not transient relationships. As I said, we're still stuck in a 1950s/60s service model. The mould needs breaking. That's why I think merely throwing money into the pay envelope is not the real solution--I won't argue that it won't help--but the CAF needs to look much, much further than that.

Agreed. But moving everyone into expensive urban centers is going to counter that we don't need to boost the pay envelope. Money talks, its just that simple.

 

[ueo]

Can the CAF beat $16.75/ hour ($135/day), plus tips, for an entry level job that just about anyone can start tomorrow, just around the corner from where they live, that doesn’t require them to work 24/7/365?

Minimum wage

In B.C., employees must be paid a minimum wage per hour unless they are a liquor server, resident caretaker, live-in home support worker or farmworker

www2.gov.bc.ca

Ya but it takes about 365 days to get one of these fabulous job offers!

 

[dapaterson]

Agreed. But moving everyone into expensive urban centers is going to counter that we don't need to boost the pay envelope. Money talks, its just that simple.

On the other hand, there are generally more and better spousal employment opportunities in urban areas.

Affordability is not a problem unique to the CAF.

 

[Halifax Tar]

On the other hand, there are generally more and better spousal employment opportunities in urban areas.

Affordability is not a problem unique to the CAF.

Unique or not, its a problem.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

You know what's really good at getting recruitment numbers up.....

Kinetic Military Action

 

[QV]

You know what's really good at getting recruitment numbers up.....

Kinetic Military Action

That's because people usually join a military to do military things... not for purple hair.

The CAF has allowed itself to be corrupted by unnecessary and temporary social/political trends. The CAF has lost it's way.

 

[FJAG]

Agreed. But moving everyone into expensive urban centers is going to counter that we don't need to boost the pay envelope. Money talks, its just that simple.

When we talk about affordability of urban centres we tend to forget that the vast majority of our population copes with that and lives and works in large urban centres. There are things that make it affordable - younger people living longer with their parents and even inheriting properties; stable careers for a spouse that provide double incomes; one could even make affordable PMQ and quarters available in cities. Let's face it, there are thousands of landlords out there building accommodations and making a living at it- DND could do that at cost (and either live with or change the taxable benefit provisions - why shouldn't serving members get a break? - we have federal land inside most urban areas that could be utilized)

I've discussed 30/70 battalions before and an urban 30/70 battalion could be formed around both regular and reserve force recruits from the local area. Make it a 30/70 or even 50/50 brigade in one city and you have the makings of a self contained career structure where the only requirement to leave the city is for short exercises, career courses and deployments.

I'm not trying to cheap out the pay envelope here. But I do think that there are other mitigating and coping mechanisms.

One of my favourite is education. Provide tuition related costs for individuals to get a university or community college education but without a salary during the school year. Then put them on a full summer's employment to earn cash and learn their military skills. Follow that up with a period of reasonable obligatory service in either the regf or resf. You'll create a continuing stream of young members to fill the ranks and some of them will stick for a longer career if properly incentivized.

It gets back to creating a new service model that suits our nation's employment model. Things like beards and hair is the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. It's a cosmetic attempt at looking like the CAF is with the times when we really haven't changed anything to truly make service attractive to the bulk of the population.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

CAFs really expensive recruitment video using professional actors and showing people biking

864 views

Meanwhile random dude with Helmet Cam:

6+ million views

 

[Quirky]

That's because people usually join a military to do military things...

Not the country for military things. I heard Israel lets you do that type of stuff.

 

[QV]

CAFs really expensive recruitment video using professional actors and showing people biking

864 views

Meanwhile random dude with Helmet Cam:

6+ million views

These are easy and free lessons to learn from.... still, it's somehow missed.

 

[childs56]

When we talk about affordability of urban centres we tend to forget that the vast majority of our population copes with that and lives and works in large urban centres. There are things that make it affordable - younger people living longer with their parents and even inheriting properties; stable careers for a spouse that provide double incomes; one could even make affordable PMQ and quarters available in cities. Let's face it, there are thousands of landlords out there building accommodations and making a living at it- DND could do that at cost (and either live with or change the taxable benefit provisions - why shouldn't serving members get a break? - we have federal land inside most urban areas that could be utilized)

I've discussed 30/70 battalions before and an urban 30/70 battalion could be formed around both regular and reserve force recruits from the local area. Make it a 30/70 or even 50/50 brigade in one city and you have the makings of a self contained career structure where the only requirement to leave the city is for short exercises, career courses and deployments.

I'm not trying to cheap out the pay envelope here. But I do think that there are other mitigating and coping mechanisms.

One of my favourite is education. Provide tuition related costs for individuals to get a university or community college education but without a salary during the school year. Then put them on a full summer's employment to earn cash and learn their military skills. Follow that up with a period of reasonable obligatory service in either the regf or resf. You'll create a continuing stream of young members to fill the ranks and some of them will stick for a longer career if properly incentivized.

It gets back to creating a new service model that suits our nation's employment model. Things like beards and hair is the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. It's a cosmetic attempt at looking like the CAF is with the times when we really haven't changed anything to truly make service attractive to the bulk of the population.

I said this back in 2000 if they would set up a Regular Force Artillery unit in Victoria BC based off the 5th BC Reg RCA that I would of been interested in signing up, many of my members would have also. I had little to any interest in being posted to Shilo, Petawawa or Gagetown. I am pretty certain we could have maintained a 70/30 or 50/50 Artillery Battery as a minimum. I think we could have squeaked out 2- 3 batterys with out a issue had the funding, equipment and leadership been there. With only a bus and ferry ride (the ANG would have picked us up in Victoria if we asked) to two Artillery training areas, We had one US unit willing to let us use their SPG, and towed guns if required and provide ammo. Win win for me and those who would have signed on the line full time.

 

[FJAG]

I said this back in 2000 if they would set up a Regular Force Artillery unit in Victoria BC based off the 5th BC Reg RCA that I would of been interested in signing up, many of my members would have also. I had little to any interest in being posted to Shilo, Petawawa or Gagetown. I am pretty certain we could have maintained a 70/30 or 50/50 Artillery Battery as a minimum. I think we could have squeaked out 2- 3 batterys with out a issue had the funding, equipment and leadership been there. With only a bus and ferry ride (the ANG would have picked us up in Victoria if we asked) to two Artillery training areas, We had one US unit willing to let us use their SPG, and towed guns if required and provide ammo. Win win for me and those who would have signed on the line full time.

In my napkin force, I've been toying with what could be realistic for BC.

In short I'm looking at all of BC as being able to form something in the neighbourhood of Light Composite Regiment (vice a brigade) consisting of a light reconnaissance battalion (30/70), a light mountain infantry battalion (+) (20/80), a Cdn Ranger group (10/90), a light artillery regiment (-) (30/70), an engineer company (30/70) and a service battalion (-) (30/70). The primary role would be defence of Canada coastal ops. It's main purpose would be coastal patrol and strike, building a mountain capability and a secondary amphibious and airmobile capability.

On the artillery side, I would see a regiment (-) including one light 105mm battery (10/90), a UCAV battery (10/90) and a tactical battery (70/30 skilled in mountain warfare and naval gunfire FOOing - JTACs would be attached from outside). I see the HQ and tactical bty working out of Victoria and the gun bty out of Vancouver. The UCAV battery could be anywhere but probably Vancouver. (I see something similar on the Atlantic side but with a greater amphibious and airmobile but no mountain focus).

My figures right now indicate that 39 Bde can average about 1,500 A/Res folks. That's too small for a brigade in and of itself. The mountains and sea somewhat define its role. Assuming a trend to redistributing regf personnel into regf/ARes hybrid structures we would be adding about 300 to 400 in addition to existing full time staff and the part-timers. That gives a total force of just shy of 2,000 regf/ARes (but not counting Rangers) which, in short does not provide enough personnel for the three manoeuvre units needed for a brigade (as an example, the infantry brigade structures I'm contemplating in Quebec has three light battalions, a recce battalion, a Cdn Ranger Group, and a service battalion (no artillery or engineers - that's a div resource) and runs at roughly 3,100-3,300 regf/ARes each (not counting Rangers).

 

[QV]

When we talk about affordability of urban centres we tend to forget that the vast majority of our population copes with that and lives and works in large urban centres. There are things that make it affordable - younger people living longer with their parents and even inheriting properties; stable careers for a spouse that provide double incomes; one could even make affordable PMQ and quarters available in cities. Let's face it, there are thousands of landlords out there building accommodations and making a living at it- DND could do that at cost (and either live with or change the taxable benefit provisions - why shouldn't serving members get a break? - we have federal land inside most urban areas that could be utilized)

I've discussed 30/70 battalions before and an urban 30/70 battalion could be formed around both regular and reserve force recruits from the local area. Make it a 30/70 or even 50/50 brigade in one city and you have the makings of a self contained career structure where the only requirement to leave the city is for short exercises, career courses and deployments.

I'm not trying to cheap out the pay envelope here. But I do think that there are other mitigating and coping mechanisms.

One of my favourite is education. Provide tuition related costs for individuals to get a university or community college education but without a salary during the school year. Then put them on a full summer's employment to earn cash and learn their military skills. Follow that up with a period of reasonable obligatory service in either the regf or resf. You'll create a continuing stream of young members to fill the ranks and some of them will stick for a longer career if properly incentivized.

It gets back to creating a new service model that suits our nation's employment model. Things like beards and hair is the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. It's a cosmetic attempt at looking like the CAF is with the times when we really haven't changed anything to truly make service attractive to the bulk of the population.

When you say 30/70 battalions or your point on tuition costs for some amount of obligatory service, it makes me think about how Israel has managed to structure their force. And it seems to be effective.

 

[FJAG]

When you say 30/70 battalions or your point on tuition costs for some amount of obligatory service, it makes me think about how Israel has managed to structure their force. And it seems to be effective.

I'm not as familiar with how they run things in general as I'd like to be. I'm quite fond of the fact that they seem to be able to run a complete defence force of 169,000 active and 465,000 reservists with just one LGen, roughly 14 MGens and 50 BGens. Now that's a lesson worth learning.

 

[dimsum]

You know what's really good at getting recruitment numbers up.....

Kinetic Military Action

Yes, for a while.

 

[Eaglelord17]

Maybe the CAF shouldn't be competing with the civilian employers. Maybe it should engage them directly and hire civilians to supply services rather than trying to train and retain people that are working with 30 year old technology.

And if it is true that there is no trouble recruiting 18 year old bayonets then build a system that will recruit and train 18 year old bayonets (that learned how to fly an FPV drone sitting on their mother's couch).

I would say a lot of the CAFs issues with retaining and training skilled techs is directly due to reducing our intuitional manning in favour of civilian manning.

Firstly it greatly reduced the number of people in those trades, meaning now you have less people being trained in the future. That also means if someone leaves it has a much larger effect on your overall capabilities.

Secondly it got rid of a lot of the 'better' (i.e. Monday to Friday day shift type work) postings which you could rotate troops into. That results in more burn out as the troops are now mainly doing field work and there is fewer positions which you can rotate them into to give them a break.

Thirdly it resulted in worse service for the CAF in getting what needs to be done, done. Civilians have contracts and can say no a lot easier than a military member can. They also tend not to be looking out for the institution rather what's in their best interest. If things keep breaking for civilians that just means more work for them which in turn means more money. For the military that means more time spent working which means your going to want to do it right once.

Fourthly it means if we ever go to a real war again and start facing real attrition there will be no one to back fill those positions. When CAF members were manning the third lines you could theoretically pull them into the second and first and replace the third with civilians. Now there is no one to pull.

Solving these issues for technical trades is a difficult thing to do. You can't make a skilled tech in a month, it takes years of constant practice to gain these skill sets. Skill sets which are in extremely high demand civilian side due to our education system basically dropping the ball nationwide in encouraging people to get these skills.