I work as a Police Officer - a Home Office Department that holds a policy to support Reserve Forces. Each time I have been mobilised the Force has objected to mobilisation - myself and others. The attitude of individual managers in middle management is anti-reserves - they don’t understand it, they don’t want to understand it and they fail to see or don’t want to see benefits of partnership with Reserves - despite it being policy and “Working in Partnerships” being buzz words. This needs feeding to ACPO through the Home Secretary and Defence Secretary as a must to support. If Home Office Departments cannot/will not support Reserves how can the Government credibly expect smaller employers to do so?


As an employer, I know there is little you can do to make the prospect of a member of staff being absent from work an attractive proposition. You could however make more effort to make skills and qualifications more transferable. If I have a military first aid qualification - why must I then go out and get a civilian one? An employer would appreciate not having to pay for reserves to complete expensive training if they have it already completed with the Military - this would improve employer / reserve relations no end.


I don’t believe my employer understands how the Sqn works in terms of organised training weekends and legal obligations to release me if indeed there are any… I feel much of the literature sent to my employer wasn’t relevant to my situation. Not only that but the tone of the information was rather negative, it seemed to be an instruction of how often I would require time away from work and the connotation was my employer would be powerless to prevent it. I think the initial contact an employer receives from the RAuxAF should be shorter and clearer in content and have the sole aim of alleviating inevitable concerns they have in terms of negative impact on their business/workplace/productivity.


I work in government service. There seems to be inconsistency across the government agencies. Perhaps if government employees (police, ambulance, fire) were forerunners in accommodating and recognising reserve forces training this might be seen by private employers are a beneficial thing.


I have deployed on Op Herrick 3 times in 6 years and my employer has never been invited to any events or hospitality events or even shown any appreciation. 50% of my last six years of work has been spent supporting the RAF and my employers receive no support therefore they are not supportive of me. Who could blame them?


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www.raf-ff.org.ukImage caption: A Royal Air Force C17 Globemaster transport aircraft awaiting its cargo at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan. RAF Photographer. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.


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