Retention in the CAF: Reframing the Solution
As with many like-minded allies, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) is in the throes of a serious strategic human resource management crisis. The Chief of Defence Staff has stated as much, acknowledging the CAF is unable to sustain its current commitments in the present state.[1]
This paper addresses one of the key drivers of this operational decline: retention. It suggests that the root causes of this facet of the crisis have less to do with COVID, policies, and funding and more to do with two interconnected institutional culture factors. These consist firstly of insufficiently incentivizing formation leaders to prioritize retention and navigate other urgencies because of said prioritization, and secondly, an institutional framework not designed to address this type of crisis due to a risk and accountability culture focused on process and inputs rather than results.
Context
The concept of the ‘missing middle’[2],[3] within the CAF, a euphemism for one component of the current human resource crisis, began to appear in the early 2010s with the exodus of junior members upon their return from Afghanistan. The author lived this experience firsthand as the Adjutant of 2 Combat Engineer Regiment where he processed the releases of scores of young sappers returning from tour – including eventually his own.
These junior leaders who departed in the early 2010s[4] became part of what contributed to the missing mid-level leaders that began to appear in the mid-2010s and endure to this day. What sustains the crisis is that senior leader positions do not go empty, exercising a continuous pull on middle management, not allowing for time to reconstitute. The corollary of this is that the pool of middle managers becomes smaller, reducing the sample set from which senior leaders are selected.
This challenge was made more acute by the retirement of the tail-end of the baby boom [5] and other members leaving earlier for reasons linked to job dissatisfaction, geographical instability, career progression, undesirable postings, and dissatisfaction with senior leadership.[6] Together, these retention challenges have created the perfect storm manifested through the CAF’s decade-long decline in effective strength.
The numbers speak for themselves. From 2010 to today, the gap between the planned force and the existing Force has progressively increased with numbers continuing to atrophy.[7]
Some of the institutional focus on who is best placed to fix these retention issues has been consigned to groups including Chief, Military Personnel (CMP) and Chief, Professional Conduct and Culture (CPCC), although both organizations work collaboratively across all commands in the CAF, they cannot, in the author’s opinion, carry the full burden of retention efforts. Mainly because these groups’ place in the organizational structure makes them optimized to provide strategic guidance, develop policy, and monitor implementation. In other words, these organizations don’t exercise command authority over the forces on the ground where the attrition is happening in real-time. The CAF needs to recognize that retention is a team sport and there is a need for the full involvement of strategic and tactical organizations in order for it to be successful.
It is suggested that many accountabilities related to retention should in fact reside within the Formation leadership of the CAF – groups that have in the author’s view, not been effectively incentivized to prioritize the reconstitution efforts[8] – an operation that functionally remains challenging as there exists competing priorities for Formation leaders. Notwithstanding, it is Formation leadership (and their subordinate unit commanders) that hold the lion’s share of authority and influence to effect change on the ground, implement policy, and harmonize new policies with old to create bespoke approaches to best address the unique regional/element/component facets of the retention crisis.
In the author’s view, the challenge to effectively prioritize retention stems from an organizational culture that sees everything as a priority and is not designed to reward success in one area if it occurs at the expense of another. This aspect of the CAF’s risk culture leads to tactical objectives (the urgent) taking precedence over strategic objectives (the important) as the consequences of tactical failure are more immediate than those of strategic failure, which while graver tend to be slower moving and thus easier to kick down the road.[9]
It follows, given the finite amount of time and staff energy available to these leaders, that few if any of the dynamic, creative, and inventive solutions needed to address the complex and multi-faceted aspects of retention will be developed, let alone implemented.
Notwithstanding the decision-making process, the CAF problem-solving process itself can be distilled to an approach focused on the development of strategies that often have very low prospects of being implemented. In other words, very logical and well intended strategic plans are developed, decisions are made on the way ahead, but implementation remains a highly challenging endeavour at the tactical level. The latest manifestation of this cultural facet of the CAF specifically relating to retention is the Canadian Armed Forces Retention Strategy (CAFRS).[10] Released in October of 2022, it speaks to all the key elements one would expect to see in a strategic plan of this nature. It begins by defining the problem as it is understood, followed by providing some of the guiding principles that will frame the proposed solution. The solution details six lines of effort (LOE), several of which align with the issues described in this paper. For instance, LOE #2 is entitled ‘engage leaders to promote a culture supportive of retention.’ It is in this section however that the challenges start. The reader is presented with short-, mid- and long-term outcomes that are not tied to clear timelines and milestones. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are mainly input, or process focused with no threshold that would define an initial measure of success, nor a desired steady state.
For example, the KPIs for LOE #2 include:
- % of leaders who have attended training on retention and their role in addressing retention.
- % of CAF leaders who have completed retention training and understand their role in addressing retention in the CAF.
- % of CAF members who feel that leaders are engaged in efforts to retain members.
These represent three among a daunting 37 KPIs identified in the CAFRS. They are examples of KPIs that frame the solution as the need for more training and individual feedback. KPIs such as these can serve to shackle creativity in arriving at solutions that address the most important KPIs in this document located at the end of Annex D and attributed to all LOEs:
- Retention rate for each targeted retention area.
- % of occupations with critical shortfalls.
- % of Regular Force positions that are filled.
- % of Reserve Force positions that are filled.
- % of unhealthy attrition of CAF members.
In the author’s view, the above five KPIs should constitute the focus of retention measurements. The remainder appear to mobilize a significant amount of staff effort to track, monitor and report with the unintended consequence of creating a false sense of progress related to training activities that are not specifically linked in the document to changing the bottom line. The bottom line in this case being to reduce turnover from its current unsustainable level to one that reflects an industry-specific best-practice norm or more likely one that is lower than that to accelerate reconstitution as opposed to one that simply stops the bleeding.
Further, with the five fundamental KPIs attributed to all LOEs, there is a risk that responsibilities and accountabilities among the OPIs regarding these five become blurred. This could lead to counter-productive effects. With no assigned individual accountability for these results, they risk being made secondary in importance to those that are clearly designated.
Moreover, the CAFRS objectives need clearer timelines tied to outcomes. The document speaks to ‘short-term’ and ‘mid-term’ objectives, but these terms remain subjective and thus open to being kicked down the road in favour of competing priorities with defined timelines and consequences related to not achieving them.
While there is a clear acknowledgment of the issue[11] and a solid understanding of the retention problem, due to the factors described above, one can deduce that the strategy might not set the conditions to solve retention in the CAF.[12]
Carrots and Sticks
The author suggests that the first step in digging the CAF out of this crisis could begin with incentivizing leaders to change behaviours at the Formation level and below, to establish the primacy of retention as the priority trumping all others. A big part of this means making retention a fundamental and accountable KPI for commanders that is directly tied to command success and career advancement. Doing so could contribute to shaping behaviours and priorities of formation leaders but through them could also shape the behaviour of lower-level leaders who will be held to the same performance KPIs.
Currently, based on the priorities pushed to formations and below, metrics employed to evaluate leaders trend towards (1) input focused, such as percent completion of Individual Battle Task Standards; (2) process-focused, such as meticulous tracking of budgets; and (3) operations focused, such as the number of individuals that can be deployed for domestic or expeditionary operations.
None of these metrics directly contribute to OP RECONSTITUTION with some actively working against it. With commands lasting on average only two years and the career progression of an officer being tied to that command, it is a challenge to reconcile strategic institutional objectives like retention with the tyranny of the present. What more often occurs is the formation leader, under extreme performance pressure, applies a very literal interpretation of “service before self,” focused on meeting immediate operational needs. This, as opposed to one anchored in not just satisfying an immediate need, but building and maintaining readiness and capability in the long term.[13]
Incentives could be a powerful means by which to change these behaviours. If for example, a consequential weighting of a leader’s success in a command was tied to their annual turnover numbers, there could be a telling shift in how those leaders prioritize their time and that of their staff. More time could be spent at all levels to counsel members looking to release, making real attempts to retain them in the CAF as part of a different element. The corollary to this would be that more time would be spent on people management in general, providing coaching, mentorship, and improving connectivity between leaders and members.
The current incentivization structure provides no short-term benefit to a commander prioritizing this expenditure of time because there are competing operational priorities which are more perceptively pressing. Through appropriate modulation of evaluated performance metrics, formation leaders and their subordinate commanders would be more empowered to strike a better balance of achieving operational effectiveness, all while protecting long-term human resource integrity through people focused engagement.
The second step of the journey suggested, could be the development of higher risk tolerance when it comes to retention issues and policies – specifically as it relates to the development and implementation of bold and innovative approaches; that while having excellent chances of great success, also include non-zero risks of catastrophic failure. This current barrier speaks to a risk-averse culture[14],[15] that curates a work approach that sees everything as a ‘no-fail task’ leading to the syndrome of “when everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.”[16]
Until senior leaders can be given the space to navigate, synchronize, negotiate, sequence priorities and/or fail, so long as they can demonstrate that said failure was a calculated risk in service of the main effort, it will be tremendously challenging to move the needle on retention. An example of this could be a commander finishing their year 10% over budget but this overspends generating significant turnover reduction. An outcome that in turn saved what would otherwise have been millions of dollars worth of lost corporate knowledge. This example is one among many that would be grounded in the CAF living its values by how it accounts for what is institutionally valuable. The author believes that should these barriers be effectively addressed; a high synergy and momentum would result between L1s’ organizations and a marked positive impact on retention.
L1 organizations such as CMP and CPCC would then become natural Centres of Excellence, more specifically acting as vehicles for sharing creative solutions developed in one formation across the CAF. The knowledge promulgated by these groups could then be leveraged to its full potential at all levels as an enabling function for formation leaders and below to achieve the best possible outcomes for KPIs tied to their positional accountabilities as leaders.
Simply put, change the metrics by which to measure leaders to align with the outputs the institution wants to achieve. And importantly, create a higher tolerance to risk in terms of how operational outcomes are squared with strategic institutional priorities through fostering the more nuanced ‘service before self’ mantra that ‘not everything that is urgent is important, and not everything needs to get done now’.
Hard Things are Hard
The Department of National Defence is currently faced with a multitude of complex and interconnected challenges. Each if taken alone would be harrowing but when examined in agglomeration can be perceived as overwhelming. These challenges are further complexified when seen through the additional lens of the Kotter 8-Step Change Model that details many change obstacle realities common to large organizations like the CAF, such as multiple layers of management, process focus to problem-solving, and siloed structures.[17]
Kotter’s change obstacles reality has been documented in numerous strategic areas that include procurement,[18],[19] military justice and recruiting. In the case of recruiting, the resistance to change was significant enough to be included in the 2022 Arbour report in several of its recommendations.[20] This syndrome is not exclusive to any specific area but exists in a systematic manner to different degrees throughout the institution.[21]
Part of the challenge is that the structures that have been built and hardened over decades have fostered an accountability culture where many see themselves as stewards and gatekeepers of processes as opposed to enablers of innovative solutions. Kotter’s change model recognizes this reality as a key element to overcome and a critical error not to address when framing organizational change. Failing to do so will not only hamper ambitions of change success but leave stakeholders wanting said change discouraged and disengaged.
It is important to recognize this mindset and structure are common within large organizations and in no way unique to the CAF. They are a product of the incremental complexification of government and governance over the last half-century,[22] enabled by a common culture among Western militaries of being “highly structured, hierarchical, risk-averse and subject to the same bureaucracy as government.”[23] In essence, the CAF has followed the same playbook as its contemporaries when faced with these complex and interconnected challenges. Specifically, it has tended to respond by growing staff to address them, with the growth itself creating additional obstacles to solutions (i.e. groupthink). If left unaddressed, this can lead to an end-state whereby these new entities end up existing in large part to sustain themselves instead of addressing the actual problems they were created to solve.
The combination of challenges to overcome to address the retention crisis becomes a real-time example of the irresistible force paradox – where the immovable object of structure and process meets the unstoppable force of the current crisis. This is when it is worth re-stating and further exploring an example of this enigma as it pertains specifically to retention: The Canadian Armed Forces Retention Strategy.[24]
In its current state, the document could be complemented by clear accountabilities and timelines to lower-level leadership on what they specifically need to achieve. There could be pertinent information added to also clarify what tasks can be de-prioritized if this one is the priority for the CAF. It does however identify the importance of this strategy to the CAF, noting that “people are the very centre of all aspects of our organization” and that “retention in the CAF context is the ultimate outcome of all aspects of an individual’s personal and professional experiences as a member of the military.”[25] While these are powerful statements when taken on their own, they become less impactful when balanced against the equally powerful statements included in the numerous competing (yet interconnected) initiatives such as the CAF Digital Campaign Plan that sees the CAF “digitally transformed by 2030.”[26]
Emphasis on the ‘how’ to achieve the objectives would also be welcomed, especially when CAF leaders, through no fault of their own, have little experience in implementing a human resource management strategy focusing on retention.
Annex D of the plan lays out the performance management framework by using 37 different indicators tied to the LOEs and strategic outcomes. The challenge with these KPIs is primarily their sheer number and secondly that they are mainly focused on the inputs and processes. Only 5 of them measure the ultimate outcome desired from the strategy and these are not attributed to a specific OPI in addition to being inconspicuously located at the end of Annex D at the bottom of the KPI table.
The reason it is so important to focus on a very discrete number of KPIs is that there will be an enormous staff effort required to track and report them[27] – staff effort at the formation level and below that would be better employed in developing actual retention plans as well supporting subordinate commanders on implementation and re-evaluation.
As an alternative, the CAFRS could dramatically reduce the current number of KPIs to the key five listed previously and change its RACI Matrix[28] to put accountability of purely outcome-driven metrics squarely in the hands of Formation (and below) leaders – tying said results to their individual career progression.
This approach would set a clear timeline and target, prioritize this effort over others, and hold individual senior leaders accountable to a set of measurable outcomes that are not going to weigh down their staff. Lastly, an outcome focus, as opposed to a process focus, would create a more fostering environment for innovation where imaginative staff ideation and operationalization would be rewarded if it yielded measurable results in a timely fashion.
Conclusion
The approach suggested in this paper still does not address the fundamental challenge related to retention, only the core changes in risk and accountability culture that need to occur to develop the solutions required for this once-in-a-generation conundrum.
Even if resolved, the CAF would still have to develop tactical retention plans to effectively communicate a long-term value proposition to Generation-Z (Gen-Z), a generation that currently includes all service people between the ages of 18 to 30.[29] Gen-Z recruits and soldiers have a desire to contribute to causes such as “peace and global security,” the difference however is that they want “to clearly understand—in a pragmatic and transparent manner—what, exactly, that contribution is”[30] and how it will contribute to “real change.”[31]
This desire within Gen-Z requires solutions that go beyond retention campaigns such as The Journey[32] which focuses on “The What” of the CAF. The CAF value proposition needs to extend to “The Why,” specifically speaking to a CAF where they can be empowered to make a unique difference in the World through remaining engaged.
This challenge will not be limited to Gen-Z but extend to Generation-Alpha (generation born between 2010 and 2025), who will begin entering the workforce in 2029. What medium of communication will best speak to them and does that medium even exist yet?
What is known purely based on outcomes (i.e., personnel gaps in the CAF) is that the CAF has not demonstrated success over the last decade with the stakes only getting higher as time marches on.
Canada is very fortunate to have dedicated and thoughtful leaders at the highest levels of DND and the CAF – however, in order for them to be successful, they need to be empowered and incentivized to prioritize behaviours that focus on the current crisis. This could take the form of greater clarity and communication of the nuances between ‘the urgent’ and ‘the important’ in addition to the rare occasions when an issue may simultaneously fall into both categories.
Special thanks to General J. Carignan for her insights throughout the development of this paper.
[1] R. Shimooka, (2022). “The neglect of Canada’s armed forces is leaving us all defenceless: Richard Shimooka in the Hub” [Online]. Available: https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/the-neglect-of-canadas-armed-forces-is-leaving-us-all-defenceless-richard-shimooka-in-the-hub/ [2023, August].
[2] C. Leuprecht, (2022). “Standing Committee on National Defence” [Online]. Available: https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2022/parl/xc34-1/XC34-1-2-441-16-eng.pdf.
[3] M. Brewster, (2021). “Eyre blames sexual misconduct crisis, pandemic for shrinking military” [Online]. Available: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wayne-eyre-armed-forces-sexual-misconduct-pandemic-1.6224791#:~:text=Compounding%20the%20problem%20for%20the,regular%20force%20of%20around%2070%2C000.
[4] T. Kane, (2011). “Why Our Best Officers Are Leaving” [Online]. Available: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/why-our-best-officers-are-leaving/308346/
[5] A. Fowers and K. Schaul, (2023). “The boomers are retiring. See why that’s bad news for workers” [Online]. Available : https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/aging-america-retirees-workforce-economy/
[6] Department of National Defence, “Canadian Armed Forces Retention Strategy” (Oct, 2022), 6.
[7] M. Brewster, (2024). “State of Canadian Armed Forces’ combat readiness growing worse, government report warns” [Online]. Available: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nato-canadian-armed-forces-europe-1.7135390
[8] W.D. Eyre and B. Matthews, (2022). “CDS/DM Directive for CAF Reconstitution ” [Online]. Available: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/policies-standards/dm-cds-directives/cds-dm-directive-caf-reconstitution.html [2023, August].
[9] M. Wilding, (2020). “How To Be a More Strategic Thinker” [Online]. Available: https://www.forbes.com/sites/melodywilding/2020/06/01/how-to-be-a-more-strategic-thinker/?sh=a9364d937e6f [2023, August].
[10] Department of National Defence, “Canadian Armed Forces Retention Strategy” (Oct, 2022).
[11] L. Berthiaume, (2022). “Defence chief calls on Canadians to rally behind military during personnel crisis” [Online]. Available: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wayne-eyre-canada-military-personnel-shortage-1.6617951 [2023, August].
[12] Ibid.
[13] CPCC, Together, Stronger – Diversity of Service, Unity of Purpose (Draft).
[14] J. Thompson, “Toxic Leadership: Understanding and Mitigating the Threat”, Canadian Forces College, JCSP 47, 3.
[15] A. Corey, “The Canadian Army: Warrior Culture and Combatives”, Canadian Forces College, JCSP 47, 43.
[16] Martin, Karen, The Outstanding Organization: Generate Business Results by Eliminating Chaos and Building the Foundation for Everyday Excellence (McGraw-Hill, New York, 2012)
[17] J. Kotter, Leading Change, (Boston: Harvard Business School Press: 1996), 105.
[18] C. Paas-Lang, (2022). “Canadian Forces in desperate need of new spending, procurement follow-through, experts say” [Online]. Available: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thehouse/military-spending-federal-budget-1.6406437 [2023, August].
[19] M. Auger, (2020). “The Evolution of Defence Procurement in Canada: A Hundred-Year History” [Online]. Avalable: https://lop.parl.ca/staticfiles/PublicWebsite/Home/ResearchPublications/BackgroundPapers/PDF/2020-54-e.pdf
[20] L. Arbour, “Report of the Independent External Comprehensive Review of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces”, Borden Ladner Gervais S.E.N.C.R.L., S.R.L, 205.
[21] Wolfgang W. Riedel, “The Canadian Army Needs a Paradigm Shift Canadian Military Journal, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Spring, 2020), 19.
[22] Ibid, 20.
[23] A. McHardy, “Distribution, Disruption and Failure: Building a Culture of Innovation in the Canadian Armed Forces”, Canadian Forces College, JCSP 39, 12.
[24] Department of National Defence, “Canadian Armed Forces Retention Strategy” (Oct, 2022).
[25] Department of National Defence, “Canadian Armed Forces Retention Strategy” (Oct, 2022). p.7.
[26] Department of National Defence, “Canadian Armed Forces Digital Campaign Plan” (Jul, 2022).
[27] Business Development Bank of Canada, (2020). “ How to measure the success of your strategic plan” [Online]. Available: https://www.bdc.ca/en/articles-tools/business-strategy-planning/define-strategy/how-to-measure-success-strategic-plan#:~:text=Don’t%20overload%20staff%20with,implementation%20of%20your%20strategic%20plan. [2023, August].
[28] D. Miranda and R. Watts, (2020). “How to measure the success of your strategic plan” [Online]. Available: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/raci-chart/. [2023, August].
[29] Collins Dictionary, “Generation-Z,” in The Online Collins Dictionary, ” [Online]. Available: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/generation-z
[30] T. Mawhinney and K. Betts, (2023). “Understanding Generation Z in the workplace” [Online]. Available: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/consumer-business/articles/understanding-generation-z-in-the-workplace.html. [2023, August].
[31] I. Clark and K. Atkinson, (2023). ” Gen-Z Will Fight: But First, They Need to Know Why ” [Online]. Available: https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/january/gen-z-will-fight-first-they-need-know-why. [2023, August].
[32] Canadian Armed Forces, (2022), The Journey [Online]. Available: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/maple-leaf/defence/2022/05/caf-journey-philosophy-six-pillars-support-military-members.html
