The Role of a Senior Appointed CPO1/CWO in the Analysis of Release Benefits to Incentivize Retention in the Canadian Armed Forces

Aim

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) offer extensive supports and benefits to individuals releasing from military service. Are these benefits incentivizing members to release? Could we re-invent or re-align them to incentivize retention instead, while still meeting the institutional obligations we have to our people as they move from military to civilian life? This paper will examine the potential roles and responsibilities of a senior-appointed (SA) Chief Petty Officer First Class (CPO1) or Chief Warrant Officer (CWO) charged with participating in, facilitating, and implementing a re-evaluation of release benefits in an effort to reduce the perceived attractiveness of release and to better incentivize continued service.

Introduction

In 2017, the defence policy document Strong, Secure and Engaged (SSE) laid out a plan to “reinvent transition” (Department of National Defence, 2017, p.30) which included, per Initiative #27, the creation of the Canadian Armed Forces Transition Group (CAF TG) to support all transitioning/releasing CAF members with special focus on those who are ill or injured. In 2018, CAF TG was stood up as a Level 2 Formation within Military Personnel Command (MPC) and began its journey toward meeting the full intent of this Initiative. The follow-on (and arguably more important) SSE Initiative is #28, which mandates that “all benefits will be in place before a member transitions to post-military life” (Department of National Defence, 2017, p.31). To this end, CAF TG works hand-in-glove with VAC to align the benefits that the two departments offer on either side of a member’s release date. Provision of health care, re-training and education, and career transition services are just a few of the lines of effort the departments are working on through a Joint Steering Committee and a number of working groups.

Concerns have been raised at senior levels of the CAF that we might be providing too much in the way of financial benefits and support assistance to those releasing from service. The Acting Commander of MPC (A/CMP) speaks regularly about incentivizing desired behaviour; are these benefits inadvertently incentivizing release? An argument could certainly be made that they have the unintended consequence of making release too enticing to those “on the fence”, thereby hindering the CAF’s ability to retain personnel through programs like return-to-duty, occupational transfers, and commissioning-from-the-ranks. A cross-departmental evaluation of release and veteran benefits with an eye to rationalizing, realigning, or (dare I say) reducing them could better incentivize continued service (i.e., retention) instead.

Release Benefits

Service in the CAF places demands on its members that have few parallels in civilian commerce or industry. Beyond the exigency of unlimited liability (which is fortunately rarely exercised at present), military life demands many sacrifices from members and their families. Over the course of a career, a member can be asked to work long hours in challenging environments doing difficult tasks on little sleep. They are frequently required to move within (and sometimes outside) of Canada to meet CAF needs, uprooting themselves and their family on a regular basis. Ultimately they are asked to give up the me in their lives for the sake of the CAF’s we.

Fortunately, the Government of Canada is keenly aware of the sacrifices demanded of CAF members and has taken steps to ensure that upon completion of service a member is well looked after. A robust pension plan and retirement relocation assistance are highlights of what the CAF provides to releasing members. VAC also provides significant post-release benefits to veterans of all types including career transition services (job search advice, interview coaching, résumé writing, etc.) and notably a sizable Education and Training Benefit (ETB) that is available to a retired member after serving only six years in the CAF and is twice as large for someone who has served for 12 years (Government of Canada, 2024).

Incentivizing Release

The benefits highlighted above are available to all honourably releasing service members. While outside the scope of discussion for this paper, those that are facing medical release have access to many more services and benefits, from both CAF and VAC, that specifically aid in health recovery and vocational rehabilitation. Given the personnel crisis that the CAF is currently facing, there has been increased attention on all of these release services and benefits, as in aggregate they are perceived in some circles to be so attractive to a member considering a career change that they would select release over other options such as an occupational transfer or commissioning to the officer corps.

VAC’s ETB has been a particular cause for concern in the CAF. At time of writing, this benefit provides over $48,000 of funding to a veteran with six years of service (YOS) who is completing a secondary school program. For a veteran with 12 YOS, this amount is doubled to over $96,000 of funding (Government of Canada, 2024). While statistics are not yet available to provide insight into how many recently released CAF members have accessed this funding, the dollar value of the benefit alone is significant enough to cause some consternation within MPC, enough that A/CMP directed discussions to take place with VAC to examine potential new ways of administering it that would make it less attractive at these YOS milestones. Six YOS is arguably long enough for a CAF member to have gained enough training and experience to be effective in their assigned occupation. After 12 years, a member is not only an expert in their field but has likely also proven themselves to be a capable leader. The ETB’s offer of funding to leave the CAF and refine or develop skills to make someone at one of these milestones even better prepared for a civilian career seems to run entirely counter to the CAF’s efforts to retain and leverage these skills for itself.

Incentivizing Retention

To continue with the specific example of ETB, work has already started to explore alternative ways for the ETB to be administered in such a way that it could better support retention while still meeting the training and education needs of veterans and their families. One suggested course of action is to harmonize this benefit with the Canadian Defence Academy’s (CDA’s) part-time education upgrading program, the Self-Development Program (SDP), to create a progressive and flexible range of benefit options that would be tied to YOS.

The SDP provides a career-capped $38,000 education benefit to military members in support of academic upgrading that is directly related to the Profession of Arms (Government of Canada, 2022). Its strict limitations on permissible fields of study combined with funding ambiguities that result from changing budgetary constraints year-over-year mean that participation in this CAF program has been

Table 1: Notional Harmonized Education Benefit - Funding Gates
5-10 YOS - $40k	10-15 YOS - $60k	15-25 YOS- $80k	25 YOS or above - $100k
Eligible only for serving members and must be related to CAF professional development.	Eligible for serving members or funding 50% transferrable to a Family member (member must continue to serve while family member is utilizing benefit).	Eligible for serving members or funding 100% transferrable to family member (member must continue to serve while family member is utilizing benefit).	Eligible for serving members and veterans up to 10 years post release or 100% transferrable to Family member (member must continue to serve while family member is utilizing benefit).

less than expected. ETB, on the other hand, has much fewer restrictions but is only accessible by veterans. Neither benefit is currently applicable to family members whose own professional development opportunities may have been reduced due to frequent moves or restricted by the need to support their serving partner during deployments and other taskings.

Harmonization of the SDP and ETB to create one career- and retirement-spanning education benefit that offers greater flexibility and accessibility than extant benefits could be done in a way that creates advantages for the CAF as well as members and veterans, and incentivizes longer service in order to access higher levels of funding. An example of a potential progression of funding gates that could be applied is illustrated in Table 1 below, which was developed after conversation with the Commander of CAF TG, Commodore Daniel Bouchard.

Putting tight restrictions on initial access to these funds and gradually loosening them over time based on YOS could serve to (a) focus the benefit where it is needed most at a given point of a member’s career and (b) encourage them to serve longer in the CAF in order to “unlock” a higher tier of benefit.

The Challenge of Change

Changing a CAF benefit policy is a complex and lengthy process; the challenge of both changing such a benefit and harmonizing it with another government department’s (also changing their benefit in the process) is another beast altogether. Considering first the strategic and political level, the CAF is separately funded from VAC and (obviously) has a different government mandate. Bringing about change in another department’s policies, no matter how good the intent or how willing the participants, is a complicated and delicate process involving both the departments themselves as well as government central agencies (particularly the Treasury Board Secretariat, or TBS, in this case). Operationally, any benefit changes designed to incentivize retention must be balanced against the obligation the CAF has to support the sacrifices it demands of its members and their families. On the tactical/individual level, properly communicating and messaging change would be essential; one has only to recall the vociferously negative reaction to the 2023 change of the CAF Post-Living Differential to the CAF Housing Differential, a change that refocused the benefit to those who needed it most, to see how badly things could go (Dyson, 2023 and Rompf, 2023).

Role of the SA Chief

Fundamentally, CPO1s/CWOs are change managers. Whether it is managing a unit’s “change” from one activity to another (training to operations, for example), executing new direction from the Commanding Officer, or developing and implementing policy changes at the institutional level, the only differences in the chief’s role are ones of complexity and span of influence. The SA CPO1/CWO’s role, typically speaking, is one of responsibility to their Commander in the managing of complex changes at the operational and strategic level. They advise and exert influence in three general spheres with respect to their organizations: up-and-out, across, and down-and-in.

Using the previous discussion of harmonizing education benefits between CAF and VAC as a framework, let us explore a few examples of working in these spheres to effect strategic change. Chapter 4 of Leadership in the Canadian Forces: Conceptual Foundations explores the responsibilities of CAF leaders. Within this chapter, Table 4-1 (Department of National Defence, 2005, pp. 48-49) categorizes these responsibilities into Effectiveness Dimensions across two Major Leadership Functions: Leading People and Leading the Institution. At the SA level, chiefs are almost wholly focused on institutional leadership so it will be dimensions within this functional leadership area that we will use to backstop our examination of the role of an SA chief.

Up-and-Out

At the institutional level, this refers to our intra- and inter-departmental work to analyse a problem set and advise on options to address it. When considering how to harmonize education benefits across the CAF and VAC, External Adaptability (Department of National Defence, 2005, p. 49) is a critical effectiveness dimension in this sphere. In exploiting this dimension, we can develop and leverage civil-military networks and relationships to explore benefit harmonization and consider potential knock-on effects. In this situation, strong intra-CAF between Director General Compensation and Benefits (DGCB) and the Canadian Defence Academy (CDA) are essential. DGCB are the experts in CAF benefit development, application and management, and CDA is the owner of the policies governing in-service education programs.

Network-building with these organizations starts at the SA chief level—both have L2 CPO1/CWOs who have developed specific knowledge and experience bases in their respective roles and are able to speak to some of the considerations their Commander or DG must make in examining benefit changes. These chiefs can also provide connections to senior subject matter experts (SMEs) within their lines. A SA chief needs to be comfortable communicating and interacting with General and Flag Officers as well as departmental executive civil servants to be effective in gathering and analyzing information to apply to the problem and then advise their Commander. There is additional benefit to having conversations with executive leadership in the CAF in that not only will one receive advice and perspective from them, but they, in turn, will get the perspective of a senior NCM whose career has evolved very differently; we have a very people-centric lens when approaching problems. We can provide the “so what”—the impact on personnel that a proposed course of action might have—that an executive might not have naturally considered. This helps them to develop robust policy changes that take into consideration the needs of the people the changes will affect.

Relationships and networks that extend outside of the CAF are equally important here. There is the obvious connection to VAC and their ETB, but a relationship with TBS and a solid understanding of what is important to them are also critical as they have the ultimate say on any proposed funding changes. Establishment of connections and networks with these organizations is more difficult than within the CAF, although there is an SA CWO seconded to TBS to provide them insight into CAF policies and provide a link between the two organizations. There is no such link at the CPO1/CWO level within VAC, however. This leaves the SA chief to connect with senior executives in these agencies, which can be a more challenging endeavour as our experiences usually do not mirror at all those of the public servants we need to engage with, and so developing relationships can be more difficult. Understanding how to understand and approach senior public servants is a learned skill, one that requires some experience working at a strategic level to develop the necessary finesse. Finding individuals within these organizations with commonalities that can be leveraged to get the proverbial foot in the door is one possible way to begin creating networks here. Retired chiefs now working as public servants are typically more than happy to assist a fellow senior NCM, as are many retired officers and other personnel with a shared history or background (e.g., through regiments, fleets or wings). They can usually provide the necessary introductions to senior personnel and set the stage for productive discussion.

Across

In the context of examining inter-departmental harmonization of education benefits, this term is used to describe the sphere in which an SA chief will operate to support policy development that takes into consideration the disparate needs of members across the CAF. In this sphere, an SA chief’s efforts are best spent in the Internal Integration dimension of leadership effectiveness (Department of National Defence, 2005, p. 48). Here we can leverage our pan-CAF networks to socialize the proposed changes to Command CPO1/CWOs in order to get their perspectives and concerns about the changes, and ultimately (hopefully!) their buy-in as they in turn socialize the proposal with their Commanders. The four Services conduct business in very different fashions and what might seem to make perfect sense from one viewpoint may be completely unacceptable from another, so it critical that all possible considerations be made to enable a comprehensive and coherent change effort.

An SA chief can take the various bits of information gathered through these pan-CAF discussions and play them off each other to further develop them into relevant considerations for the agencies looking at the benefit harmonization problem. Consolidating the input on how harmonization could affect members across the CAF, and/or identifying the various means and methods through which they might wish to access such a benefit could assist DGCB, CDA and VAC in achieving consensus on the most effective way to administer the program.

Engaging in discussions with peer and Command chiefs on education program harmonization efforts also opens opportunities to support, as the aforementioned Table 4-1 of Conceptual Foundations terms it, intellectual inquiry. The importance the Canadian Army places on professional and self development and the way it supports its people in their pursuit of education is different from that of the Royal Canadian Navy, which is in turn different from the approach the Royal Canadian Air Force takes. Digging into these differences and nuances and contrasting them across the Services could serve to tease out the best parts of each approach to be integrated into a harmonized benefit, thereby creating something that could be greater than the sum of its parts.

Down-and-In

The use of this term in the context of military leadership usually implies connecting with subunits and personnel at the tactical level. Not so in this case. “Down-and-in” for an SA chief tasked to support the benefit harmonization efforts under discussion here is instead aimed at facilitating implementation of whatever course of action is selected. Facilitation in this sphere comprises involves as socializing the plan and the rationale(s) behind it with peers and subordinate leadership teams, seeking buy-in from them in order to leverage them as force multipliers in the rollout of the new benefit program. The Internal Integration dimension continues to be of primary importance here, although we are concerned with different leadership functions in this sphere, namely those of managing meaning and developing effective information systems (Department of National Defence, 2005, p. 48).

In the ‘down-and-in’, as we use our strategic influence to assist in the messaging and integration of a harmonized education benefit, we continue to leverage our networks at the SA/Command chief level. At this stage, however, it is also important to communicate more directly with subordinate levels of the CAF. The “town hall tour”, where senior leadership crosses the country to speak at the tactical level with personnel in large group settings, is a classic engagement method. It allows troops to ask questions directly of their senior leaders and obtain information from the source. There are limitations to engaging in this way, however. Discussions can get bogged down in individual concerns and it is generally only possible to reach a portion of members through in-person events like this.

In today’s CAF, as we seek to modernize and digitalize our processes, making use of digital communication strategies to reach troops directly is becoming a more and more effective way to manage messaging and engage with personnel across the CAF. There are many digital platforms available to us, and ADM (Public Affairs) are a tremendous enabler in leveraging these platforms. Linking with and exploiting this organization’s talents is one of the most effective things an SA chief can do to facilitate acceptance and implementation of a new benefit like the one discussed here.

Finally, it has been proven in the CAF that communities of practice (COPs) are an excellent tool for engaging with subordinate leadership teams and empowering them to support implementation efforts down to the tactical level. The COP established in 2022 on Microsoft Office 365 and Teams to support the rollout of the Performance and Competency Evaluation (PaCE) system is a prime example of how digital communication and engagement tools can be a force multiplier for a small team of experts in explaining and supporting a complex new initiative. It would be of great benefit for an SA chief to be digitally literate in this area in order to create and leverage a COP to extend their influence well beyond what normally would be achievable in their efforts to support the rollout of a harmonized education benefit.

Conclusion

Current efforts to examine and re-align release benefits to better incentivize retention in the CAF have included a study on the harmonization of education reimbursement benefits between the CAF and VAC. The CAF offers a career-capped $38k to members seeking to improve their education within the Profession of Arms. VAC’s ETB program, on the other hand, offers over $96k to veterans with 12 years of service for training and education in any field. This VAC benefit is seen within the CAF to provide incentive to members who are “on the fence” about releasing from service and so A/CMP directed a joint CAF TG/DGMC/CDA effort to propose a harmonized benefit that would encourage longer service. Preliminary work has produced a number of concepts, including one that establishes progressive education funding gates through which the benefit becomes more lucrative and less restrictive the longer a member serves in the CAF.

The work needed to make this concept a reality is extremely complex. It spans multiple strategic CAF organizations as well as other government departments and agencies including VAC and TBS. An SA CPO1/CWO’s role and activities in supporting this work map to the Leadership Effectiveness Dimensions and Functions laid out in Conceptual Foundations and unfold in three spheres: up-and-out of the Formation and the CAF to forge strategic relationships, across the CAF to gather information and gain buy-in for change, and down-and-into the CAF to enhance messaging and collaboration in implementation of the plan.

The Chief of the Defence Staff, General Eyre, has said that he sees strategic level CPO1/CWOs filling three essential roles: those of “connectors… advisors… [and] communicators” (Bélanger, 2021, p.43). In the matter of assessing and harmonizing education benefits, this is most certainly an accurate assessment. As connectors we bridge gaps between departments and agencies, promoting effective engagement. As advisors we draw not only from our own experience and expertise but also from the networks we have developed across the CAF, helping to ensure that the analysis of the problem and decisions made on it are informed by data from many different strategic perspectives. As experienced communicators, we excel in connecting the strategic to the operational and tactical, disseminating information and fostering cohesion and alignment down through the CAF. Combined, these roles and activities serve to make an SA CPO1/CWO an essential part of strategic leadership teams.

References

Bélanger, N. (2021), Deciphering the Roles of Chief Petty Officers/Chief Warrant Officers within Command Teams, Canadian Military Journal, 21 (4), pp 41-50.

Department of National Defence (2005), Leadership in the Canadian Forces: Conceptual Foundations, Kingston: Canadian Defence Academy and Canadian Forces Leadership Institute

Department of National Defence (2017,) Strong, secure, engaged: Canada’s defence policy, Ottawa: Department of National Defence

Dyson, D. (2023, March 27), New armed forces housing benefit won't help Petawawa troops, realtor warns, retrieved from https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/new-armed-forces-housing-benefit-won-t-help-petawawa-troops-realtor-warns-1.6329981

Government of Canada (2022). Education reimbursement in the Canadian Armed Forces, retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/benefits-military/education-training/reimbursements-allowances/education.html

Government of Canada (2023). Military career transition, retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/benefits-military/transition.html

Government of Canada (2024). Welcome to Veterans Affairs Canada, retrieved from https://veterans.gc.ca/en

Rompf, J. (2023, March 24), CFB Esquimalt spouses decry families effectively seeing pay cuts with new structure, retrieved from https://www.vicnews.com/news/cfb-esquimalt-spouses-decry-families-effectively-seeing-pay-cuts-with-new-structure-112618