UK Recruitment a Year On

Personnel Recovery Management Plan Project Officer (PRMPPO) SQNLDR Kim Senior talked to Air Force News Editor Grant Carr about the project’s progress over a year after the first recruits arrived.

With 111 UK recruits in the country and another 26 due to arrive by February 2008 Personnel Recovery Management Plan Project Officer (PRMPPO) SQNLDR Kim Senior can rightly claim that so far the Air Force’s UK Recruitment Project has been a qualified success. But she is realistic enough to not count her recruits before they are settled.

‘Real success will be measured by the retention rate over a longer period,’ she says. Two tests of retention will come up at the three year mark, when the recruit’s bond period ends and at the five year mark when recruits qualify for New Zealand citizenship. It is perhaps a good omen that so far only two recruits have actually packed their bags and gone home, although two others have left but they plan to stay in New Zealand.

Despite the potential bumps looming on the horizon the project attracted good quality Service personnel to fill most vacancies says SQNLDR Senior. Many of those were specialist trades where eighteen months ago the RNZAF was struggling to find the right people. The recruits now here comprise 29 officers (FLTLTs and SQNLDRs) 78 other ranks (LACs to SGTs). The large numbers were recruited for Engineering, and the Avionics and Aircraft Technician trades.

An interesting by-product of the project – and a reason for some optimism - is that it has almost become self sustaining. The word is out and those that we have recruited are telling their Royal Air Force friends about the opportunities down- under. SQNLDR Senior says the website is generating up to 40 enquiries per week and we have started recruiting from outside the project with the first to arrive in November.

SQNLDR Senior says the lessons learnt through our UK Recruitment Project are now forging the way ahead with overseas recruiting. The comprehensive Induction Training has been identified as the key to our success and has been continuously refined along the way. The project has also held a couple of feedback sessions for settled recruits (those who have been enlisted for 12 months or more) to find out what worked and what didn’t for them – their expectations and the realities.

So, how are the recruits settling in? SQNLDR Senior says the general consensus is that most recruits have few regrets and there is enough to hold them to the RNZAF and to New Zealand. Atop the list of ‘issues’ is the undeniable fact that our personnel are not as well paid as their UK equivalents. As SQNLDR Senior puts it, ‘the UK recruits are financially poorer but they are time richer.’ In New Zealand, recruits have more time to spend with their family, to relax, and to pursue other interests than their UK cousins. SQNLDR Senior says it tends to take a recruit and their family at least a year and a full seasonal cycle to settle into the Kiwi way of relaxing and enjoying the lifestyle change.

With that in mind Air Force News Editor, Grant Carr, spoke to three UK recruits – SQNLDR Nick McMillan, SGT Phil Cross and CPL Nick Clarke - who arrived over a year ago to find out how they and their families are settling in.

Giving NZ a Chance

Ohakea-based photographer CPL Nick Clarke and his family have taken to the Kiwi lifestyle with relish. Since he, his wife and two six year old children arrived in New Zealand in March 2006 they have travelled extensively in the South Island and the Bay of Plenty and are currently ‘exploring’ the Taupo and Rotorua areas. It’s no exaggeration to say that he has done more sight-seeing around the country he describes as a ‘fantastic place’ than most New Zealanders.

He lives in Bulls a mere 5 minute drive from Base Ohakea and a two hour drive to Wellington. After 10 years of moving around on a variety of RAF postings – Scotland, Germany, and Cyprus – the kids are enjoying the stability of Bulls Primary School.

He and his wife miss their UK family but keep in touch regularly by internet using web cameras, something he describes as a godsend for keeping in touch with family. ‘You couldn’t have done that even 10 years ago,’ he said. He is expecting some of the family to come and visit around the Christmas break, which will be a relief since he hasn’t seen them in almost two years.

The work of a RNZAF photographer is different from the RAF which tended to be more ‘operationally focussed,’ he said. The New Zealand work is more oriented to group shots and portraits and some operational work with a lot of out of hours work involved.

He describes the recruitment process and induction as near faultless. The project people were honest, the DVD was useful and recruits and their families were warmly welcomed.

Supporting his family on a Corporal’s pay is a struggle he says but he and his wife want to give New Zealand ‘a good chance’. Like SQNLDR McMillan he says individuals considering the move really need to get their head around the value of the dollar.

Here for the ‘Long Haul’

Auckland-based SQNLDR Nick McMillan says he is in New Zealand for the ‘long haul’ and intends to stay with the RNZAF after his bond period finishes. He arrived in New Zealand with his wife and two moggies in May 2006. They’d thought long and hard about the decision to make the leap but having made it they aren’t looking back, he says. ‘I have relatives dotted throughout the world and a sister-in-law and her husband in Sydney, Australia, but I have no yearning to go back to the UK.’

In the UK he worked at the Royal Navy Air Station Yeovilton managing the procurement of the Apache attack helicopter. ‘It was both interesting and testing. I was Air Force working for the Army at a Navy station. I was quite literally working at the Westlands factory side-by-side with the contractor.

In New Zealand he’s doing a similar job as Contract Relationship Manager for Safe Air in tandem with a Woodbourne-based F/S and is still working closely with the contractor. He describes his current job as a triple-hat position involving maintenance of the contract relationship and ensuring information is flowing smoothly back and forth; the physical running of the contract ensuring that everything gets done according to agreement; and the administrative paperwork side of the contract including negotiation over variations.

While the P-3K2 Orion and C-130 upgrade projects are being handled by the Ministry of Defence, SQNLDR McMillan says the success of Safe Air’s performance on the project work will have a direct impact on the Air Force’s mainstream contract work that he has a key part in running. It is undoubtedly reassuring that the Air Force’s contractual relationship with Safe Air is in such secure, experienced hands.

He had previously thought of New Zealand as a work destination and when the opportunity came up it ‘felt right’ he says. He found it relatively easy to drop into the RNZAF but he didn’t come with unrealistic expectations expecting everything to be straight forward and easy.

What he and his wife wanted was a lifestyle change - with work a mere seven minute drive away from home he has clearly shifted his life down a gear. Wife Beth has found a secure job working for Yachting Developments, a company building 120 foot super-yachts.

SQNLDR McMillan’s advice to people considering taking up a position in New Zealand is to research the cost of living and the housing market. ‘If you’re not sure ask questions. And come with a keenness to explore new ways to do business,’ he says.

Keeping in Touch

SGT Phil Cross says he probably communicates more regularly with his parents than he did when he was in the UK. The modern age and the Internet means he ‘talks’ to them at least once a week where as before it was a ten minute phone call every other week. His parents came to New Zealand for a holiday last Christmas which was a first in terms of sharing time and a holiday.

Woodbourne-based SGT Cross, along with his wife and two teenage children, arrived in New Zealand in July 2006. Before coming he’d spent two years at the RAF’s Brampton Air Base as an Engineering Logistics Liaison person. But it was his six years of experience as an Instructor that attracted the RNZAF. He is now working as an Instructor teaching the compulsory Basic Engineering component for all technical trade trainees.

SGT Cross describes his family as being very well settled in sunny Marlborough - his wife has a job, they have bought a house in Blenheim and his two teenagers are attending Marlborough Boys and Girls High Schools respectively.

Like most UK recruits the biggest adjustment has been to pay rates which are lower than the UK. ‘On the positive side we had to settle all our debts before we left the UK,’ he says. ‘The only debt we have now is the house mortgage and that can be viewed as an investment.’

He says the RNZAF culture and set up is very similar to what he left behind with the RNZAF having more of a keenness for parades.

Will he stay after his bond period has run out? ‘Yes, it’s our intention to stay,’ he said confidently. ‘That is of course unless someone offers me a big pay increase to come and work for them.’