We are told we are not employees, denied the rights of employees etc, but we have to play to rules and go through hoops made up for employees. Who at HQAC has the right to decide whether or not an older person is “good” enough to be a uniformed member of staff. Yep OK someone will say that you don’t have to join, which is right. But if you do shouldn’t expect punitive restrictions.
I would suggest that in years to come the age of volunteers will increase as younger people in general have less time. I would also suggest that older people have the mental resilience (some might call it pig-headedness B) ) and general life experience to deal with the people in the organisation and fight corners and not be afraid to upset people who need it. I’ve seen a lot of younger people put into positions in the organisation they are clearly not ready for, yet completed the hoop jumping and fail to cope with things and leave.
I’ve seen many an old person with an inability to cope with change who spend more time whingeing than doing anything useful as well, but there we have it.
What is suggested isn’t a change, but to enforce it on volnteers when the people enforcing the rules/making decisions, are likely to be as old if not older than the volunteer and sitting pretty without it would seem the same criteria put on them.
Should not a 50+ year old serving officer coming up to the force’s “retirement” age of 55 and looking to join the Corps have to be subjected to the same conditons as a serving uniformed CFAV. The serving officer is in effect a retiree applying for their “B&Q” post retirement job.
How many of the senior ex-RAF uniformed staff at Wing, Region and HQAC are in the 44-49 or younger age group?
It’s not just older people don’t have an inability to cope with change. On our team at work there is a young woman who is 36. She started as bright-eyed bushy-tailed 23 year old, who commented on how us old soaks who had been there for a few years didn’t “embrace” change. But 13 years on she has gone through several periods of change for the sake of it to which there has been no benefit and is as disillisioned as the rest of us with a few more years under their belts. I do think also comments like “old person with an inability to cope with change” show a complete lack of understanding of their working life. Anyone who started work between 1965 and 1990 has ssen the world of work change from one where you “got your hands dirty” to one where you effectively look at screens and have grey boxes do the work for you. If this age group hadn’t been able to learn and keep up with the technology, ie cope with/accept change, the world would be a very different place.
How many here have got parents in their 50s, 60s 70s+ who are just as able in terms of using “technology” as their kids?
People become resistant to change after the negative attitudes of their peers start to rub off on them. It’s hard to look forward to something new when all you can hear is sniping comments, disbelief and a general poor attitude.
The terms and conditions for FTRS personnel allow them to serve in 4 year blocks up to the age of 65 I believe. I think it unlikely that HQAC would impose radically different conditions on the VR(T) and the ATC especially as they want us to be more like the parent Service.
That’s because the people selling the are invariably going over old ground with a thin veneer which the older ones see through and recognise as such. Or if it is something new you wait for the benefit/improvement and then you wait and wait and when it doesn’t materialise you lose faith. Every couple of years or so we have to spend a day at a hotel where the company’s great and good, tell us what the new initiatives are. You know what apart from some cosmetic effect, nothing much has changed in the 30 years I’ve worked there. The biggest changes have been is that the number of people who work for the company has reduced massively and practically everything now relies on electronics. Other than that we still make things, make a profit, keep getting told things look bad and still manage to have a laugh.
When you see the things mentioned on this thread what is/are the benefit/s to the broader organisation? Short term and long term. Remembering that they aren’t in essence actually new.
The problem with age is that the rules are not the same for everyone in the ACO.
The Regional Commandant is the arbiter of whether a person will get extended after 55. Their contract allows them to stay in post in a uniformed role until they are 70. How is that fair?
I read it and it has been applied in my wing as joining before 55 and not having to retire at 55. Also If all uniformed staff were asked to leave at 57 my wing would lose 2 WSO and 20% of all uniformed staff.
[quote=“the silverback” post=8887]The problem with age is that the rules are not the same for everyone in the ACO.
The Regional Commandant is the arbiter of whether a person will get extended after 55. Their contract allows them to stay in post in a uniformed role until they are 70. How is that fair?
I read it and it has been applied in my wing as joining before 55 and not having to retire at 55. Also If all uniformed staff were asked to leave at 57 my wing would lose 2 WSO and 20% of all uniformed staff.[/quote]
It is ludicrous that someone in their late 60s can decide if someone 10 years or more younger than them is up to continue volunteering in a youth organisation.
The daft thing is, that 20% drop would be on top of the 30% or more your wing is probably under-establishment for uniform roles already. I think the under-establishment is why they have given so much leeway. But in order to remove the under-establishment they (HQAC) need to make being in a uniformed role an attractive propostion. I have told staff for years, you apply to go into uniform because you want to as you feel it will help you to help the cadets, and not because of some misguided belief that it will bring status or similar. I think the latter is the message spread by some WSOs.
[quote=“pEp” post=8905]I think it’s ludicrous that a youth organisation has to rely so heavily on grandparents and OAPS!
We should be encouraging more cadets and young people to become staff members, it’s a young person’s game really isn’t it?[/quote]
I tend to think that the best age for staff is 25-35, young enough to run around with the cadets, but accrued (hopefully) enough life experience to not be a complete pillock, afterall we are supposed to be youth leaders.
Is being a member of staff, especially uniformed, an attractive enough proposition to younger people? When I say attractive I mean the whole thing, including the admin side of the organisation. Many just out of uniform as cadets, find that when we’ve said we’ve phoned/emailed someone 3 times and it still hasn’t happened we’re not fobbing them off, or when arranging something it requires doing things away from the sqn and having to ask the same people several times. The look when they discover this is the reality, still amuses me. Welcome to the ATC!!
The question should be; why are all of our SLT in the 55-70 age bracket and IIRC always have been, ie when the RAF has done with them, we get them. So our entire SLT are running something they know little about, other than the RAF bits. They don’t know about the day to day workings of the organisation (other than the ‘fresh paint’/shiny visits), unlike in businesses where the majority of the SLT will have worked their way up or through the organisation and have seen all the warts and had to deal with them.
Probably because no-one in their late 30s/early 40s wants to be sat behind a desk at HQAC pushing paper every day, they want to be out being practical - and that runs at the expense of the operation. Someone has to be there making decisions, and the weird beasts that the ACO is, someone coming directly in from “outside” wou;wouldn’t hold water with the RAF and their tenure would be a very difficult time. You must stop trying to make links with businesses. The ACO isn’t a business, nor is the military or the Public Service. It’s a hybrid of all three and each one singularly at different times. What’s missing is the balance.
In the not too distant future from some of the bits and pieces published the ACO in all guises will have to become more busness-like and run like a business, as public monies while not drying up will be targeted more specifically and there will be a need to engage properly with the real world for funding and contracts.
But you’re absolutely right the ACO isn’t a business and don’t we know it to our cost. If the Ultilearn fiasco and general electronic working in the Corps had happened outside “the bubble”, someone would have “left the business …”. But no it’s the military and no one is held to account and it just meanders along until it reaches crisis point. This why we need desperately to adopt more of a business model for the ACO’s management. We can’t afford financially and in time, to have things done in a “military style”. The military aren’t renown for project management, unless it’s a proper war, then things get done because they have to.
I would suggest the only people we now require to have an RAF background are CAC, the COS and senior admin wallahs at Region and Wing, all the others can come from outside.
Spotted in ACP 020 last night while looking for something else, but has anybody else seen the fact that Reservists who want to help out the ACO must now do so as Service Instructors?
