Armed forces recruitment/retention

[borcy]

This was touched on in the Ukraine thread, however I saw this today.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/navy-has-so-f...


Seems the lack of people is starting to affect Ops more and more now.

[IanH755]

Sadly I think that this stories only going to get bigger over the next few months. I know that it is "highly likely" that there will be an RAF version of this story based around the lack of retention of specific trades & ranks plus recruitment probably hitting the news sometime in the next few months too.

I don't have any certain knowledge on whether there's an equivalent Army version of the same story though, but wouldn't be surprised.

[MB140]

IanH755 said:

Sadly I think that this stories only going to get bigger over the next few months. I know that it is "highly likely" that there will be an RAF version of this story based around the lack of retention of specific trades & ranks plus recruitment probably hitting the news sometime in the next few months too.

I don't have any certain knowledge on whether there's an equivalent Army version of the same story though, but wouldn't be surprised.

I’m current serving RAF TG1. You’re not wrong. People are leaving in droves. Two of my colleagues PVR’d last year, both we’re offered their Chf Tech last year. Both told the airforce to jog on, one giving it the proper no holds barred to his CO when asked why.

One has gone to work for Amazon as a facility maintenance manager £70k basic plus overtime, plus annual bonuses.

The other is going in to a project management consultancy role £100k+.


Over the last 2 years I know of at least 20+ Sgt and above that have left personally. None have taken a pay cut. Most have gone on to £50k+ jobs plus their RAF pension on top.

I’ve got 3 years left to LOS 30, I’m lucky I’ve got a right cushty job allowing me to work from home whenever I want. If they sent me back to a front line Sqn like most are I would be out in a heartbeat.

The only reason I’m still in is because it’s the first time in my RAF career I feel like I’m stealing a living (the RAF have had their moneys worth for the last 26).

These days you’re your own HR, own MT, own medical, own supplier. You are effectively doing everything for yourself with little or no back support anymore. Hell I’ve got a pal whose a Sqn Ldr and he was on night shift guard last month.

On top of that due to people who can’t behave, can’t do their own job properly, arse covering I now have a multitude of wk courses I have to stay in date. The latest being how not to touch women up. I’ve been in 25 years knowing it’s wrong to touch people up but a couple of the dirty sparrow fly boys don’t know it and now I’m stuck doing an annual course. There are a lot of these courses. Politician fks up with classified stuff. I now have multiple courses.

Latest one I’m hearing is that married people who own home and run their own homes will have to pay accommodation charges when being forced to stay away from their home at the airforces request. Stuff that, my mess they should be paying me to stay in it. It’s a st hole I had no hot water for 4 months last year, boiling a kettle to wash with in the sink.

Sub inflation (or no pay rise many years) for the last 15 years hasn’t helped.

The new pension is way worse than what most of mine will be on. So why would anyone just starting out now stay. Get in, get qualifications, get 3 years experience and get out. That was what the airforce decided they wanted a while back (cheaper I would guess), How does that work when you’re trying to engineer complex aircraft and aircraft sub-systems.

On top of that a lot of the easier jobs where people would go for an easy tour for a couple of years have now been civilianised. That means those that are blue suit no longer get a rest tour, but also being front line they are deployed more (especially the TG1 trade group).

I’ve loved my career and time in the RAF, spent 7 years as aircrew flying for a living on flying pay but even I recognise it’s not what it used to be.

Navy I could imagine it’s the same, like the RAF it is heavily tech / engineering based these days and civilian street seems to want our skills and are prepared to pay more. At the end of the day money talks (well pays the bills / mortgage).

Army, not so sure about them.

Anyway sorry about the long rant. I know it’s time to leave.

[borcy]

Evanivitch said:

What are the big crisis of the 18-25 year old of today?

Cost of living. Housing. Education costs.

Improve on-base accommodation and feeding conditions. Really make the argument that whilst the salary isn't huge it is more than compensated by the in-service benefits. These are have eroded and the decline has been very public.

Improve the housing support for mortgages and deposit savings. If circa 5 years service gets you a £10k deposit and favourable interest rate then it goes some way to setting up 25 years old for life after service. Make it better again for those doing 10 years and JNCO.

And then either during service or through credits, get people through degrees with complete funding. It's something that's already done now to some extent but it's incredibly difficult for enlisted.

Look across the pond at the incentives that people have for service. Everything from financial to immigration status for family members.

Edited by Evanivitch on Saturday 6th January 18:35

There was a retention bonus that worked quite well, chopped a few years ago. I wonder how much it cost per year vs it's usefulness in keeping people in?

You can get a full degree paid after you leave if you've done more than 6 years I think.

You can borrow half your salary upto 20k, I'm not sure on the interest rate though.

Edited by borcy on Saturday 6th January 19:55

[borcy]

MB140 said:

I’m current serving RAF TG1. You’re not wrong. People are leaving in droves. Two of my colleagues PVR’d last year, both we’re offered their Chf Tech last year. Both told the airforce to jog on, one giving it the proper no holds barred to his CO when asked why.

No one interested in staying for the rumoured FRI?

[MB140]

borcy said:

No one interested in staying for the rumoured FRI?

I worked with the current WO TG1 EPAT advisor until about 6 months ago.

Not sure I want to commit to another 3 years, of course once they have you signed on the dotted line you’re trapped. Hello Lossiemouth.

Call me cynical, like I said above I have a decent job at the moment and can last tour ride it out until the end of my career (2027), once I sign the FRI there is no guarantee I will stay where I am. Hello Lossiemouth.

have a pal who is a civilian working P8, apparently the RAF are really struggling up there. Post people in and then they PVR. Don’t wave you 90 days on posting, save up annual leave, plus carry over, plus terminal, plus resettlement and you spend what 4 months up there. Never do a Q course so effectively you do nothing for the year before getting out. Take the FRI and you’re stuck. Not to mention it will be taxed at 40%. Is it really worth it.

Edited by MB140 on Saturday 6th January 20:24

Edited by MB140 on Saturday 6th January 20:29

[borcy]

MB140 said:

I worked with the current WO TG1 EPAT advisor until about 6 months ago.

Not sure I want to commit to another 3 years, of course once they have you signed on the dotted line you’re trapped. Hello Lossiemouth.

Call me cynical, like I said above I have a decent job at the moment and can last tour ride it out until the end of my career (2027), once I sign the FRI there is no guarantee I will stay where I am. Hello Lossiemouth.

have a pal who is a civilian working P8, apparently the RAF are really struggling up there. Post people in and then they PVR. Don’t wave you 90 days on posting, save up annual leave, plus carry over, plus terminal, plus resettlement and you spend what 4 months up there. Never do a Q course so effectively you do nothing for the year before getting out. Take the FRI and you’re stuck. Not to mention it will be taxed at 40%. Is it really worth it.

Edited by MB140 on Saturday 6th January 20:24

I had heard that about lossie, but it's always been difficult to get people to go to and even harder to get people to stay same as odiham, marham.

Edited by MB140 on Saturday 6th January 20:29

[IanH755]

MB140 & borcy -

Just be aware that I think any comms which may have been sent out internally regarding any potential FRI were Protectively Marked (IIRC although I haven't seen it for a few weeks, away for Xmas), so probably best to be careful of whats about said about any FRI till Monday when we can check and be sure its OK.

I'm not sure that anything from the annual WO's meeting slide pack was Marked though and that had some really big worries in it.

---

MB140 said:

So why would anyone just starting out now stay. Get in, get qualifications, get 3 years experience and get out. That was what the airforce decided they wanted a while back (cheaper I would guess), How does that work when you’re trying to engineer complex aircraft and aircraft sub-systems.

Thats what I'm seeing more and more of. It used to be so rare to see anyone not make the basic 9 years back in the '90's-'00's-'10's but I'm seeing it happen a few times a year at the moment on just a single base, folks joining up, doing 3-5 years in the RAF/Navy and then getting out early mostly due to what they perceive as overall "poor treatment" by the organisation as a whole, with all the typical stuff you mentioned, poor blocks/messes/quarters, poor work/life balance, too many low skilled people meaning skilled folks have to do everything, too much admin, low wages for the trade etc etc etc, the list never stops.

Edited by IanH755 on Sunday 7th January 00:44

[djc206]

I do a job that has civilian and military equivalents, quite a lot of the military guys and girls and applying to do our side. They are all officers so not exactly broke and with good pensions but in the civilian role they can see pay that tops out above Commodore level and consistency of posting. What incentive is there to stay?

[Hondashark]

Anyone with a technical trade of level 3 or above would be daft to stay in.
My work is about 50% ex military, at the lowest level the pay starts at £45k + bonus and overtime. Aslong as you have a lvl 3 in mechanical or electric then you are good to go.
After 4 years in the military how much are you on? £26k.

[hidetheelephants]

MB140 said:

I worked with the current WO TG1 EPAT advisor until about 6 months ago.

Not sure I want to commit to another 3 years, of course once they have you signed on the dotted line you’re trapped. Hello Lossiemouth.

Call me cynical, like I said above I have a decent job at the moment and can last tour ride it out until the end of my career (2027), once I sign the FRI there is no guarantee I will stay where I am. Hello Lossiemouth.

have a pal who is a civilian working P8, apparently the RAF are really struggling up there. Post people in and then they PVR. Don’t wave you 90 days on posting, save up annual leave, plus carry over, plus terminal, plus resettlement and you spend what 4 months up there. Never do a Q course so effectively you do nothing for the year before getting out. Take the FRI and you’re stuck. Not to mention it will be taxed at 40%. Is it really worth it.

It's an RAF airfield, given how few they have there's a pretty good chance you'll go there at some point. What's the issue? At worst you'll be posted somewhere else in 2 years.

[MB140]

hidetheelephants said:

MB140 said:

I worked with the current WO TG1 EPAT advisor until about 6 months ago.

Not sure I want to commit to another 3 years, of course once they have you signed on the dotted line you’re trapped. Hello Lossiemouth.

Call me cynical, like I said above I have a decent job at the moment and can last tour ride it out until the end of my career (2027), once I sign the FRI there is no guarantee I will stay where I am. Hello Lossiemouth.

have a pal who is a civilian working P8, apparently the RAF are really struggling up there. Post people in and then they PVR. Don’t wave you 90 days on posting, save up annual leave, plus carry over, plus terminal, plus resettlement and you spend what 4 months up there. Never do a Q course so effectively you do nothing for the year before getting out. Take the FRI and you’re stuck. Not to mention it will be taxed at 40%. Is it really worth it.

It's an RAF airfield, given how few they have there's a pretty good chance you'll go there at some point. What's the issue? At worst you'll be posted somewhere else in 2 years.

IanH, im aware of the protective caviat so will say no more. I’ve not mentioned any details of it for that reason.



Ride the elephants;
What’s wrong with going to Scotland. Nothing if that’s where you want to go. It’s just very isolated up there. The camp is good yes by all accounts but there is nothing up there if you don’t want to be up there and for a lot of people 2 years is still a long time. As TG1 I can pretty much tell you it will take that long to become SQUEP on type. Once you have that Q on your competency profile there going to do there best to keep you up there. I would say a 2 year tour for TG1 is very rare, yes you can apply to move at 2 years for a move in 3 but no guarantee. Service need trumps everything. It took me 4 years to get out a coding job I hated that I never wanted to do I was just sent. The only reason I got out was because I applied for a job with a higher service need. I don’t know about other trades and officers do tend to move every 2 years. OR not so much.

My case
I’m 47 now, have an aged ill father who lives in Nottingham. I live in Newark on Trent so about 30 miles away. It works brilliantly for me my current job, work from home a lot, have an understanding and sympathetic boss who makes my work / life balance brilliant. If I go to Scotland that work / life balance tips the wrong way for me at this point in my career..

My wife has a great job paying £100k+ a year if I went to Scotland that would mean she would have to dramatically reduce her income or we would hardly ever see each other (something we are used to but are actively trying to avoid as I wind down my last few years in the RAF.

TG1 in general
Many people in the RAF of TG1 (so other ranks not officers) tend to spend time on type. They have a partner who may earn, kids in schools with friends, maybe parents near by as they have got a posting they wanted. What’s the best way to piss them off and make them leave. Ruin all that, for what has become below civilian levels of pay, with poor accommodation / married quarters, more time away (one year I did nine months away). You can only push people so far. Then people vote with their feet. TG1 personnel with experience are now becoming highly in demand in civilian street. The RAF are now discovering this.

Anyway sorry for derailing / cluttering up the thread. My final rant over apologies.

Edited by MB140 on Sunday 7th January 04:50

Edited by MB140 on Sunday 7th January 04:55

[Tony1963]

I’m a civvie at Wattisham. I’ll keep it short: the REME have had poor retention for a few years now, and the poor recruitment is starting to bite now.

I was in the RAF 1981-90. I seem to remember it was fun. Serious, but lots of fun times.

[borcy]

Ianh755. I hadn't posted anything other there is one rumoured. I don't know any inside info, amounts £ etc and wouldn't put it here if I did.


Someone mentioned about pay, I did see quite a few job require 3 years experience on elec/mech starting pay was 52k. No management experience, no managing people just on tools. If you've been in 3 years, how long would it take to get high enough to earn that?


Tony, are you seeing lots leave the army at Wattisham?

[Tony1963]

borcy said:

Tony, are you seeing lots leave the army at Wattisham?

Plenty, but I only see REME, and only at Wattisham, so a tiny sample.

Accommodation has been mentioned a few times. Some of the younger people are in blocks that are so bad, they’re only being charged about £20/month. Thats about what I paid in the early 80s for reasonable accommodation!

[ecsrobin]

Tony1963 said:

Accommodation has been mentioned a few times. Some of the younger people are in blocks that are so bad, they’re only being charged about £20/month. Thats about what I paid in the early 80s for reasonable accommodation!

I suspect nothing has been improved since when I was in.

Years ago I moved from a nice shiny SLAM block that had just had a mid life refresh, my room had a good sized bed, en-suite and a store cupboard to put all your belongings that wasn’t clothes. For every 6 people you had a common room and kitchen with washing machines and cooking kit.

I was then posted down south to a base in Hampshire, my accommodation was a 2 man porta-cabin in a carpark with nowhere to store anything but your weeks uniform. Those who turned up after me were out in B&B’s in the area. You also had no cooking facilities, laundry you had to break in to other blocks to use the machines and pay for them (something you didn’t have to do in SLAM).

After 6 months sharing my porta-cabin I moved to a room with a single bed a shared shower and toilet that was in a run down state. We were then asked to vacate these rooms for 3 weeks and then commute from another base for the period by bus. Due to my trade the timings didn’t work for transport and they wouldn’t cover my fuel so the option given to me was sleep on a mates floor. Refurb was alright but still smaller than a prison cell.

I was then moved up the food chain to a larger en-suite single man Porta-cabin in another carpark on site which was noisy, infested with false widow spiders and returned one Christmas to sewage covering the floor.

I didn’t stay there long before finally moving to the bases version of SLAM a tiny bathroom that you couldn’t swing a cat in a single bed and no common room facilities. On speaking to friends at my old base it turned out this was graded higher than the SLAM I used to be in a few years earlier and so I had the privilege of paying more for less.

I loved my job, I was good at it and I’d happily do it today if someone offered me it, but wages, accommodation, work life balance and putting so much emphasis on fitness testing and secondary duties just isn’t worth the pay cut or energy from me..

[AndrewGP]

IanH755 said:

Sadly I think that this stories only going to get bigger over the next few months. I know that it is "highly likely" that there will be an RAF version of this story based around the lack of retention of specific trades & ranks plus recruitment probably hitting the news sometime in the next few months too.

I don't have any certain knowledge on whether there's an equivalent Army version of the same story though, but wouldn't be surprised.

I also think it's likely the RAF is going to be publishing similar stories in the near future. We're certainly seeing an bigger outflow than before for those of us that sit in the front of the aeroplanes with the nice view out.

As RAF aircrew, we've never really had a issue with recruitment as there's traditionally always been people wanting to fly aeroplanes. I believe it's has taken a small hit recently due to the issues with MFTS and holding times between courses, but I don't know that for sure and I've not seen any drop in new pilots coming through.

Retention of experienced pilots is an issue however. Obviously it depends a lot where people are in their careers and how old they are, but there are many push and pull factors which have (for most pilots late twenties onwards) swung firmly in favour of leaving. The push factors are primarily pay, work/life balance, lack of resource, lack of investment and accommodation. The airlines are on the up post Covid, they're fiercely recruiting and people are alive to the fact they'll be paid more, have a more stable lifestyle and be more in control.

[flatlandsman]

I would never use the States as an example of service being optimised, over there it is a trillion dollar industry backed by corporate, banks and the real power n the world, and it is about globalization, not military might. The two big fights in the world right now would be long done if the US were not plying one side with weapons.

The UK military is a basic service designed to be a small but well trained and expert service, we can pack a punch with very little and that for me is a far more potent force than a bunch of trigger happy nutters who join up to shoot guns!

[ecsrobin]

flatlandsman said:

I would never use the States as an example of service being optimised, over there it is a trillion dollar industry backed by corporate, banks and the real power n the world, and it is about globalization, not military might. The two big fights in the world right now would be long done if the US were not plying one side with weapons.

The UK military is a basic service designed to be a small but well trained and expert service, we can pack a punch with very little and that for me is a far more potent force than a bunch of trigger happy nutters who join up to shoot guns!

The quote button is the black speech bubble on the right of a post. But assume you’re quoting the poster who mentioned look at America for the incentives to recruitment not about service optimisation or how much kit they have.

[Evanivitch]

flatlandsman said:

I would never use the States as an example of service being optimised, over there it is a trillion dollar industry backed by corporate, banks and the real power n the world, and it is about globalization, not military might. The two big fights in the world right now would be long done if the US were not plying one side with weapons.

Russian expansion into Ukraine is a good thing?

flatlandsman said:

The UK military is a basic service designed to be a small but well trained and expert service, we can pack a punch with very little and that for me is a far more potent force than a bunch of trigger happy nutters who join up to shoot guns!

We've never been a basic service. We're still not today.