RCAF investing in people

By LGen Al Meinzinger | February 28, 2019

LGen Al Meinzinger, commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force, contributed this guest column to the February/March issue of Skies:

In her December 2018/January 2019 Skies editorial, Lisa Gordon highlights the global pilot shortage and the need to retain our valuable personnel as the aviation industry experiences unprecedented and ongoing growth. As a result, she emphasizes, “the search for qualified employees will become increasingly intense.”

I would not limit these pressures to pilots, however. Air forces and the aviation industry are fortunate to employ highly-skilled, specialized tradespeople, but it comes at a significant investment of resources to develop these talented individuals. As Lisa points out, we must examine what we offer our people–not just in pay and benefits, but in all other aspects that affect their quality of life as members of our organizations.

The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) faces additional challenges: We must grow our own personnel (it takes three to seven years to develop a pilot). We must retain our personnel, their skills and their experience–not only for mission success, but also so they can transfer their knowledge and expertise to more junior members. This ongoing knowledge transfer sustains us as an institution.

Historically, we have not had a shortage of pilot applicants and we are making great strides in increasing our technician numbers. Therefore, we are focusing specifically on enhancing the training, absorption, employment and retention of our personnel. Given our training timelines, however, it may take several years before our improvements bear fruit.

A number of Canadian Armed Forces-wide initiatives, such as increased capacity to train recruits, and an initiative to make it easier for our personnel and their families to move between provinces, will assist. We are working with the Recruiting Group to enrol skilled former Air Force members, as well as those from other allied nations, and enhance support to new applicants as they go through the recruiting process.

One of our greatest challenges is retention of experienced members; in particular, pilots. As Lisa points out, “In addition to money, what perks can you give pilots to keep them happy and firmly seated in the cockpits of your aircraft?”

Our research indicates some of the top occupation-related satisfiers for RCAF pilots are the opportunity to fly and the value and meaning of their work; the top two occupation-related dissatisfiers are workload and postings. Yet, we realize that all these factors come together when people make decisions about their future.

We pay our pilots at a higher rate than their non-specialist peers, but we will also examine compensation and benefits that may contribute to our retention efforts. Understanding that this takes time, we are placing great emphasis on what we can also do now to improve life in the RCAF.

It’s axiomatic that aircrew generally dislike “flying a desk.” We are therefore looking at longer flying tours (fewer postings), increasing opportunities to continue flying while working in staff jobs, and filling certain air-centric ground duties with personnel who are not aircrew, thereby returning those who fly to flying duties.

Improved training throughput will also ease workloads. In 2014, we established a new aircrew selection test and now have sufficient graduates of the entire process to determine if training success rates have improved. Anecdotally, this appears to be the case, and I look forward to the formal analysis.

A joint program with Seneca College is also reaping benefits. RCAF pilot candidates who attend Seneca are earning their wings at a higher success rate and graduating earlier compared to other programs.

In-house, we are ensuring the maximum availability of instructors during peak training periods. Our fighter squadrons also deploy to southern locations during periods of typically bad weather–winter. The squadrons are thus getting two or three times more flying time than could be accomplished in the same time span in Canada.

We are also improving the situation for our technicians. We increased our production of aircraft structures technicians through a contract with École nationale d’aérotechnique that provides candidates with most of the training offered by the Canadian Forces School of Aerospace Technology and Engineering.

For our Fighter Force technicians, we are contracting second-line maintenance, which will enable us to move 200 technicians to first-line squadrons. We are also bringing contractors, the majority of whom are retired members of the RCAF, to our first-line squadrons to mentor and support our younger and less-experienced technicians.

Meanwhile, we are working on attracting more applicants to the Reserve Force, developing an entry-level, part-time occupation to further augment and support air operations, and retaining more retiring Regular Force personnel, notably pilots, as members of the Reserve Force.

I could go on, but these are some of the major initiatives we are taking to improve the health of our pilot and maintainer occupations. Many others are ongoing or being assessed.

Clearly, we must constantly work to have the right people in the right positions with the right training to fulfil the mandate and tasks assigned to us by the government. I am confident that the many initiatives we have in the works will enhance the RCAF’s “bench strength,” while ensuring our fleets continue to provide valuable air power on behalf of Canadians and our allies.