Training Management

Everyone General Training
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The Audit of HQAC in 2011 highlighted that much of our training and it’s management is not undertaken in accordance with accepted training management principles; for MoD organisations, that is the Defence Systems Approach to Training (DSAT). But does it need to be?

Properly managed training confers many advantages (otherwise it wouldn’t be done) such as ensuring consistency through proper ownership, maintaining the standard of delivery through staff training and evaluation, and maintaining relevance of training through proper evaluation to ensure that what is delivered is actually what is needed. Training management across the ACO will come at a price and that price will be peoples’ time; most likely at the HQ, Region and Wing, but there will also be work needed at Sqn level. This will be particularly so during a set-up period until processes and practices are established, and any new system is up and running. Should we at the delivery ‘front line’ be expected to pay it?

Having seen the advantages to efficiency and effectiveness that proper training management, not necessarily DSAT, can bring, I’m firmly in the ‘Yes do it’ camp. Equally, I realise that the work that will be required to set this up may be seen by some as going against the Admin Burden reduction exercise.

Discuss.

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I mentioned on another thread my career time has been in Senior or Middle management and I am also firmly behind the Yes vote. It will inevitably save time worth and all the grief in the end.

As an OC I have handed out a Terms of Reference to their role in the Squadron to everyone, some have role specific TOR’s like Adjutant or Training Officer and some have simple TOR saying how I expect them to join in. They all clearly say they can be appraised at any time but will definitely get an appraisal at an appropriate time, or that they can ask for an appraisal at any time, for example to expand their responsibilities or narrow them if they feel that is what they want.

Expecting people to do something, including self improvement by attending training courses, is fundamental and its MORE so because it is a voluntary organisation. In a paid role you suffer losing your job, career and lots more if you don’t do as expected or maintain your competency. However what happens usually in the ACO if that happens? Usually zilch. And as you go longer in the organisation usually you get higher in the C of C and still have the same level of incompetency.

There are many many OC Squadrons we all know who would fall into that category. We really need some way of ensuring all staff are competent or accountable and training and following up on training is one way, as is TOR’s and appraisals.

Please don’t get me wrong. If someone wants to come down and just sweep the floor, manage the tuck shop and charge the radio batteries then great! It’s what they want to do and should be applauded for it. No one should be expected to do what they don’t want to. But if that person wants to have a uniform or a specific job role such as Radio Officer then they should expect to meet all the requirements of the role and this is where TOR’s come in.

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It is somewhat bizarre, that we have been encouraged to make the cadet training less school-like over the last 7/8 years and yet the suggestion is we make the adult volunteering experience more like work.

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That’s somewhat true, however as a military organisation shouldn’t it be “more like the RAF?”.

Most of us have career based levels of expectations about performance or behaviour so would it be so wrong to have the same sort of levels in a military based structure? After all if volunteers join the ACO so they can get away from work ethos and enjoy themselves without constraints are we not opening up a can of worms?

It’s all about a balance I imagine. And that’s the skill of the OC and other key figures. Ensuring a professional, target driven ethos without making it seem like a draconian environment where a smile or a laugh isn’t going to be treated like a plaque.

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That’s not what proper Training Management is about. The Cadet Experience CAN indeed be less school-like and in that respect, it’s how the training sponsors and course designers wish the finished product to be and I would suggest that nobody has really thought about what we deliver for years. OK, we have Ultilearn now, but is that a knee-jerk reaction to accusations that the cadet training is not ‘moving with the times’ or is it a properly thought through development of the learning experience? I will leave everyone else to offer comments on that. For adults, just because you’re volunteering to do something doesn’t preclude you from doing it in the most efficient and effective manner, whether that ends up like work or not.

The approach we, as in the whole organisation, should be taking to training (if we wish to work to DSAT - or any other properly managed system) and after all training should be the focus of what we do, should be a cyclical. Without doing the egg sucking bit, but doubtless some people will not know, firstly, we have to identify what’s needed against a proper requirement. For military personnel that requirement is generally an Operational Performance Statement (OPS), for cadets, a Competency Framework (CF) would be more appropriate, followed by a proper Training Needs Analysis (TNA); Regions, Wings or Sqns shouldn’t be simply thinking up training courses as ‘good ideas’, there has to be a formally identified need. Once delivery of the training has been achieved, by properly trained and regularly assessed instructors, the effectiveness of the training against the original requirement needs to be assessed, which is where evaluation is important. Whilst ATF may well do an internal evaluation of their courses, ie did they deliver to students what they said they would deliver (course critiques etc), to my knowledge, the ACO have never externally evaluated any cadet or adult training, so nobody knows whether what we have delivered has met any requirement. We currently have no idea, except anecdotally, whether our training is effective, efficient, or even actually needed. What’s more, and I generalise here, most Sqns do not look to continually improve what they do; we keep regurgitating basically the same stuff ‘because that’s what I did as a cadet’.

The bit that will cause work for us at the coalface will mostly be ensuring the continued ability of our instructors, undertaking internal evaluations and looking to improve what we do. We will have to do regular assessments of our instructors’ abilities (I know some Sqns do this already), we’ll need to make sure that we deliver what we say we’re going to and we’ll have to regularly ‘challenge’ the way we do things; the rest of the work will be primarily an HQ task. The HQs will have to make courses available for ALL of our instructors to be trained (how many CIs attend MoI courses at the moment?). They will also have to define properly what a cadet needs to be able to do/know, ie produce a CF. The HQs should also run the external evaluation of training.

Once this has been set up, it takes very little effort to keep it running, provided of course, the interest is there from the average CFAV to do it. Unless everyone is told why this should be done and appreciates the advantages it brings, it will receive a good stiff ignoring, especially by those who think it’s too much like the RAF.

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i would be particularly interested in the effect the SAAi course has had.

the change from WI to SAAi course seems signifiant, two weekends rather than one, taught by the Central Training Team (CTT) - although i now understand that more local teams have been set up, and a with the CTT a change in attitude.

as one of the first to attend the SAAi course in the area (i was on the second course that was run) the CTT were keen to make their stance clear from the start.
previously i had been trying to get on the WI cours ebut of cours ethat was binned while the SAAi Course was put together.
i was told a reason for the change from WI to SAAi was those “up the chain” (Army?) weren’t happy with the quality of the training CFAVs were delievering to Cadets, with far too many shortcuts often taken (eg in a single day training the L98 and firing it)

however i question what difference there is between me as a SAAi and a WI - we are permitted to do EXACTLY the same role and have the same responsibilities. on a “day-to-day” basis as a SAAi i instruct on the No8 and L98A2 following the PAMs as appropriate using the methods taught on my SAAi course.
this differs little to how a WI operates other than how they recieved their training

as such question what as the SAAi acheieved that the WI course was failing at?

(in my opinion the failings that occured which forced the hand to the SAAi is a matter of integrity of CFAVs and it doesn’t matter what course you attend, if you’re willing to bend rules then rules will get bent!)

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Had the strongly worded and heavily impressed upon ‘suggestion’ from higher up been followed to the letter then the SATTs would have been totally dissolved and all WIs would have had their qualifications withdrawn.
The problem was that the SATTs proved to be utterly incompetent, not only at a T3 (train the trainer) level, but in many cases they were simply not even competent as WIs at all.

As I understand it, ScotSATT are pretty good now. 5 SATT on the other hand (my local lot) were utterly useless.
On a WI course just after the L98A2 was introduced, they first of all failed to consider that because they had not cascaded A2 training to anyone other than current RCOs and current WIs at that time, no one attending the course would have an A2 WHT.
Half a dozen of the students on that course were considered to be good enough to get an L98 tick in the box, but had to pass the WHT within an hour that evening.

I know that some were qualified as a WI with L98 category having only been A1 trained and never received a single lesson on the A2 from Pam-5C.

The remainder of the course were considered not competent enough to train on the L98 and were given an invented ‘No8 only’ qualification. This sort of practice was pretty common I believe, though in some cases there was no ‘No8 only’ stipulation. Instead, someone who could barely grasp instructing on the most simple rifle was given a qualification and sent off into the Corps to instruct L98.

The point is that where someone was only just scraping competency on the No8 they clearly were not of a good enough standard to be a WI at all…but were passing anyway.

Whilst a SAAI should be technically no different to a WI (it’s simply a newer qualification rather than a superior one, contrary to popular belief) the reality is that the majority of our WIs were simple not up to the job at all.

That is still the case for a number of long-serving WIs that I have to deal with.
I’ve raised my concerns a number of times after running Wing courses where I end up failing between 90-95% of cadets from those WIs syndicates simply because they were trained incorrectly. It’s totally unacceptable! Especially when cadets parents have paid £30 to send them on a residential L98 training course.

What the SAAI course improves on is method and standard of training so that those people holding SAAI quals are actually up to the standard required.

The whole debacle is a great example of the way the ATC has let it’s instructor competency slide over the years.
Obviously Skill at Arms is a particularly important area because of the safety implications of bad instruction, but the example should be followed throughout in my opinion.

We have a lot of bad instructors.
There has been no emphasis on continuous improvement in the past and the courses at ATF are not sufficient to train people to the required standard.
The DI course is a great example. Whilst I understand that the bar is being raised at the moment, the course standard of the past decade (at least) has been way too low! We’ve got DIs who are simply not good enough to do the job.
A one week course is not sufficient to make someone a spot-on DI. It’s a step in the right direction to get people working towards best practice, but many people come away thinking “That’s it. I’ve done it.” and never make any progress toward improving their competency.

How can we properly deliver any sort of cadet experience if our instructors are not good enough to instruct?

If people want to become staff to run the canteen, or they are an admin guru, or any of the other plethora of useful ways people can contribute then fantastic!
We all know we need more committed staff!

But where people want to instruct they should be diligent about doing so.
Having 100 bad instructors is worse than not having any at all.

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Intriguingly the notion of training management does rely quite heavily on appropriate and more importantly sufficient training being available.
In our real lives we can sift through trade journals and the www to find appropriate training, however in the Corps, we can’t do this and are given meagre resources from which to select what we want to do, the quality of which varies wildly, as there is no commercial business aspect that the providers have to satisfy. If a commercial training provider get a bad name, they soon stop providing. Our training providers just carry on regardless of the quality.

This then brings another problem in relation to the management arena, of, if you don’t have the resources available in order to address the problems of efficiency / competency how do you set about seeking ways to get people “improving”, if the training courses are so scant. You don’t have the time on a squadron to sort some problems out, because on any one night you cannot guarantee attendance of staff or what you have planned goes out of the window. We have a detailed competency procedure at work, we couldn’t even begin to get anywhere near the first paragraph in the Corps, purely because we don’t have access to enough / appropriate training. I suppose you could apply HQAC approach of edicts and diktats in the all stick and no carrot wrt the volunteer staff.

Many of the problems are related in my experience to a lack of classification subject knowledge. You can have all the FMS and other non classification subject instructors, but the thing which is at the very heart of what we do, isn’t given sufficient credence in the Corps. I have witnessed modern yellow lanyarded Staff Cadets delivering lessons and being woefully lacking in the subject knowledge and these not so very long ago were learning this material. When I was a Staff Cadet I had worked damned hard to pass the classifications, no “modular” nonsense, and as such much of what I learned 37-32 years ago is still with me now.

From what I have heard the SAAI is over the top wrt what we actually need in the ATC for WI and there are too few classification subject instructor courses which is the same in all areas, mostly IMO because the people setting the policy on training are toothless with respect to challenging those above them, and or so up themselves and blinkered wrt embracing new technology / modern teaching methods, we don’t get what we need. I have a supply of the old, old and old syllabus books and have given these to new staff to get an idea of the depth required. What I have seen recently in terms of resource is barely deep enough to dampen the soles of my feet and insufficient to entertain ascribing any interest.

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I agree with everything you’ve said there - classification training does seem to be thought of as the poor cousin with very little in the way of staff training.
A few of the subjects have courses at Cosford, but the average non-technical stuff could very easily be covered by decent courses at Wing level.

The only thing I would disagree with is:

I’d say that the SAAI course is exactly what was needed. It is the baseline standard that SASC are willing to accept and as such if we were to fall below it, we again risk loosing shooting in the Corps altogether.

But to look at it specifically… What do we actually need? Competent, committed people, who can properly instruct cadets in the use of weapons and shooting to a standard suitable to both satisfy the Safe System of Training and to ensure that every cadets gets the most out of their experience.
That’s exactly what the SAAI course turns out.

Before that, we had courses of varying standard which turned out people who don’t know the subject well enough, weren’t satisfying the Safe System of Training, weren’t using the best methods of instruction, and who ultimately weren’t giving the cadets a fair crack at shooting.

If a cadet fails a WHT because they’ve not been trained properly, the Corps fails in it’s aim.
If a cadet goes on the range but never learns how to shoot properly or accurately, the Corps fails in it’s aim and all we’re doing is wasting time and money turning rounds into scrap brass.

The SAAI course is a professional course, delivered well, which requires a very thorough subject knowledge and a very high standard of instruction from candidates. Perhaps most importantly, it fails people who do not meet that exacting standard. The feedback from the regulars and ex regulars who’ve attended tells the same story - that it’s as good as a regular military course, not what people expected to be ‘just another cadet course’.

That is what every course should be doing in my opinion.

There are always the arguments which say “Our people are only volunteers”, “The ATC is a hobby, not a job”, “We can’t expect volunteers to give up so much time for courses”, “We don’t need to be as good as the military, we’re only training cadets”.

All of those are, in my opinion, cop outs.
Why shouldn’t we demand high standards from our instructors? It’s not just the military who do it…Schools, colleges, professional training organizations… All expect their teachers, trainers, and instructors to be good at what they do.

The only difference here is that we do this ‘part time’.
So what? Do we use that as an excuse for delivering substandard training?
What’s the point in any of us putting in the effort for this organization if the primary role of training the cadets isn’t properly achieved?

It’s dead easy, we simply say "These are the ways you can contribute…You want to instruct a subject? Fantastic! This is what’s required…"
If people can’t achieve the standard or don’t want to put the effort in then hard luck. We’re here to provide a proper experience; not to let any old person be an instructor just because they’ve volunteered their time.

Anywhere else if someone offered you something you neither needed nor wanted you’d say “Thank you very much for the offer…but no thanks.”

This also links into my other recent thread about how we fit into the big picture…
It’s the biffs in the Corps who give the RAF a bad impression of us all.
We start binning the dross and turning out quality instructors who know their subject, deliver it well and who could hold their own against their RAF equivalents. Then we’d start to appear less like a bunch of pretenders who are doing a good job looking after kids, and more like a professional organization who are providing accurate and effective training to young people.

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[quote=“wdimagineer2b” post=13533]There are always the arguments which say “Our people are only volunteers”, “The ATC is a hobby, not a job”, “We can’t expect volunteers to give up so much time for courses”, “We don’t need to be as good as the military, we’re only training cadets”.

All of those are, in my opinion, cop outs.
Why shouldn’t we demand high standards from our instructors? It’s not just the military who do it…Schools, colleges, professional training organizations… All expect their teachers, trainers, and instructors to be good at what they do.

The only difference here is that we do this ‘part time’.
So what? Do we use that as an excuse for delivering substandard training?
What’s the point in any of us putting in the effort for this organization if the primary role of training the cadets isn’t properly achieved?

It’s dead easy, we simply say "These are the ways you can contribute…You want to instruct a subject? Fantastic! This is what’s required…"
If people can’t achieve the standard or don’t want to put the effort in then hard luck. We’re here to provide a proper experience; not to let any old person be an instructor just because they’ve volunteered their time.[/quote]
Smashing … but you cannot achieve any of this without plenty of courses in easy to reach locations that are sympathetically set to the person wanting to attend. Like it or not it is a hobby and people will donate as much of their time as they want or can. The organisation is built on this ethos and stood us in good stead for 75 years.

Do schools, colleges and professional training organisations and the military et al expect their staff to undertake training courses in their own time and by and large their own expense? I don’t know where people work (excluding self-employed), but if your boss said I want you to do this course/training but you will have to do it in your own time and at your own expense. I can’t see people falling over themselves.

It’s all well and good saying to someone new, this is what is required, but then when they say OK, is there a course I can go on … erm no, just read this and crack on. When some of the subject matter is quite technical, this is why you get what is regarded as substandard instruction.
When we get someone new start at work, we have got a list of courses and providers, that they can attend.

I’ve got staff that want to do SAAI and SR RCO, but cannot get the time off work, well they could, but run the risk of not having a job. Why the courses aren’t done with say a gap in between, where you have to run a range or do training under the auspice of someone already qualified and they sign off a log book and then go back for one day for tests, you would probably find more people taking the courses, OK not all pass first time, but you increase the number doing them. Just getting the low down year on year from our Wing Shooting Officer, it seems shooting is diminishing as the number of new people coming through falls and the pressure on those remaining increases to the point where they aren’t bothering to requal.
I’ve also got staff that want to do classification instructor courses, but going to Cosford for 1 day, so a minimum 3 days out, from anywhere other than 50 miles from Cosford is hardly worth the effort.

Why we don’t have subject training camps for staff, for instance say in classification subjects and shooting, whereby they go away for a week, rather than weekends or odd days here and there and come back qualified for WI and SR RCO and up to speed on an area of classification instruction. I’m sure that over 2 weekends for the shooting courses, there is at least ½ to ¾ of a day wasted and people turning up late or needing to go early. By and large I imagine people would probably be more agreeable to taking a week off as opposed to fitting in “x” weekends and the associated travel. But this would mean those doing the training having to provide something that the customer might want … god forbid that happens in the ACO.

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Interesting points but a few references I want to comment on. Firstly RCO and SAAI are done over weekends. If your staff cannot get time off what chance will they have of running shooting practices which are usually done at weekend. (I know there’s some on Parade nights but I don’t think it’s the majority in our wing anyway)

Secondly a week off work. Have a read on the thread about adult NCOs being binned because they don’t get the opportunity to take the required week off work. That highlights peoples opinions about time off work. My RCO course went like clockwork by the way.

The OP mentioned that one of the issues is lack of reporting back so to whether training in the ACO is effective because as an organisation we don’t follow it up. What can we do to improve that? Regional or HQ AC interviews a year after SCC or Wing interviews after OIC to present your JODC? Something would surely be better than nothing?

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[quote=“glass half empty 2” post=13539]
Smashing … but you cannot achieve any of this without plenty of courses in easy to reach locations that are sympathetically set to the person wanting to attend.[/quote]

I quite agree! I’m not suggesting that we just draw a line; we need the infrastructure to support it; but that’s what I’m suggesting needs to happen.

Well, it has and it hasn’t. Yes we’re still going, but as has been highlighted we’re not properly delivering training any more. So we need to update.

Sometimes, yes. There are plenty of times that staff have to go away for training. Three day course here; perhaps a week long certification course there…
I know stacks of people who’ve been away around the country (or out of the country in many cases) on training courses for work. Not to mention those who’s job involves working away from time to time.

But we don’t require staff to do courses at their own expense. Uniform staff are remunerated and CIs should not be charged accom & messing. Fuel/Travel costs are paid for.

[quote=“glass half empty 2” post=13539]
It’s all well and good saying to someone new, this is what is required, but then when they say OK, is there a course I can go on … erm no, just read this and crack on. When some of the subject matter is quite technical, this is why you get what is regarded as substandard instruction.[/quote]

Agreed and that’s what I’m saying needs to change. We need more emphasis on staff training.
When you boil it down, poorly or inadequately trained staff = poorly trained cadets.

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We’ve never had much in the way of training opportunities, but then we’ve not, due to military politics and HQAC empire builders, had so much tinkering and so many changes in such a short space of time … c.the last 10 years. I don’t think we need to update so much as review and consolidate.

I think you’ve missed the point, everything we as CFAV do for training involves us doing it in our own time, be that weekends or weeks. I’ve done evening courses, but if they are work related the company pays for them, we get awards on passing and we are allowed to leave early to attend. I’ve been on plenty of courses lasting 2-4 days and some where I have had to travel on a Sunday, in which case we are given a day in lieu. Anything I do at work course wise is done in the working week. If it’s not work related then that’s your decision.

If I go on an ATC course and I pay for anything I am out of pocket regardless of any remuneration, if I go on a course from work, I get paid my salary and all but things like a beer in the evening (unless you get it put on your meal tab) are covered by expenses.

The problem is two weekends back to back. I don’t work weekends, but I am loathed to give up back to back weekends, where I’d have to take 2 ½ days on a Friday (and the aggro that would cause me at work) to ensure getting there for the evening and then get back late on Sundays. Split the weekends up and people might be more receptive. I have observed WI sessions and ranges since I gave up my RCO ticket and I can’t see anything that has changed to require making it a 4 day course for RCO and another 4 day course for WI (ie SAAI), other than some empire building Civil Servant making up their own rules.

There is more to that than people just not going on a course. That is more about the majority of the Civil Servants at HQAC and elsewhere in the Corps having a “rule book” and not having the foggiest about the real ATC and only concerned about giving people inconsequential hoops to jump through. As a sqn cdr I back my staff to the hilt when they are being hounded due to pettiness. I’ve had 2 SNCOs not get on a course in the 12 months (one over 2 years and the other nearly 2 years due to a combination of cancelled courses, lack of courses and personal cirumstance) they told me why and that was good enough, it’s not like they’d missed anything and weren’t able to function in their role. I’ve done all three courses, as I said on that thread, and have come away feeling thoroughly unenlightened by any of them.
As for the weeks I suggested they have no compulsion to them and have some purpose, I think that sqn staff would respond well to them, because they should return feeling that they have achieved and more confident in what they do.

You could improve them by not having them. A feedback session would be a waste of time and effort as while the interviewee might offer ideas, the interviewer would ignore it and not pass anything back, unless it added to the burden on the CFAV. All that would happen in a feedback session is that the interviewee would be told what they need to do next.