Australian Army Journal

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
Family Friendly Army —
First Class Policy, Second Class Implementation
and treated and managed as such.’ 23 Perceptions like this need to be addressed
by Army’s Career Management Agency to demonstrate that Army wants to retain
the talent, experience, and institutional knowledge that personnel and capabilitystreamed
staff possess. This article recommends that Army should actively
manage careers that deviate from the command, leadership and management
model to better retain talent and organisational knowledge. Overhauling
organisational culture is not solely about celebrating the demographic diversity
within our ranks; it should also be about recognising and capitalising on the many
types of service and working arrangements in which members are engaged.
Army should be aware that flexible working arrangements come with a clear
management overhead to implement and support them for the benefit of the
organisation and its members. The required management skills could be taught on
promotion courses for senior non-commissioned officers and junior officers or via
compulsory Campus courses such as that used for the new performance appraisal
reporting. 24 Such education programs should ‘cover topics such as negotiating
a return to work plan before taking leave’, the importance of ‘on ramps’ and
‘strategies for maintaining contact’. 25 It should be recognised that the management
costs of implementing flexible working arrangements compare favourably with the
cost of recruiting and training replacement soldiers.
Army’s family-oriented policies provide a world class framework of entitlements
to support serving members and their families. Any discussion of the support
options available must recognise that the nature of Army service is inherently one of
devotion and duty to country, and that barracks positions are more open to flexible
working arrangements than field positions. As one respondent commented:
The ADF should define what is appropriate [rather than dictate a solution
to work-life balance]. The ADF should also accept that being a member is
demanding ... we must recognise that the types of sacrifices expected of
members of the ADF can never be fully compensated ... every individuals
sacrifice takes a different form. Some costs are borne by the individual in
the sense of time and effort. Some costs are borne by the family of the
serving soldier. 26
It is therefore necessary to ground the academic theory and policy aspects of
family-friendly policies within Army’s force generation and posting cycles.
Australian Army Journal
Culture edition 2013, Volume X, Number 3 Page 179