I was lucky enough to be invited to a neighbouring Squadron’s dining in night, recently.
During his speech, the Wing Commander thanked the OC for his many years of running the Sqn., and hoped that he’d be at the helm for many more years to come.
The OC in question has just passed the age of 70, but is still in reasonable health, etc.
My question is :- now that we are no longer parented by the RAF, and given the current uniformed staff shortages, and that Officers can be kept on past 65 based on the needs of the organisation - is there a point at which HQAC draw the line - when it comes to age?
I’m not sure that they can, the age discrimination act should apply to us since we are civilians. So as long as we are still able to do our job we should be ok to continue.
Going on until you are 70 as a CO that man needs a box of medals. There will be people out there moaning that he’s too old and out of touch with teenagers, but I imagine with potentially grandchildren or great grandchildren, he’d be more in touch, than 20/30 somethings. Might not understand it, but would have an greater awareness.
I had my letter for the new commission last week and said the retirement age is 65. But with age discrimination and as said now we are all civilians, can they really force you to retire?
In my view a 70 year old OC is in no way a good message for any 12/13 year olds joining the organisation. By all means be a staff member, I’m not even that fussed if they’re still wearing uniform as long as it’s correct, but you can’t seriously tell me that a 70 year old is in touch with young people regardless of whether they have grandchildren or not. My grandad is just over 70 and I wouldn’t trust him to know anything about the mindset of teenagers generally.
I became more acutely aware of the woes/lives of cadets when our children hit their teens. Before that my model was me and my mates growing up. Our parents said they started to understand the lives of young children, when they had their first grandchildren, but like all g/parents could give them back. Mostly they said it was talking to, or rather listening to us and our siblings moan and talking to our children. So while they might not be as “in touch” (whatever that might mean) as you might like them to be, that doesn’t stop them understanding.
Now our kids are older, I still see that teenager’s existence is governed totally by school / parental expectations relating to exam performance and while I get the SM problems, I feel the cadets bring it on themselves, just by engaging with it. Others might not take that view. I don’t get the whole snowflake bit, as IMO that comes down to poor parenting.
What we need to grasp is that staff are getting older and with insufficient new ones coming through (that want to do the main job in the Corps), by all means kick the old ones out, but be prepared for the consequences. Older staff carry on as they are experienced enough to know that life is a pile of dung.
Later this year I’ll hit 55 and not so many years ago would have been the end of my time in the Corps unless I reverted to CI or sought an extension.
I didn’t think so, I thought the idea was removed altogether but I could be wrong. I know we had an interim arrangement where rather than the full process we had a chat and asked if people were happy to continue, but I think we’ve now moved to the (correct IMO) view that if they want to stay and there are no reasons why they shouldn’t (disciplinary) then why do we need to create paperwork for it. If they want to leave they will, and if they’ve done something naughty or aren’t suited to the role then we should be taking positive action, not waiting 5 years to sneakily get rid of someone.
Appointment is continuous up to the age of 65, then annually by RC agreement thereafter. The RC can extend in larger chunks if it is justified (though I don’t think that is written). I’ve heard this at various levels and even my WHQ seem to understand
The volunteering agreement can be terminated by either party before that time. Hopefully the organisation will follow their published process if they choose to terminate…
I’ve not had anyone extend since the chat and email, so it could have altered. I’ve all but given up trying to keep up, as the comms is crap/contradictatory and things get buried on s/point in documents, with no traceable change documentation or CAC twits it.
If we are going over to a continuous appointment, then we should be able to ‘terminate’ staff like we do with cadets, as Wing (or ours at least) seem incapable of doing it.
You’ll note I didn’t say get rid of old people. I didn’t say they aren’t valuable as staff. I said I do not in any way believe anyone that age has any idea about teenagers today.
So if they don’t understand teenagers today in your opinion, how can the fulfil any staff role?
Even with teenage children, while we could appreciate the things they were going through, I don’t think either my wife or I really understood them.
Just for a laugh, at what age do you think people stop understanding teenagers?
Do we really need to ‘understand’ teenagers?
I would say that no one at ‘command’ levels understands cadets or more so their lives given the way it expects us to operate. The schools we draw from seem to run mock exams for year 9 onwards and a number of setting tests for year 8. These increase in Yr11, we seem to have one period of mocks from October to November and again mid Feb to mid March, then after Easter it’s exams proper until the end of June.
I don’t think teenagers really understand teenagers…
I think a mixed demographic of staff is key, cadets seem to engage positively with younger staff (25-35) than older staff, but all offer something different to RAFAC, which contributes to developing young people that would otherwise be the xbox one generation (other gaming consoles available)
@pEp’s point is that this OC is at risk of becoming stagnant and MAY not be open to new ideas as they aren’t exposed to them in the workplace.
I believe that OC positions should be on a 4 year term and you need to reapply at the end of the 4 years if you wish to stay… same as all appointed positions.
How many of us are exposed to new ideas in the workplace that are relevant to the Corps?
After working for 35 years I have become less and less receptive to what are in essence re-treads of the same old thing and just become like the main road at the bottom of the garden, initially you listen and it’s interesting, then it becomes annoying but eventually you don’t notice it. I’ve gone through all the fads and fazes. Even our managers who should be “on message” are “here we go again” and “thankfully they’re providing food”. I think that being a little jaded in how you view things is not a bad thing, as
I think the only reason some in 25-35 age group seem to engage positively is because they are probably ex-cadets who are probably single and haven’t grown out of the cadet life. But how much do you need to engage? If you are able to get information across and they get something out of it, that’s all that’s needed.
We discussed the idea of making Sqn Cdr a fixed term appt at a CO’s conference in the early 00s and the concensus was even then, many wouldn’t re-apply, which would throw squadron’s into chaos every so many years. The system we have might not be perfect, but any new one would need to have demonstrable positives. Let’s face we have GEs every 5 years and a change of govt isn’t necessarily a good thing and in the Corps we used to have the 2 year ‘sunset’ job AOCs and Commandants, which latterly became a service appt for 2 years max which worked better than what we have got now.
Reading this thread has, at the same time, made me feel 20 years old and about 400. Kudos for that.
Let’s not forget one key thing: teenagers don’t want to be understood.
And, in a neat contradiction to what I’ve just said, they also don’t want to be treated as one homogeneous subset of the species.
[quote=“themajor, post:16, topic:3964”] @pEp’s point is that this OC is at risk of becoming stagnant and MAY not be open to new ideas as they aren’t exposed to them in the workplace.[/quote]
That doesn’t necessarily have to be someone in their 50s or 60s; could easily be someone in their early 30s if dropped into command at an early age.
The most obvious problem with having OC’s in four year stints with reapplication/reappointment is that the ACO will be full of people who have spent four years as OC and who then chose not to reapply…
