"Everybody Fights. Nobody Quits". Retention & Reward in the Armed Forces.

100% of people who join the British Armed Forces will, at one point or another leave.

These reasons will vary – some will retire after a long career, others will leave their basic training establishment at the earliest possibly opportunity. Some will soldier on for a few years then walk away, others will be killed.

This is perhaps useful context for the news that the MOD has launched a review into retention to understand why there has been an increase in personnel leaving the military at earlier than expected points, and what can be done to fix this challenge.

The peculiar challenge of a military career is that, at present, it relies almost exclusively on direct entry at the most junior point in the system, which then feeds the manpower pyramid. The system relies on recruiting plenty of junior people, with numbers thinning the further up the ranks you go. This pyramid theoretically reduces manpower numbers, reflecting the diminished requirement for more senior personnel in general.

This principle works well when the manpower flow is steady, and retention rates are within expected norms – e.g. people will always leave, but the overall manpower levels at each rank/rate are sufficient to keep generating enough people for the future career structure.

The problem strikes when too many people leave too quickly, causing a deficit in the system that can take decades to iron out. For instance, if too many junior Royal Navy engineers leave now, then there is a gap working its way through the system where the manpower planners either have to accept a gapped post (and the potential risks that this brings for a ship or shore post without a suitably qualified Petty Officer available) or potentially promote someone early, before they have had enough experience to fill this gap, presenting both a training and experience risk, but also creating a gap at the previous level which then needs to be filled.

-

OP HERRICK - Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

The review is particularly interested in why people leave at the roughly ‘6-year point’ and not later. There are many reasons why people choose to walk away from a military career, and the purpose of this article is to consider some of them and think about what some options may be to retain talent, even in difficult times.

The decision to leave is an intensely personal and emotional one that will vary for each individual. Everyone, regular & reservist reaches a point where they feel the benefits of walking away outweigh the risks of staying in. Each person reaches this point for different reasons and specific circumstances, but some themes do emerge.

Firstly, part of the issue is that there is a significant dislocation of expectation between completing basic training / trade training and doing the job for real. One of the real strengths of the training system is that it is designed to give people a goal, a reason to push for something and then a tangible completion date. People emerge from the training system with a tangible sense of belonging, and a highly motivated set of reasons to want to serve.

Getting to a first or second unit can be a real shock though. For every junior paratrooper moving straight away into an operational Battalion, there are other juniors who will find themselves sent to quiet out of the way units where the pace of life is slow, or it is remote and far from home and family.

Losing the tangible bonds of ‘matehood’ that can bring a class together to succeed, and instead finding yourself stuck in a remote role that may be operationally important, but where it is hard to see the bigger picture can demoralise people. Particularly in early years where people are looking for a career, putting them into places which feel more like a job does not help.

Added to this is the reality that for every epic day on the range or training, there are plenty of very average days in the office, doing important but routine administration work. For juniors in particular, a lot of the work can be quite dull or repetitive and can quickly feel more like an office job than a tangibly military function.

For a generation brought up with recruiting adverts highlighting the potential for derring do adventures, or weeks in work spent blowing stuff up, suddenly finding yourself doing a series of JPA claims, or cleaning barracks is a real come down.

Juniors in particular suffer from the challenge of having to do some, at times, pretty unpleasant and menial work – the perennial complaint from many juniors in the Royal Navy is of having to do a lot of cleaning. For a workforce that is often highly qualified, highly skilled and well-motivated, to get to a ship following training and finding yourself fundamentally as a janitor can be a real downer.

No one doubts that it needs to be done, nor that there is no civilian cleaning company that can come out to a ship at sea and clean it, but it does at times damage morale. People compare their roles to similar ones outside – how many engineers on merchant navy vessels or oil rigs find themselves having to scrub toilets in their spare time?

After a couple of years of this, it is easy to see why people think of leaving – if you are just starting out, feel demotivated by your first or second unit role and don’t see much changing, because as a junior in a strict hierarchy it is hard to see the changes and benefits that accrue as you get more senior, then suddenly ‘going outside’ can become an appealing option.

There is a second strand which is that the modern military is extremely busy, but this is often focused on specific areas or units. Unlike 10-12 years ago when people joining were all but assured of an Iraq or Afghan tour (with the associated benefits, recognition and reward), todays junior solider is more likely to be staging on in Eastern Europe than they are in a firefight in Sangin.

The work is equally vital, but in an armed force where people naturally want to ‘do the job for real’ being stuck in a training facility in Eastern Europe is not the same as the stories your platoon Sgt has of ‘this one time in Helmand’. The paucity of operational tours can push some people to sign off, frustrated with Army life but at the same time unable to find a way to scratch the itch.

In a similar vein, those who have deployed sometimes feel that they’ve done what it was that they came to do, and they have nothing left to prove. After a busy or challenging deployment many may feel that now is the time to sign off, knowing that it is unlikely their unit will deploy again for many years.

The lack of varied deployments can be a significant demotivator for some people too. If you join the Navy to see the world, become a Mine Warfare specialist and then spend the next five years becoming intimately familiar with the facilities in Bahrain on repeat three month tours, then this can quickly become a reason to walk.

The continued refusal to issue an OP KIPION medal, for reasons that defy rational understanding, is a running sore for many in the Royal Navy, who feel that they are expected to deploy for long periods of time away from home in a deeply challenging operational environment, but for whom there is no tangible recognition for doing so. One thing that would make a major difference, particularly in an op tour sparse environment is to introduce some form of medal for completing 6 months’ worth of ‘operationally deployed service’.

In an organisation that judges people on ‘their rack’, many highly experienced individuals have no tangible way of demonstrating their many years of service, nor that they have deployed operationally. Finding a way to bridge the gap between the long service medals like the Volunteer Reserve Service Medal, and the Operational Service Medals, may upset medal purists, but would be a low-cost way to improve morale and retention, particularly in busy forces where retention is poor.

A major challenge too is that people leave because their life changes, but the Service does not. The military recruitment model has historically been built on attracting young people, then providing through life support to them for their career including housing and schooling support. This made sense when people joined when they were younger, and when the Serviceman was usually the sole bread winner (with the wife at home with the kids), and the ‘cradle to grave’ support model was ideal.

Todays military is a world apart from this model, with people joining far later in life and having very different backgrounds and expectations about what they will get from their time in the Service.

Older recruits may well be married or in serious relationships, often they will not be the main source of family income. They may find that the constant pressure of separation, often at very short notice takes its toll on family life, and is not appreciated by a career management system that can feel remote and uncaring to some.

The military lifestyle may well not appeal in the same way to an older recruit going through junior training –the life experience and expectation of an 18yr old single private is very different to a 32yr old private. After a while this may become unsustainable, causing older new entrants to feel that service life is not for them.

Additionally life pressures when you are single are very different to when you are married or have a significant relationship to be concerned about. The breaking point for many people is the realisation that, bluntly, the service manning authorities are very good at breaking promises.

For too many military personnel the news of a ‘crash draft’ out to a new ship, or deployment out to a remote detachment for many months at a time is usually the straw that breaks a relationship, marriage or career. Too many people have found themselves given very short notice of new moves, regardless of the impact that it will have on their family and expected to ‘crack on’

.

There is a finite pool of goodwill between an employer and an employee, and this can be replenished, but slowly and over time. Constant drawing down on the pool by messing around with peoples postings, disruption to family life and seeing holidays cancelled or missing your children grow up quickly exhausts this if the opportunity to recover isn’t provided.

There will be those readers who scoff and think ‘bloody whining snowflakes’ but the reality is that the modern military has pressures and demands put on it that few other employers ask of their people in terms of workforce relocation and time away from home.  If this is not carefully handled, and the ‘can do’ mentality is not replaced with ‘I can’t on this occasion and this is why’ mentality, then the long term risk is burning out the workforce.

The final reason why people now feel they want to move on from the military is the thorny issue of compensation. From the outset its important to be clear – practically everyone, if offered, would want more money to do the same job. Its also clear that the Armed Forces are very well paid for what they do, and have access to an extremely generous overall benefits and compensation package.

It is often conveniently forgotten that the Armed Forces are the highest paid part of the public sector, and that its people get good compensation for a job which you can join with practically no qualifications. A Private with 6 years of service will be earning at least £25-£26k per year before allowances are added in.

Few people leave because they don’t feel they are being paid enough. If anything Humphrey has met plenty of people leaving the Service having to take a bit of a pay cut, and then having a shock when they realise that military pay (particularly when allowances are factored in) is actually pretty competitive against many career sectors (not all, and there are always specialist areas where a pay rise occurs though).  

The pension has traditionally been part of the offer and held up as means of trying to keep people in for the longer term. The old AFPS75 provided very good pensions, and was a non contributory pension, providing a very generous return for people who stayed in for a full career.

Under the old pension it was possible to leave and acquire an immediate lump sum plus pension for life, allowing someone to go out in their 40s and pursue a new career. The new pension, brought about in part by the financial challenge and unsustainability of the public sector pension pot is nowhere near as good, and reportedly removes the immediate pension on departure.

Pretty much everyone was moved to the new pension (known as the AFPS15) in 2015, which removes the lump sum element (unless you abate your pension), and is not payable on leaving. While this was in line with wider public sector changes, and it still remains very competitive compared to most pension schemes, it has caused a mentality change among many military personnel.

Suddenly the old model of service then find a nice second career while earning a comfortable pension has been replaced with the realisation that on leaving, they need to find a job. Starting a second career in your mid 30s or early 40s is infinitely easier than doing so in your late 40s or early 50s.

This has led to a real mindset shift among many officers who did not perceive themselves as ‘lifers’ but equally wanted to have a reasonable career. Instead of assuming they will stay till they are ready to leave, they are now actively having to focus on their next career – because the military offer simply isn’t good enough to keep them in long enough (unpredictable life, limited promotion prospects etc).

At the same time, wider changes to pension tax free accrual rules mean many personnel, particularly at the OF4 (Cdr,Lt Col level) are finding themselves actively penalised by the taxman for having a good pension or being promoted.

While this issue is phenomenally complex, Humphrey personally knows multiple friends who have received enormous in year tax bills accrued as a result of these pension tax changes (e.g. in some cases nearly £30,000) which need to be paid in a lump sum, or through changes to tax codes, or finally through effectively abating their pension pot. Humphrey knows several serving personnel who have judged that they cannot afford to be promoted now because of the damage the pension pot issue will do to their tax bill and income – consequently they are now actively job hunting.

This may sound like first world problems to some, and there will be many out there with small pensions un-inclined to be sympathetic, but when people feel they need to leave the job they love because they cannot afford to stay in, then something has gone badly wrong.

What do we do about it?

There is no one easy fix that solves these challenges. Much as everyone leaves for different reasons, so too everyone can be retained in different ways. For some people the opportunity to do an operational tour, or secure promotion can make the difference. For others it is the chance to get a ‘home tour’ where they can spend time with their family and save their marriage from ruin.

In practical terms though a couple of things may help arrest, but not stop the untimely retention of personnel.

At a practical level the time has come to accept that the current military career management system doesn’t work brilliantly, and that the armed forces aren’t very good at corporate personnel management.

This sounds like heresy, but arguably the history of the Royal Navy since WW2 is that of failing to adequately retain enough technical personnel to keep the fleet at sea. For large periods of time the shortage of trained personnel saw ships paid off and scrapped rather than kept in commission.

Part of the problem is that Career Management is seen as a short term posting among other jobs, rather than a long term career discipline. This constant churn of career managers to look after individuals postings has resulted in a constant cycle of people being made promises by one appointer that are not kept by the next.

At the same time the role of the Career Manager is arguably that of working out of the gaps they are trying to fill, which is the most important one, and who is the most qualified person to fill it in the short term, regardless of the personal impact on the individual. Consequently it can feel at times as if career management involves moving people from crisis to crisis, rather than having a carefully managed career.

Changing the entire system to give individuals real control over their appointments and career preferences, and developing a cadre of proper personnel and talent management is essential here. Perhaps the time has come to look at whether it is better to, after a certain point, get people to apply for roles internally that they want to fill?

Alternatively force system change by fiscally rewarding people who deploy in an effort to reduce ‘crash drafting’. For example, rather than trawl for volunteers to fill an operationally urgent vacancy (as is the current way), get people to volunteer to spend a year in a ‘willing to be deployed at no notice’ caveat and accept the disruption by being prepared to leave and go wherever the service has to go.

The clincher is that individuals volunteering for this accrue pension at three times the normal rate (e.g. 3yrs pension accrues) for their time in the pool. The costs of which are borne by the individual service. This may sound odd, but there is an elegance to it.

People leave because they are tired of being messed around by being pulled from one job to do another post at no notice. This causes them to leave, creating a gap of critical manpower, particularly at senior level which can take decades to replace.

Instead, offering people a genuine inducement to stay on and acquire extra pension in return for flexibility not only builds goodwill with families (its easier to persuade partners of the longer term benefits of 3yrs extra pension for one years work), but also it makes people willing to volunteer to go away as they see tangible return for their time and disruption. In many ways it is identical to schemes used by some oil tanker companies – Humphrey used to work with someone whose shipping company sent them to unpleasant places with the inducement of three years contributions for each year away – the ability to retire very early concentrated the mind wonderfully.

We Want Repeat Offenders, Not Life Sentence...

The next challenge though is to move away from the mentality that the military is for lifers, and anyone who leaves hasn’t got what it takes, into a ‘life long repeat offenders’ mentality. The current system is often dismissive of those who want to go, often for very good reasons, and treats them as outcasts.

The reality though is that few people who join at 19 or 20 know what they want to be doing in 20 years time, or what their life circumstances will be. Many will want to stay but find their hand forced by events they could never have predicted back then, that in turn forces their resignation.

Rather than lose these people forever, the military needs to stop acting as if the only real career is a cradle to grave one, and instead focus on letting people leave, but let them come back and have their experience recognised, their skills acquired rewarded and make them feel they can have a life long career with the armed forces. The mentality should be that people come and go throughout their life, but the system is always there for them, and will always have a place for them if they want it.

While some moves are afoot to do this (for instance the RAF is already keen on re-entry and in some cases promotion for credible experience gained in technical areas), it needs to gain wider traction. There are bugs in the system – for instance, anyone who tries to rejoin after 3 years out needs to meet new entry medical standards, which immediately rules out many mid career professionals who have acquired minor issues over their lives.

A major change should be to create seamless force of regular, reserve and those ‘currently having a time out’ and put the minimal amount of hassle in to letting people move seamlessly and without career fouling between all three conditions. Not so much a job for life, more membership of an exclusive club for life.

There needs to be an acceptance that the people being recruited today don’t want to join for 22yrs, and their needs and requirements will change over time, and in turn accepting this and shaping the offer to appeal to them.

From a practical perspective, perhaps the time has come to question whether the current package is actually too good to offer people on joining. Currently anyone joining gets the full range of allowances such as pay, accommodation, education etc very quickly – which means that at the 5-6yr point there are few levers that could be pushed to encourage people to stay in. What carrots can you dangle then if they are already being happily munched on?

Instead, perhaps another solution is to say to new entrants that they will get excellent quality free single accommodation and free food, but they don’t qualify for housing, or CEA or other benefits until year 6 if they extend. In other words, make staying on attractive as it unlocks benefits. This would be divisive, but it would suddenly open up a suite of measures that could be offered to people – someone joining at 21 may not care about housing, but they would care 7 years later if they had young children.

This model is fraught with difficulty – particularly for people with existing families, or those who marry and have children in the first year or two of service. But, paradoxically, if you said to soldiers ‘if you stay in, you can have a cheap quarter and CEA’ suddenly it becomes a reason to stay for both the soldier and their partner, rather than something taken for granted.

Such a move would be highly contentious, but it is only by thinking previously unthinkable thoughts that the military can try to look at how to improve retention. In this vein, the last way that things could change would be to completely rebrand the ‘offer’ and instead let military personnel take a lot more responsibility for their package.

Every member of the military has a theoretical ‘capitation rate’ (e.g. their total cost to the Tapayer of all their salary, pension, NICs, allowances etc – the full costs can be found HERE). For example in 2016 the ‘full cost’ of an RN Able Seaman was an average of £37,000 of which salary was only £23,000.

Instead of giving everyone the same package of rank based salary, house and so on, perhaps the time has come to take the full capitation rate (minus National Insurance) and give service personnel much more freedom about what they can earn.

For example, a junior private may not want access to a house, or care about their pension. Give them the flexibility to take the money in its entirety and pay them £37k, but without pension accrual or access to anything other than basic single living accommodation.

By contrast an Army captain may care more about paying down student loans, and to them some kind of matching scheme where for each year served the Army paid off a percentage of their student loan on top of normal salary (but drawn from their overall capitation pot) may be attractive  as a way of clearing debts.

Alternatively a more senior officer may want to put more into a pension pot, or focus on getting access to better savings – again, being able to use this pot as they see fit, with innovative ways to access and spend , but making it easily possible to change how it is paid, may help make people want to stay for longer.

If you can control your remuneration package, decide how to earn and accrue benefits in a way that suits your personal circumstances, then why leave? This is a big cultural change, but again, why not think the unthinkable – give people control of their reward and let them spend it as they wish, rather than assuming that the template that has been the same for decades is the only possible answer?

Fundamentally though the decision to leave is an intensely personal decision and taken for very different reasons. Studies into retention can only go so far in to understanding the decisions people make, or why they choose to walk away.

As an example, Humphrey chose to leave the Reserves when he found himself looking likely to deploy on another operational tour at very short notice that his personal circumstances meant he couldn’t support that specific rotation of. The choice was stark to either mobilise or resign, and he reluctantly chose to resign.

In itself this is a normal story, but what it doesn’t capture is the wider factors of feeling frustrated at a system that had not upheld promises made in previous years about promotion and recognition, and the sense of being forced to go yet again because others were unwilling to mobilise and finding reasons not to go. It was also about looking for leadership and reassurance and some kind of compromise offer that would meet half way – recognition that he was being expected at a couple of  weeks notice to upend his life for 6-9 months and do significant damage to his normal career, but without any kind of incentive or reason to do so, particularly after several years of TELICS and HERRICKs and the associated challenges this posed.

Coming on the back of frustrations about a system that he’d probably spent too long in without a break, and feeling that no one out there was reaching out to try and to talk him into staying, the decision to submit a resignation letter was hard but then very easy. Paradoxically, a well-judged intervention or conversation about what could be done better to help see light at the end of the tunnel and find a compromise acceptable to both would probably have saved the reserves from losing someone.

This personal example is given because it shows that for all the demands to do a study and find a solution, there isn’t necessarily a simple set of reasons and answers. The reasons Humphrey left were utterly different to why many of his peers left both regular and reserve service, and any solution proposed here would probably not have worked for them.

The military needs people to leave every year – not just through resignation, but also to keep the force fresh and talent flowing upwards. If everyone stayed then promotion would slow to a crawl and people would be frustrated and unable to progress.

Retention is as much about understanding how to look after people, ensure they are treated properly and that they and their families are not messed around as it is about offering a blank cheque. At its heart, retention is as much about taking someone for a coffee or chatting on the phone about their prospects and investing in them as it is about career management.

At its heart, retention is everyone’s business.



@pinstripedline
Pinstripedline@gmail.com