Thread by @aye_nap

Happy new year #CanMilTwitter ! And it's bound to be a very important year for the CAF (this is a warning). Here's my hot take for the day / year (a 🧵). Everyone knows that we're in the midst of a retention and recruitment crisis. We're hemorrhaging personnel. (1/17)

This is due to an ongoing inability to change the org into an actual employer of choice. Right now, we absolutely aren't. The numbers don't lie.

Retention is the key, we need to be far better at keeping our folks. (2/17)

Unlike all the other employers we're competing against for people, we only hire entry level positions. If we want a senior technician, we need to hire a few dozen a decade and a half ago and hope some of them stick around long enough to promote into that role. (3/17)

If we don't fix retention, then increasing recruitment only means we pick up the pace at which people come in, we spend a shitload of money training them, and then they leave for an employer who will treat them better. (4/17)

You can't fill up a colander simply by pouring more water in, or at least not without wasting inordinate amounts. You need to plug the leaks.
Money and postings are of course the major issues. (5/17)

When you post people against their will to a high COL area and don't give them adequate money to be able to afford to live a comfortable lifestyle, it sends a very strong signal that the Government of Canada, our employer, doesn't particuraly care about our well being (6/17)

Foisting the financial costs of policy decisions onto the backs of CAF personnel is not how you keep people. Loyalty is a two way street, and people are leaving in droves simply because the CAF and the Government of Canada as a whole is not properly supporting it's people. (7/17)

There's a proposal before TB to try and fix this, but people need to realize that it will absolutely backfire if they try to cheap out again. Folks are eagerly awaiting to see if these changes will fix the financial distress into which they've been forced due to postings (8/17)

If instead you get an anemic half measure, that will be a clear signal that the problem will never be solved. The floodgates will open at that point. (9/17)

RUMINT from reddit and various town halls says that the PLD replacement is going to be capped on rank: more for S3s and Cpls etc, less for Lt(N)s and WOs and Majs, etc. I seriously hope that's not the case, because we'll shoot ourselves in the foot. Or chest. (10/18)

The people who are examining these things need to look at where we're hurting for personnel. The "missing middle" where we're most hurting for people is also the same ranks that would get nil benefit or in some cases even be worse off with this idea. (11/17)

And hoo boy, if you thought things were bad before, for the same folks who are already the most overworked because they're doing 3 jobs because their trade and rank is already Hella short, just wait til you tell them that they're not getting any benefit from the change. (12/17)

It'll be a fucking bloodbath. And we'll have done it to ourselves.

We've really only got one shot to not fuck this up. Because if it's not done right the first time, far too much damage will have been done. (13/17)

The Navy in particular is teetering on the edge of a cliff. Halifax, Victoria, and Ottawa: all places that have rather high costs of living. Pers levels are already dire, completely insufficient to handle a rather brutal sailing schedule. (14/17)

If the changes implemented don't do enough to fix those issues, I fully expect to see a cascading failure. More people will leave, which means more work for those left, which means more people leave, etc. (15/17)

So anyways, I sincerely hope that @CDS_Canada_CEMD and @AnitaAnandMP are able to do their job well and actually advocate that the resources we need to stem our retention crisis be allocated accordingly. Because if not, I foresee things going from bad to worse in a hurry (16/17)

Tl;dr Loyalty is a two way street. If we continue to fail to properly support our people, they will continue to leave for employers that do, and I don't blame a damned one of them

Happy New Year's everyone! Let's hope we don't fuck it up royally! (🧵 FIN)