Medical release vs retention?

[Furniture]

I’m a bit curious about this as I thought the CAF was moving to a more forgiving policy for mbrs who were on MELs that breached UoS. We have a personnel shortage situation and now won’t retain members who are employable but not deployable, even if those people aren’t needed to deploy. I’m not sure this is the best timing for this policy to kick in.

I think it's less about the CAF wanting to make this move, and more about the CAF needing to make this move to justify/retain the UoS requirement at all.

 

[brihard]

One of the primary missions of the Reserve Force is to generate personnel ready to augment the Regular Force. Transfering people to the Reserves who are unemployable in the Regular Force does not contribute to that mission.

Has anyone told the PRes CBG HQs this? Because I believe that’s a core component of their HR model.

Paging @daftandbarmy for the obligatory snark

 

[daftandbarmy]

Has anyone told the PRes CBG HQs this? Because I believe that’s a core component of their HR model.

Paging @daftandbarmy for the obligatory snark

 

[CountDC]

Been awhile with no posts.

Has anyone seen anything new on this? Am wondering how this is playing out with the current situation we are in. Seems a bit out there to go on about recruiting and retention issues resulting in trades at 84% strength while releasing members that can still function at their desk. The old logic of we need the position for rotating people off ships, from deployments, for promotions, experience, etc just is not applicable to some trades currently. Add to that the lack of desire to be posted to some locations and you are really creating a mess by releasing someone you could keep in place at least until things improve. That HRA/FSA that can still work the 40+ hours a week is not hurting anything by retention at this time.

 

[captloadie]

The problem is the UofS exemption to the Charter is in jeopardy if we continue to retain individuals who breach UofS. The lack of people actually makes the matter more critical, because now that everyone is short, it is hard to retain some individuals and not others without opening the organization to grievances. So then the default then becomes we retain everyone. Which leads to the problem of if you can retain everyone, despite them not meeting UofS, then why is there an exemption to the Charter.

In your example, the real question is to we need the individual to be retained, or do we need the position to be retained? Likely it is the position. So a better solution may be instead of retaining the individual in uniform, we hire them into term civilian positions so the work gets done until the military position gets filled.

 

[dapaterson]

Been awhile with no posts.

Has anyone seen anything new on this? Am wondering how this is playing out with the current situation we are in. Seems a bit out there to go on about recruiting and retention issues resulting in trades at 84% strength while releasing members that can still function at their desk. The old logic of we need the position for rotating people off ships, from deployments, for promotions, experience, etc just is not applicable to some trades currently. Add to that the lack of desire to be posted to some locations and you are really creating a mess by releasing someone you could keep in place at least until things improve. That HRA/FSA that can still work the 40+ hours a week is not hurting anything by retention at this time.

If a job doesn't require UofS it does not require a uniformed person to do it.

 

[gryphonv]

Been awhile with no posts.

Has anyone seen anything new on this? Am wondering how this is playing out with the current situation we are in. Seems a bit out there to go on about recruiting and retention issues resulting in trades at 84% strength while releasing members that can still function at their desk. The old logic of we need the position for rotating people off ships, from deployments, for promotions, experience, etc just is not applicable to some trades currently. Add to that the lack of desire to be posted to some locations and you are really creating a mess by releasing someone you could keep in place at least until things improve. That HRA/FSA that can still work the 40+ hours a week is not hurting anything by retention at this time.

While at first glance this sounds reasonable. It can actually end up hurting trades more than it helps.

A lot of these office/shore/non deploying type positions are also used to help prevent burnout. If they allowed people who couldn't deploy to hold down the non deploying positions it means the people who do deploy will have to deploy more often.

Simply put the positions are needed for those who do meet UofS to be able to regenerate after being in a high intensity placement.

 

[ModlrMike]

If only we had a name for it. I know, we could call it the ship to shore ratio.

 

[CountDC]

While at first glance this sounds reasonable. It can actually end up hurting trades more than it helps.

A lot of these office/shore/non deploying type positions are also used to help prevent burnout. If they allowed people who couldn't deploy to hold down the non deploying positions it means the people who do deploy will have to deploy more often.

Simply put the positions are needed for those who do meet UofS to be able to regenerate after being in a high intensity placement.

Normally yes but at this time no. We do not have many deployed positions with most of our positions as static in office positions. With such an extreme shortage of members there are lots of static positions available to move people in and out of. If we were maybe at 95% strength this would be a problem but at current red level I can't see it. Removing these members would more likely add to the burnout as the work will still need to be done so would become an additional workload for those still around (we already experience this at my work site) followed with more releases as people get tired of it. I should also mention last I checked the majority of these members are at the MCpl/Sgt level which is also where we are hurting the most. At the rate we are going we will soon have a whole bunch of JR's with no one to lead them. We are projected to have over 150 trade releases this year with 65 already in progress and are already 140 short. I have doubts that the recruiting system and trade school will produce 150 trained staff to keep us even. At this time I only see 36 in the system pending training.

 

[dapaterson]

So, you want to abolish universality of service rather than hire public servants to mitigate personnel shortfalls.

 

[Ostrozac]

The primary argument for retention of the wounded in non-deployable positions kind of falls apart when the Canadian public service still knows how to hire while the CAF has, as an institution, forgotten how to recruit. And one of the historically healthiest MOSIDs in the CAF (Infantry Soldier) has something like 70+% of its trained strength posted to one of the battalions — so ship to shore ratio also seems to be a little bit specious.

And universality of service wasn’t meant to be used by Ottawa based GOFOs that want to have their admin staff available late and weekends without paying overtime. That’s a practice long overdue for being called out.

Release the wounded, hire them as civilians, and pay them their overtime says I.

 

[Rudburg]

Something like 40% of the CAF is yellow or red for their Med Cat. Some of these people are legitimately unfit. Large numbers also have an expired medical, so their real medical condition is somewhat uncertain. HSvcs is rationing PHAs and many in that latter group can't even book a medical unless they are scheduled to deploy.

We can't pull doctors and PAs out of thin air, so I don't see that situation improving any time soon.

Ideally we would be able to ensure that everyone is fit to deploy, but releasing perhaps a quarter of an already understrength CAF would have severe consequences even if you try to hire civilian replacements. And if we can't realistically assess everyone, can we even achieve "universality" of service?

 

[dapaterson]

A quarter? Nope. This has nothing to do with expired medical categories.

 

[Quirky]

Ideally we would be able to ensure that everyone is fit to deploy, but releasing perhaps a quarter of an already understrength CAF would have severe consequences even if you try to hire civilian replacements.

We shouldn't be lowering standards because we need to keep this ship afloat. The problem is constant deployments on an already understrength force.

 

[dimsum]

The problem is constant deployments on an already understrength force.

For the RCN and parts of the RCAF, yes.

For the CA, not so much.

 

[Furniture]

For the RCN and parts of the RCAF, yes.

For the CA, not so much.

Depends on the trade... not all CA folks are combat arms, and not all people on CA lead deployments are CA managed occupations.

It would be like saying the RCN is fine because Boatswain isn't red.

 

[dimsum]

Depends on the trade... not all CA folks are combat arms, and not all people on CA lead deployments are CA managed occupations.

It would be like saying the RCN is fine because Boatswain isn't red.

Fair enough.

 

[CenterOfMass]

Ignore SISIP's portion.
Get released and spend two years getting your life back together.
Decide on your last move if you need/want to move.
You have ten years from release to use your 40k-80k retraining money.
You don't need to feel the pressure applied during the release process; this varies for each situation, but you can decompress and figure out which direction to go. CAF/VAC want you to feel the strain of "hit the ground running" again.
You can slow down, get healthy.

 

[Eagle_Eye_View]

Good advice, I’m walking down that process and for once, it’s a welcome change of pace to slow down.