YOU AND THE RAF
The New Employment Model
A BRIEF FOR RAF FAMILIES In June the MoD launched a consultation exercise, running until October, on the New Employment Model. But why is a New Employment Model necessary?
Commodore Mike Bath, NEM Programme Manager, explains more about aspects of the NEM that will be of interest to RAF families.
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n recent years it has become clear, particularly from the feedback we have gathered through the Families Continuous
Attitude Surveys, that key aspects of the current employment model, including pay, accommodation and career structures, do not provide an affordable balance between meeting the reasonable expectations of Service personnel and families as to how they wish to live their lives and delivering versatile, agile and battle winning Armed Forces.
The current package of terms and conditions pre-dates the 1970s and stems from a time when the Armed Forces and Defence landscape differed greatly to that we know today. Some aspects of it are very strong
Envoy Autumn 2013
and need to be sustained, for instance the provision of subsidised accommodation, our excellent welfare provision and the high standard of training and education across all three Services. However, other aspects have not kept up with the way in which our personnel and their families choose to live their lives in the 21st Century.
From a families point of view, the NEM is aiming to address two key issues: firstly the impact that Service life has on families and secondly the difficulty faced by spouses and partners in maintaining their own careers.
These two issues consistently feature in our continuous attitude surveys as the top two reasons for leaving the Service. It is clear to us that the demand is increasing for flexible working arrangements, more flexible careers
and greater domestic stability. In short, there is a growing gap between what the Services offer and what our Service families want.
We are all too aware that the Armed Forces and their families have faced some difficult years with reductions in budgets, redundancies and uncertainty over the future footprint of Defence. As a result there is a natural concern amongst many of our Service personnel and their families that the NEM is simply a cost-cutting exercise aimed at reducing the package currently available.
It’s important to make absolutely clear that this is not the case. It is about updating and rebalancing the package on offer so we can continue to recruit capable and motivated people and more importantly keep them. The NEM is not about cutting costs or
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