You are the focus of workforce campaign

Navy is entering an important and challenging era of new and vital capabilities and it is our people who will continue to be the success to meeting these challenges.

With the government recently announcing that Navy will grow to about 21,000 people by 2035, we must support the growth of our service and retain our people, skills and experience.

Many of you would have seen the beginnings of the New Navy Retention Campaign via signal and other communication channels, and many of you will no doubt be asking: what does this mean for me?

The approach of this campaign is to address, raise and look at ways that we can keep you engaged and part of our Navy.

This will be the first time Navy has approached retention in a holistic manner, with initiatives implemented by each division and command across Navy over the coming weeks, months and years.

So what does this all mean?

We need you and we need to move, adapt and understand the challenges that we face.

We must support, grow and implement change to continue to accommodate an agile, capable and operational Navy.

Based on your feedback, we have identified the five top workforce challenges:
Demand management/fatigue
Remuneration
Development, including learning, training and
Leadership and culture
Wellbeing and lifestyle .

These challenges have seen us embark on a multifaceted campaign to address the issues that you have identified.

One of the first initiatives has already been implemented with the rollout of the Navy capability retention payment (NCRP).

To be clear, the NCRP is a shortterm initiative designed to ease the flow of separations within critical and at-risk workgroups based on an assessment of current gaps, external pull and required growth.

This will help us to set the foundation for the growth announced by the government.

This payment is just the first step in a broader Navy value proposition that we are continuing to work on to retain our people.

There will be further financial and non-financial initiatives launched over the coming months.

The second and equally vital step in the campaign and its rollout is to understand and manage our separated service thresholds.

We are aiming to refine and implement the Fleet separated service threshold reporting and governance framework, with an understanding of the need to monitor, measure and report Navy member’s time away from home as a way to manage rest and respite opportunities.

Our commitment is that you do not exceed a maximum of 440 days away over a rolling two-year period.

These two initiative are just the start of this campaign and we will see a vast list of initiatives to keep you engaged and support you to stay in our Navy.

Each and every serving member is vital to our thinking, fighting and Australian Navy and this campaign is designed to ensure you never forget that the Navy needs you, Australia needs you and your service to our nation is valued.

If you word like to find out more about this campaign and seek specific details visit http:// drnet/navy/ePort/Pages/Retention_and_Growth.aspx

CDRE Eric Young, Director General Navy People