Your Army Needs You (to read this blog)...

If there is one constant about the military experience, it is the perception that the next generation are nowhere near as good as your generation. They’re unfit, slow, useless and have no chance of being anywhere near as good as your people were. In fact, standards will have to be reduced, political correctness will definitely go mad and all in all the future of the nation is bleak.

The fact that when you joined up there were a bunch of people saying the same thing, and that you proved them wrong is irrelevant. Its clear that tomorrows soldiers are nowhere near as good as the ones when ‘you were a lad’ (and walked 25 miles to school barefoot uphill in both directions, and you were grateful for it mind you…).

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

Thinking that the next generation won’t meet your owns standards goes back to Roman times if not earlier. It is the one constant in military history – the assumption that what follows is worse. This is probably driven by a fear of change, and a fear of time passing you by, more than it is based on tangible facts and evidence, but it still matters.

Humphrey recalls reading a book written in the very late 1980s by someone who toured the British Army and its units. They wrote at length about how instructors felt the next generation of recruits were soft, weak from playing video games and that fitness was not of the required standard.

Yet the same individuals who were apparently so weak then, turned into one of the most experienced generations of soldiers this nation ever produced – providing personnel to serve in a myriad of complex peace keeping operations in the 1990s, the large-scale conventional wars of Iraq in 1991 and 2003 and the violent ‘peace’ beyond, as well as deployments to Afghanistan and elsewhere. For all the perception of weakness, they more than had the right stuff.

The reason this matters is the latest predictable outbreak of ‘outrage’ about the British Army’s new recruitment campaign by people who feel it is wrong. The images are designed to parody the ‘Your Army Needs You’ from the early 20^th Century, and instead target the youth of today who are often lampooned for being ‘snowflakes’, ‘phone zombies’ and other derogatory terms.

It makes clear that far from being hopeless cases with no future, these people actually have a great range of really valuable skills and experience that can be shaped into something better. The reason the adverts seem to work is because they challenge stereotypes and make clear that just because (for example) you play computer games doesn’t mean you can’t get a really good job in the armed forces.

The adverts have been attacked by some as apparently not sending the right message. Frankly, this ignores the fact that the people moaning are not the target audience. Adverts are like marmite, they are will either land and resonate, or sail right past you.

Putting a picture of a tank or APC up may speak volumes to someone interested in equipment, but it says nothing about what it means to be a soldier or member of the armed forces. It says nothing about who they are looking for, or what they can offer as a way of life and reward. It is simply a picture of a tank.

No one will join the armed forces on the basis of seeing a single recruiting advert and then rushing down to sign on the dotted line. The recruiting process is about sending a message to people to get them to start the engagement process and wonder what the offer is.

Telling someone that the Army wants video gamers may get someone going to the webpage to find out more, or it may get their parent to do likewise and suggest a chat. Its about starting the ball rolling, not securing a soldier in one poster.

The adverts are clever because they appeal to a generation of potential recruits who have grown up in a totally different world to their forbears. The children of the 21^st century have grown up utterly and inextricably linked to data – they are the information generation.

They may seem anti-social to some, but that is because their socialising is often done virtually. When Humphrey was a kid he was lucky enough to live near woods where he and his friends would spend hours playing ‘army’ (usually involving sticks to shout ‘BANG’ loudly – in a way good training for resource scarce exercises with the armed forces).

Todays kids are lucky enough to be able to get online and play ‘army’ on their consoles virtually via a range of games. This requires a set of skills and competences that is actually pretty impressive. As several Army Officers noted via twitter, their children are using online gaming to stage co-ordinated section attacks involving complex tactics and procedures and do so virtually with people across multiple locations in one go.

They’re learning teamwork, leadership, discipline, effective communications and the ability to solve complex problems under real pressure to achieve a goal. In other words, they’re demonstrating the basis for a bloody good answer to the interview question ‘tell me about a time when you worked as a team to solve a common challenge’.

The skills present in the next generation of recruits are exceptional -they are arriving with a different mindset – one that questions and actively challenges rather than automatically obeying without question. But they are clever, capable and able to think things through from a different approach to their predecessors.

We are on the verge of significant institutional change within the armed forces. The next generation of recruits will not necessarily want the same offer, nor will they arrive with the same expectations. For the British Armed Forces there are two real challenges. Firstly, getting the message to the next generation that a really good career, offering life changing opportunities awaits them if they want to take it, in a manner that doesn’t patronise, condescend or insult them.

Secondly, the need to work out how the older generation of Officers and SNCO’s is going to work with a generation arriving now who fundamentally see the world in an entirely different way to their seniors. Understanding how to fuse the analogue and digital generations in one generation, while respecting the culture, heritage and traditions of the military is going to be difficult at times.

Finally the next generation of recruits is likely to see a significant blurring of the divide between ‘the Ranks’ and ‘Officers’. The traditional stereotypes of a young soldier and a young Officer and the image they present is changing and the workforce, particularly as it relies on more highly skilled and technical people is going to change.

This was noticeable to Humphrey on a train over the Christmas period, when he travelled home on a service full of young recruits from the Royal Navy going on leave. They were smartly dressed (suits and ties), confident, polite and exuding confidence. The group were every inch the young professionals they aspired to be – they were also from HMS RALEIGH, not, as one might have expected, BRNC Dartmouth. In every way this group of junior sailors was indistinguishable from their peers training as Officers.

This blurring will pose interesting challenges – the more relaxed informality that is often encountered in the RN and RAF where rank is arguably secondary to professional competence is in sharp contrast to the far more structured and regimented Army life where there remains, particularly in teeth arms, a sharp distinction. As we move to a purple future, this could pose interesting leadership challenges.

This series of adverts works well because it recognises that what worked for people in the 1990s and 2000s does not work well now. It should hopefully do a good job of targeting people with the skills and experience the military want and help bring in a future force for the next 30 years.

People may not like it, but that doesn’t mean the Army has somehow failed – it means that the Army has targeted its budget on an audience likely to be receptive to the message. It does not mean that the people ending up joining are any less capable. Frankly if those that reach front line units aren’t up to the job then the problem arguably lies not with the advertising campaign, but the people responsible for training the finished product throughout the process.

The campaign has certainly had an effect in one way – it has achieved global media attention across the world (e.g. The New York Times). This perhaps also gently demonstrates a wider point made by the Henry Jackson Society ‘audit of geopolitical capability’ that the UK remains a globally influential country.

This is an issue worthy of an entirely separate blog article (which will happen if time permits). But it is difficult to imagine many nations army recruitment campaigns seeing such global interest – perhaps proof that not only is the UK far more influential than it likes to give itself credit for, but that there is genuine interest in the way that the British Army is trying to tackle the challenge of recruiting millennials.

The other positive emerging from this campaign has been the manner that the British Army has massively increased its agility on social media to respond to inaccurate reports. After reports circulated that one soldier had reportedly handed in their resignation in disgust after being used (HERE), the Army was quick to use social media to point out that all the participants had agreed to their photos being used.

This sort of practical rebuttal may sound routine, but it is a good example of how the Army is getting much better at not letting the media run a half story, and instead gets the facts out quickly. They should be rightly commended for their timely accurate corrections to this situation – it marks yet another pleasing change in highlighting how much better the Armed Forces have become at exploiting social media effectively.

Ultimately this sort of advert is always going to upset some people. There will always be moaners about the adverts used, because moaning is an easy thing to do. Doubtless there were former soldiers out there who hated ‘Be the Best’ (now seen as iconic’) or those who felt that the use of Kitcheners Face in WW1 didn’t work. Go back far enough in time and you’ll probably find there were retired Norman soldiers moaning about the Bayeux Tapestry as an inaccurate recruiting poster for the work of the Cavalry…

What this campaign needs to be judged on is not the ranting by former veterans who are ‘outraged’ but instead whether it gets its target audience to sign up. The only metric that matters is how many of those who are initially interested are able to navigate their way through the current recruitment system, with its many hurdles and challenges to the point of turning up on Day 1 to start a new career as a soldier.

Then in 30 years time, those that this campaign attract will have earned the right to moan about the current recruiting campaign and its efforts to persuade people to sign up to the Mobile Infantry on the grounds that ‘Service Guarantees Citizenship’…

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