Attitude is everything
Although more content than the other Service members, Air Force personnel raised some important issues in the most recent Defence attitude survey.

PTE John Wellfare reports

Angry

Enough

Snarl

Happy

Frank

Thought

The Defence attitude survey is a window into how Air Force members are feeling.

Photos by CPL Craig Eager

HOW CAN Defence headquarters know what’s important to the average ADF member? That’s where the Defence attitude survey comes in. Without it, Defence personnel staff would have no way of knowing what’s important to the members.

As the Director General Workforce Planning, Recruitment and Retention, Air Commodore Lee Roberts is responsible for finding out how many and what kind of people Defence will need in the future, getting those people to join the organisation and keeping those who already have joined. His department produces the Defence attitude survey and compiles its results every year.

The survey is one of his most valuable tools, which, he says, provides him and the ADF’s senior leadership team with the most accurate understanding of what the thousands of men and women in the broader Defence population want.

“At my level, I can make as many guesses as I like, and think about it, but I sit here in [Canberra] – I’m not really living on a base anymore,” he says, summing up the survey’s importance for developing personnel policy.

The compiled survey results are required reading for the three Service chiefs and director generals personnel, not to mention the CDF, Secretary of Defence and all of AIRCDRE Roberts’ staff. And, not surprisingly, none of them need to be reminded when the Defence attitude survey is due out.

“It tells us how we are performing and I can assure you the Service chiefs and the CDF take a keen interest in the release and results of these attitude surveys,” AIRCDRE Roberts says.

Survey response rates
Interpreting the attitude survey responses isn’t as simple as entering the data into a computer and coming up with a percentage. AIRCDRE Roberts and his staff are well aware that some of the answers are not marked in the returned questionnaires.

“We do have a concern on the response to the survey itself and I think that does give an indication of how people are thinking about the organisation,” he says, explaining that in the most recent survey, which was distributed to a 30 per cent sample across the ranks of the ADF, only about 63 per cent of Air Force members responded.

While he understands that there will always be some people too busy to fill out the 13-page document, it’s also clear that some people don’t believe their opinions will be heard.

The surveys have been conducted since 2001, so there’s plenty of scope for making comparisons and developing an understanding of whether new personnel initiatives are working.

The compilation of responses delivered to the senior leadership team actually details, alongside each section, what the responses were in the previous surveys. When the 30 per cent stratified sample is cut down by a lack of responses, it can be thrown off balance.

A large number of respondents from one stratum outweighs the others, making it difficult to analyse the survey and compare it with past results.

Despite the difficulties, the survey results certainly shape the direction of personnel policy throughout the Defence organisation. Responses form the driving force behind new incentive policies as well as weeding out the existing initiatives that aren’t working.

“One of the results that is good for the military is that, in all cases, the attitude to their direct supervisors has been very good,” AIRCDRE Roberts says. “Which means we don’t have any endemic problems in the organisation.

“One of the things that is very important to us is the question on intention to leave and we watch that very closely.
“That causes us to focus because we’re really going to have to concentrate on trying to keep those people.”

‘In terms of conditions of service, [members] will see a lot of new initiatives rolled out over the next 12 months to do with childcare, there’s a lot to do with injury prevention, spouse professional fees and courses. I’ve just received a paper this morning to do with increasing school transition aides at schools.’ – AIRCDRE Lee Roberts

Personnel priority
Australia is currently experiencing its lowest unemployment rate in 29 years, a positive for the economy and the general population, but it has an unfortunate side-effect for military recruiting and retention rates.

The good news for Defence members is that the organisation can’t afford to lose too many people and therefore appropriate conditions of service become a number-one priority.

“All the other reporting that the Service chiefs get on the whole organisation is about readiness and preparedness. It’s about the equipment being ready and the workforce numbers and skills being available, but not about people and what they think.

“The only real reporting we have on lifestyle and what the people in the workforce really think comes from the attitude surveys and the Defence Census.”

The outcome for members
Keeping the Service chiefs and personnel policy-makers informed of what Defence members want is one thing, but what about tangible results? While the outcomes of the 2004 survey, conducted in November last year, will not transform into new policies overnight, there are some new benefits on the way.

“In terms of conditions of service [members] will see a lot of new initiatives rolled out over the next 12 months to do with childcare, there’s a lot to do with injury prevention, spouse professional fees and courses. I’ve just received a paper this morning to do with increasing school transition aides at schools,” AIRCDRE Roberts says.

There is also a strong focus on issues such as career management and retention of members in critical trades. More importantly, there are plans to get more information about entitlements directly to members and initiatives to encourage unit staff to give all members access to the opportunities that are out there.

AIRCDRE Roberts wants members who are planning to leave Defence to know about all the other jobs they could do within the organisation. If they still want to leave, he wants them encouraged to join the Reserves, and if that’s not for them, he wants to make it easier for them to come back to the military at some time in the future.

It’s a people-first approach that he hopes will help maintain the organisation’s workforce into a future in which Defence will increasingly be required to compete for the best staff. After all, it’s people that make up capabilities.

People focus pays off

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