AFCAS19 and The Retention Debate

AFCAS19 has generated two fantastic think pieces (maybe more, I have only been seen those two so far) from Marine H via The Puzzle Palace in which the writer explores unfulfilled potential and the perception of reduced standards and asks the question "is anyone listening?"

Sir Humphrey via Thin_Pin_Striped_Blog identifies the disparity between Officers and Other Ranks and hones in early on the challenge of meeting expectations.

It is my team who produce AFCAS on behalf of the Naval Service and I believe it is my job to ensure that decision makers are aware of what AFCAS means for their area of responsibility and I am pleased to say that my team are currently setting up discussions across the Heads of The Fighting Arms and Key Decision Makers in the People Function.

I want to start this blog which will be unusually long for me by setting the context:

AFCAS is an attitudinal survey distributed annually between September and February for the purpose of monitoring the opinions and beliefs of trained-strength military personnel across a wide range of areas of lived experience including pay and benefits, morale and engagement, leadership, working with others, deployment, career management, training and development, accommodation, resources, welfare and retention. Randomly selected personnel are invited to complete the survey either on line or by post. AFCAS responses are collated and reported every year, usually on 24 May. 

This year’s response rate shows a moderate improvement and marks the end of a sustained period of decline in participation.   The collated data is used by the MOD and single services to inform policy decisions and people initiatives across defence.

A substantial downturn in RM satisfaction levels across a wide number of domains in 2018 has been arrested this year with significant improvements against most measures. Notwithstanding these improvements, Royal Marines continue to report lower levels of satisfaction, compared with the RN, across a range of indicators. The RM continues, however, to lead all the single services in its esprit de corps. 

The data demonstrates some differentiation between attitudes according to RN fighting arm. These differentiations are often substantial but very focused. Fighting Arms will be engaged with to analyse in greater depth those areas showing differentiated response. The most profound differences in strength of positive response lie not between Fighting Arms but between officers and ratings/other ranks. Whilst historically reported, this demographic difference has not before been analysed and will benefit from further secondary analysis.  

2019 analysis, for the first time, considers differences between the engagement of men and women. The employee engagement of women serving in the Naval Service is driven by the same key areas of lived experience as male personnel. However, men and women place different levels of importance on different aspects of experience. For instance, work life balance, contrary to conventional assumption, is less important as an influence on engagement levels for women than for men.  

The most important areas of lived experience driving employee engagement do not include pay, work/life balance, or deployment. These three areas are prominent among strategic efforts to improve retention. It might be the case that retention effort is not sufficiently accurately targeted on those areas of lived experience most influential in promoting engagement. 

The following concise narrative explores those areas of data indicating significant change in those areas of lived experience most meaningful as drivers of engagement. It does not aim to describe or explain all significant and marginal change across the dataset. 

 Pay & Benefits   

Pay and benefits have seen improved levels of positive response across both RN and RM against all measures. These improvements are statistically significant in all cases for RN personnel and in most for the RM. For the first time since at least 2014, RN personnel (but not RM) are more satisfied with the overall fairness of their pay and benefits package than either the RAF or the Army.  This assessment is mirrored by similar levels of improved response against questions relating specifically to basic pay and pension. Increased recognition of the value of Service pay, benefits and wider “reward” compared with industry equivalents (RN +4%, RM +3%) indicates that personnel are considering their remuneration in the wider context of their employment and against the opportunity costs of external employment options. For instance, greater awareness of, and value placed on, Service medical and dental provision among factors influencing retention may well reflect, alongside improved views on pay, success in communicating the “total reward” value of the wider “offer”. 

Pay – once sufficient – generally ceases to function effectively as a prime motivator but does act as a useful barometer of other underlying work motivators. As such, reward-based responses often reflect in attitudinal surveys as a mirror to levels of satisfaction with other aspects of organisational life. Some of the improvement to views on pay and benefits this year is likely to correlate with broad and significant improvement across a range of other aspects of lived experience. Whilst the improvements in attitudes to pay and benefits are significant across the Naval Service, those improvements are led by the RN which exhibits broadly double the level of improvement of the RM.   

Job Satisfaction and Morale 

Satisfaction with service life in general in the RN has risen to levels last reported in 2013. It equals that of the Army, exceeds that of the RAF and stands at odds with the RM which has seen no significant rise this year. Survey questions relating specifically to morale have, accordingly, seen significant RN increases against own, unit and service morale to levels not seen since 2011. RM morale, however, continues a downward trend first evidenced during 2016/17. 

Trends in positive Unit morale  

The granular motivational context of work roles – achievement, challenge, variety, autonomy - do not, for either the RN or RM show any significant changes this year. In relative terms, RN satisfaction with these factors of their employment experience mirrors that of the RAF and the Army. Against all single services the RM score relatively and consistently poorly over time, a decline starting in 2015. It is possible that, for the RM, a perceived poor quality of job is increasingly considered to be the “new normal” and that continued decline in unit morale, in particular, is reflective of that. The job satisfaction and morale of the Royal Marines is a complex issue with its own unique context. NPS Research will be engaging with the Royal Marines to help improve understanding of and engagement with this issue.  

Equipment  

Arresting a 3 year decline, RN personnel take a significantly more positive view of the standard and availability of both personal and major equipment than in any year since 2016. Conversely, the RM are more critical of the standard of major kit than they were last year.    

Career Management and Progression  

Satisfaction with the quality of career management is significantly improved across both RN and RM. Self-perceptions of SQEP are objectively high for both services, RM exceeding all other single services.   

To the extent that skills, knowledge and experience are being used, the picture is somewhat different; Whilst RN shows a significant improvement against 2018, with levels of satisfaction better than either the RAF or the Army, RM responses reflect lower levels of satisfaction, unchanged since 2014 and lower than any other service. On the face of it, this is likely to explain poorer RM perceptions related to measures of job satisfaction and indicate the direction in which efforts to improve engagement among RM personnel might usefully go: more soldiering.  

Leadership & Change 

Naval service satisfaction with the quality of immediate line management is objectively high with only around 10% of respondents reporting dissatisfaction. RN response in this respect remains higher than any other service. Trust in the Divisional system is also clearly evident from dissatisfaction levels of only around 10%.     

Whilst trust in line management and the Divisional System remain at high levels but largely unchanged over time, RN confidence in senior leadership has improved significantly over the past 12 months. Among RM respondents, confidence in senior leadership remains higher than any other service by some distance, despite a significant and sizeable decline since 2015. 

Perceptions of change management at working level, unit and service level have improved significantly across both RN and RM to levels not seen since 2013.  

Value in Service – Ethos & Commitment 

The basis of the military psychological contract and the single most important factor driving engagement, the alignment with service ethos and perceptions of mutual commitment are arguably the most important measures within AFCAS. 

Whilst not significantly different to 2018, around 90% of both RN and RM personnel report having fulfilled their commitments to the service during the past year. On the other hand, only around 50% consider that the service’s commitments to them have been met over the same period. This discrepancy suggests a perceived imbalance in the psychological contract. However, AFCAS 2019 does demonstrates 12 month marginal improvements in pride in the service, perception of being valued by the service, intention to recommend the service to others, and strength of attachment to the service. Longer term trends indicate a general stability in these measures over time. 

Training and Development 

RN reports significantly higher levels of satisfaction against almost every measure of training and development included within AFCAS. Whilst RM responses are not significantly different to 2018, both RN and RM levels of satisfaction with training and development are consistent with the other single services and in line with trend data back to 2012.  

Future Plans 

Overall, 2019 shows little shift in people’s longer term career planning. Whilst a significantly greater number (30%: +2%) of RN personnel indicate a desire to serve for as long as possible, and 3% fewer indicate a desire to leave as soon as possible, the general picture is consistent with trend since 2007.   

RM indications show no significant statistical difference with 2018 but trend data indicates a gradual but significant shift in attitude over time towards leaving prior to the end of current engagement. 

Of the factors influencing a decision to leave or stay in the service, both RN and RM responses favour job security as by far the pre-eminent reason (79%) to stay. The importance of this factor has significantly increased for both RN and RM this year. Pension (53%) and pay (35%) show significant RN increases in importance this year but still sit some way down the list of pre-eminent factors. For both the RN and RM flexible working practices has significantly increased in the level of importance placed on them in career decisions. 

 Deployment & Welfare 

Post deployment welfare provision and the operational welfare package are viewed more positively by RN personnel than in 2018, on an upward positive trend evident from 2015. RM changes are not significant against 2018 results but nonetheless do show a significant downward trend from 2015. An identical picture is presented in respect of attitudes towards post deployment support for families. Further, satisfaction with decompression support, post deployment, has dropped significantly to 2016 levels for the RM, albeit that those levels remain somewhat higher than for the RN. 

Whilst around a third of RN personnel still consider deployments to be both too long and too frequent, the longer term trend since 2015 indicates continuing growth in the proportion of RN personnel considering duration and frequency to be “about right”.   

RM responses in 2018 indicated a sharp increase in dissatisfaction with the perceived inadequacy of the frequency of deployments. This rebuke has softened in 2019 although dissatisfaction levels among the RM remain four times higher than for the RN. However, deployment duration is perceived as about right by 75% of RM respondents, showing no change on last year albeit that dissatisfaction levels are significantly reduced against 2018. RN views on deployment length indicate moderate improvement against what had been a stable picture since 2015.  

Accommodation 

Satisfaction levels among RN personnel using Service Family Accommodation demonstrate a significant and substantial improvement against the 2018 response. Satisfaction with value for money, repair response and quality of response all show improvement to levels not seen since 2015.  These improvements are not reflected in RM responses or in either RN or RM responses in respect of Single Living Accommodation. It is possible that these positive changes reflect an anticipated improvement in contract performance over the past 12 months following accommodation maintenance contract retender. 

Moving onto:

Retention

As Marine H and Sir Humphrey rightly identify there is a need to capitalise on the potential of our serving personnel and to meet their expectations if we want to ensure that we can maintain our operating model and while AFCAS19 tells us that as a priority we need to conduct further investigation into two pressing areas, the disparity between ranks and the 50% of serving personnel who feel dissapointed by the service there are a range of other factors which need to be considered if a long term solution is to be achieved.

Demographics, the office for National Statistics reports on the ageing population and the decline in 16-24 year olds, the traditional recruitment pool of the Naval Service. The Office for National Statistics provides a tool which allows the reader to forecast population mix by constituency. The top 15 recruitment constituencies between April 2013 and April 2018 all forecast a circa 4% reduction of 16 year olds by 2037.

The implications of Demographic Trend analysis for the Naval Service as an employer are significant, on the one hand the traditional recruitment pool is reducing, being an employer of choice in such a highly competitive environment will require a full and detailed understanding of what attracts and motivates this cohort. And on the other hand a cohort more aware, articulate and educated than previous generations. A cohort increasingly motivated by the greater good, increasingly anti-establishment and with none of the traditional protocols of passively accepting the hierarchy.

What does this mean to Policy, Organisational Design, Leadership Models and most of all the Operating Model.

It also requires the Naval Service to have a full and detailed understanding of what it is, is it a Talent Pipeline for UK Engineering, competing with the Engineering big hitters or is it something else, what is uniquely Naval Service? what is the USP?

It is not in the future where organisational thinking and signalling must be coherent, precise and authentic it is here and now. Employee expectations are set from the very first interaction and have a ripple effect across the organisation. Marine H's article clearly demonstrates the impact to existing employees of measures taken in the recruitment part of the People Pipeline.

Moving onto the ageing population, how does the Service shift its operating model from being bottom fed by 16-24 year olds to consider the fact that in the future there may not be the volume to sustain itself. A full and detailed understanding of the "Business" of the Service is key, a full Job Analysis starting with Outputs not Branches and Trades is a good starting point. A shift away from regenerating the here and now to doing business fundamentally differently, it is here that Technology, Innovation and Human Augmentation really could bring dividends.

To conclude, AFCAS provides a fantastic, rigorous insight into the motivations and moral of existing employees with clear signals of where the Service should focus in order to better understand extant concerns. The People Pipeline should consider Future Employees, Current Employees and the narrative from Previous Employees in oder to be an Employer of Choice, populated by Talent which which to deliver its Effect.

“Of the top 10 sources of innovation, employees are the only resource that you can control and access that your competitors cannot. Employees are the one asset you have that can actually be a sustainable competitive advantage.” 

― Kaihan Krippendorff