An interesting discussion took place this week. As I understood it correctly the point was made that retention of veteran and partner employees should not be a metric for being a supportive employer.
Whilst I agree that it is certainly not the only metric, that it isn’t always possible to retain a partner, and that not being able to retain an employee does not indicate an ‘unfriendly’ employer, retention remains a very important metric for the following reasons:
- Mobility/relocation is known to negatively impact the employment of ADF partners. It affects a large proportion of partners and is linked to unemployment, reduced earnings and decreased career progression.1
- Unemployment, underemployment and lack of career progression impacts the wellbeing military spouses.2 Unemployment and underemployment are bad for health and wellbeing. Conversely, decent work is good for health and wellbeing.3
- Job insecurity has significant negative effects on individuals such as depression, anxiety, and poor psychological health.4
- Unemployment and underemployment impacts the ability to afford cost of living expenses, and financial security in retirement in a system where superannuation balances reflect the amount you work and earn. Job insecurity “affects every aspect of a person’s life; from their self esteem and self-worth, to their decisions around family planning, education, home ownership and retirement”5
- Periods of unemployment can negatively impact your ability to secure decent work in the future6
- Employee retention has benefits for the employer such as reduced recruiting costs and increased skills via investment in professional development7
(note that not retaining a partner because the partner chooses career progression elsewhere is not the issue here)
For the reasons listed above, when I wrote the “Defence Partner Friendly Employer Checklist” with Defence Families of Australia a few years ago, retention was included.
At a recent event in the USA (a country which has had employer engagement as a core part of partner employment support for many years), employers, advocates and spouses were in agreement that partner employee retention is as important as recruiting partners. Where retention via transferability or remote work isn’t possible, employers are encouraged to work with other supportive employers to facilitate employment. But it is understood that not all employers can deliver the highest level of support. The 4+1 Commitment encourages employers to commit to at least one of the following: facilitate job transferability; offer remote or telework; offer flexible work hours; provide paid or permissive relocation leave. In addition companies are asked to join an existing government spouse employment program. According to Blue Star Families, the 4+1 commitment is a scalable, actionable, and effective way for companies to make a voluntary commitment to improve military spouse employment outcomes.
The challenges that defence life presents for partner employment has been documented for nearly 40 years.8 Yet, the response remains inadequate. Worse, in some cases (as I wrote about recently), the support has deteriorated over time.
Given the time (a lot happens in 40 years) and the nature of defence in which there is high turnover of leadership after short 2-3 year periods, it is not surprising that “corporate” knowledge is lost – and as a result it feels like we keep starting from scratch and stagnating with every change in leader. It is incumbent on leaders that their efforts to address partner employment be evidence informed. And that it be clear when an opinion or an idea is just that. The pressing nature of the difficulties partners have in engaging in sustainable, meaningful employment on family wellbeing, ADF recruitment, retention and national security and resilience demands a far more strategic and sophisticated response than we currently have. Without one, it won’t only be partners and their families who suffer.
- 2019 ADF Families Survey Report;2022 ADF Families Survey Summary Report ↩︎
- 2022 ADF Families Survey Summary Report ↩︎
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2022) Social Determinants of Health; Gedikli C, et al (2022) The relationship between unemployment and wellbeing: an updated meta-analysis of longitudinal evidence. ↩︎
- Fourth Report of the Australian Parliamentary Select Committee on Job Security 2022. Chapter 3 ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- Cassidy N, Chan I, Gao A and Penrose G. (2020) Long-term Unemployment in Australia. Reserve Bank of Australia ↩︎
- Northcote K (2023). Safeguarding your organisation: employee retention strategies for future success. University of Melbourne. ↩︎
- Issues were first identified in The Hamilton Report in 1987, and have been subsequently reported on through out the 1990s (e.g. the ADF Families Mobility and Dislocation Study) and the 2000s (the first ADF Families study was conducted in 2009 and there have been several since, including the most recent 2022 survey, along with regular ADF Census data. ↩︎