Why Ab Initio? The Importance of Ab Initio Recruiting in the Australian Regular Army

Abstract

Army recruits have traditionally entered the ARA straight from school with no previous military experience, a method known as ab initio entry. More recently, other avenues of entry including re-enlistment, reserve transfer, and overseas transfer have increasingly been used to augment ab initio entry. There are disadvantages in an overemphasis on non-ab initio avenues of entry, which, in our continued desire to fill vacancies and achieve recruiting targets, are often overlooked. This article outlines the reasons and benefits for ab initio recruiting over other avenues, and raises some of the potential risks in recruiting non-ab initio personnel.

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Introduction

For generations the Australian Regular Army (ARA) has recruited young men and women directly into its ranks from the wider Australian population. In most cases, new recruits have entered the ARA straight from school with no previous military experience, a method of entry usually referred to as ab initio. More recently, other avenues of entry including re-enlistment, transfer from the reserve, and overseas transfer have increasingly been used to augment ab initio entry.

The trend of increased recruiting through non-ab initio avenues commenced in earnest from the mid-2000s when Army was experiencing relatively high separation rates.¹ These separation rates, combined with an ever increasing demand for personnel, started to create some large deficiencies in most categories, especially in junior leadership roles. Deficiencies were further compounded by decisions to increase the size of Army in the late 2000s through the Hardened and Networked Army (HNA) and Enhanced Land Force (ELF) programs which necessitated the use of alternative recruiting avenues directly into the ranks required to fill the immediate deficiencies.²

By the end of FY08/09 Army was recruiting over 1000 per year personnel through non-ab initio avenues compared with less than 700 per year prior to FY07/08.³ For officers, non-ab initio entry has accounted for over one-third of all new entrants since FY03/04 and for Other Ranks (ORs) this figure is over 20 per cent. Noting the apparent success of these alternate avenues, the potential for non-ab initio recruits to fill long-term vacancies became evident during the commencement of HNA/ELF and resulted in formal campaigns such as Project Boomerang.⁴ However, the near love-affair with non-ab initio recruiting largely ignored the risks and potential for long-term damage to Army and its workforce structures if these avenues were to become embedded in recruiting processes.

This article will highlight the continued importance of ab initio recruiting in maintaining sustainable workforce structures in Army. Following short sections on the ab initio concept, recent recruiting results and benefits of non-ab initio recruiting, the first main section of this article will outline the reasons for ab initio recruiting, while the second main section will discuss the disadvantages of over-reliance on non-ab initio avenues of entry. In reality, there is a balance between recruiting through various avenues, and the final section of this article will discuss this balance.

General Ab Initio Concept

Ab initio recruiting in Army is broadly defined as the recruiting of personnel with no previous military experience into the base training rank, normally private (recruit) or staff/officer cadet (S/OCDT).⁵ Over time, separation rates, time-in-rank requirements and promotion rates will distribute personnel throughout the rank structure of any given category such that there is a balance of junior personnel, junior leadership and senior leadership. The broad concept of ab initio recruiting, therefore, is to populate Army capabilities from the bottom-up in terms of its rank distribution.

Ab initio recruiting in Army is broadly defined as the recruiting of personnel with no previous military experience into the base training rank ...

The ultimate goal of the ab initio concept is to satisfy the capability requirements of Army by filling the establishment at all rank levels with personnel of the appropriate level of training for their respective roles, tasks and responsibilities. To achieve this, the bulk of recruiting continues to be directed through the ab initio avenue to allow entry at the most junior point and to progressively train individuals for the specific category and capability requirements of Army at the point in their career where their skills are required. This ensures the establishment is filled with suitably qualified personnel of the appropriate rank and cohort without the risk of over-qualified or under-qualified personnel at various ranks.

Recruiting Results

Recruiting requirements have varied since FY03/04 in response to initiatives such as ELF, HNA, and Defence White Paper guidance. Although growth requirements have been specified and ab initio targets increased accordingly, there has been less scrutiny on non-ab initio achievement. In context, historical recruiting underachievement, persistent vacancies and a resulting inability to spend all personnel-related funding has resulted in considerable flexibility in accepting additional personnel through non-ab initio avenues.⁶

... historical recruiting underachievement, persistent vacancies and a resulting inability to spend all personnel-related funding has resulted in considerable flexibility ...

Table 1 shows the changes in the numbers of recruits entering Army through each avenue since FY03/04. The data shows an increase in non-ab initio achievement in both OR and officer recruitment, although the increase is greater in OR achievement. Significantly, the proportion of non-ab initio recruits has increased from an average of 21.5 per cent over the period FY03/04 to FY 06/07 to 25.1 per cent in FY 08/09, and the actual number increased 61.3 per cent from an average of 648 to a figure of 1046 over the same period.⁷

In contrast to ab initio recruiting achievement where almost all recruiting is into the base rank; over 30 per cent of non-ab initio recruiting into OR has been directly into corporal or above, and almost 60 per cent of officer non-ab initio recruiting is into captain or above. Table 2 shows the total breakdown of recruiting into the ARA between July 2003 and June 2010 for these rank groups. Recruiting above the base rank is not, of itself, an issue for concern if the placement of these non-ab initio entrants into a deficient rank or cohort has been consistently achieved. However, when placement is not into a deficient rank or cohort there are risks which will be detailed later.

Table 1. Recruiting Achievement by Avenue of Entry for FY 03/04 to FY 09/10.

Table 2. Aggregate Recruiting Achievement by Avenues of Entry and Rank (July 2003 – June 2010).

Source: PMKeyS (recruiting avenue cleaned by DWMFA)

The Benefits Of Non-Ab Initio Recruiting

The benefits of non-ab initio recruiting are largely intuitive and will not be discussed in great length; however, a broad summary is useful. Contemporary observation will identify that acceptance of non-ab initio entrants appears to make great sense with benefits including the recruiting of individuals who are already trained, already motivated for service, and fully aware of the employment conditions. These three factors may lead to a conclusion that non-ab initio avenues should have a greater weight of priority for recruiting than ab initio avenues.

In light of the benefits, this article does not propose or suggest non-ab initio recruiting avenues should not be pursued as a valid method of recruiting, but challenges whether recruiting plans should be developed which specifically rely on the achievement of non-ab initio targets. Where non-ab initio entry is into a rank, cohort and category specifically required by Army, and not necessarily into the rank and cohort they might expect, it can represent significant training resource savings for Army and potentially close any personnel deficiencies. There are, however, risks in over-reliance on non-ab initio avenues of entry which can comprise the recruiting method and make achievement unreliable and inconsistent in areas where ab initio recruiting avenues are more robust.

Reason For Ab Initio Recruiting

Although most personnel involved in the Army workforce system would tacitly acknowledge primacy of ab initio recruiting over other avenues of entry, the reasons why this is the case are rarely articulated. The main reason to maintain the primacy of ab initio entry, and the reason which will be referred to several more times throughout this article, remains the maintenance of sustainable category rank structures. There are several other reasons to maintain the dominance of ab initio recruiting which warrant mention.

Stability Of Workforce Supply

Although it is only for a relatively short period of four or six years, ab initio recruiting allows Army to maintain a stable workforce without significant external influence due to the Initial Minimum Period of Service (IMPS) and Return of Service Obligation (ROSO) provisions.⁸ Because personnel are trained by Army, and enter as unskilled or partially unskilled labour, the process of training and skilling maintains the numbers required by Army at various levels by virtue of the career continuum of each category.⁹ The interaction between the IMPS/ROSO provisions and the training continuum allows Army to maintain a degree of control and stability in the shape of its workforce.

Recruit Target Stability

It has been observed that when all personnel enter the workforce system at the same point (ie. private and staff cadet) they become subject to the same influences on separation decisions at the same time. This consistency of behaviour allows predictability in separation rates over the long term and therefore results in relatively stable and consistent recruiting targets and workforce planning.

... when all personnel enter the workforce system at the same point (ie. private and staff cadet) they become subject to the same influences on separation decisions ...

Reduced Vulnerabiltiy To Labour Markets

Ab initio recruiting of unskilled labour, and associated training and service obligation periods, reduces the vulnerability of the Army workforce to short-term external labour market influences. Army is protected to some extent from a sudden but short-term high demand for a particular skill in the external labour market because personnel cannot be immediately responsive to these external demands due to obligation periods (such as ROSO and IMPS), a psychological contract with Army, and medium-term career ambitions and other constraints. Personnel with fewer constraints, such as many non-ab initio entrants, are able to respond faster to changes in the labour market, which could be to the detriment of Army in both attracting and retaining non-ab initio personnel.

Reduced Competition For Skilled Labour

Although there are significant costs associated with developing a skilled labour force, the alternative of attempting to directly recruit a skilled labour force may also be prohibitively expensive and difficult to achieve. Non-ab initio recruiting of skilled labour requires Army to enter into direct competition with the national market (and in some cases an international market), which for some skills will either require remuneration above current Army pay scales or the ability to change remuneration faster than is currently able to be undertaken by Defence. By recruiting and training its own labour force, Army avoids some aspects surrounding competition for skilled labour.

Training Management Consistency

Steady ab initio entry allows long-term planning of training requirements and resources. Variation in ab initio entry resulting from over-reliance on other avenues will result in instability in training management, including the inconsistent cancellation and scheduling of courses. An ability to plan training requirements derived from consistent ab initio targets based on medium-term workforce requirements results in the optimisation of resources and reduction in waste.

Career Planning and Strength Management

Ab initio recruiting produces relatively consistent cohort sizes leading to consistent workforce attributes such as training requirements, posting and promotion opportunities. This consistency also reduces the need to use other workforce mechanisms, including non-ab initio entry, to smooth-out cohorts where there is variation in cohort size. The extent to which career planning and strength management needs to be intensively managed can therefore be controlled and reduced through consistent ab initio achievement.

Ab initio recruiting produces relatively consistent cohort sizes leading to consistent workforce attributes ...

Reduced Variation

Ab initio recruiting and associated consistent targets minimises the undesirable characteristic of variation in the workforce system. Variation affects attributes within the workforce system including recruiting targets, the posting cycle, promotion opportunity, career progression courses and training requirements. To a lesser extent it also creates workforce cost variations (varying numbers at different pay grades). Most significantly, variation creates inconsistencies in the application of workforce policy such that the business rules applied to a certain cohort in a certain year may not be appropriate in the following year, leading to system inequities. Therefore, reducing any variation remains a central aim of Army’s workforce planners.

Risks And Disadvantages Of Non-Ab Initio Entry

Many of the risks and disadvantages with non-ab initio avenues of entry are not immediately obvious and may vary between categories.¹⁰ Risks may include obscuration of inherently poor structures, increased vulnerability to the external labour market, inconsistencies in the application of policy, unstable recruiting targets and workforce strength variation. This section will outline the key strategic workforce disadvantages in recruiting personnel through non-ab initio avenues.¹¹ Ultimately, disadvantages are exhibited through reactive application of workforce policy rather than effective long-term planning.

Unstable Recruiting Source

Paramount in discussion about the risks associated with non-ab initio avenues is to highlight the unreliability in the numbers which can be recruited through this avenue. This should not be surprising as the availability of skilled recruits in the Australian (and overseas) labour market are affected by the employment environment in the labour market. As such, the number of skilled personnel that can be attracted to Army is completely dependent on the demand for their skills in society, which can vary significantly on an annual basis depending on the sector.

Potentially Exhaustible Pool

The available pool of personnel who could potentially be recruited through non-ab initio avenues is exhaustible and partially driven, ironically, by separation rates. A higher separation rate in particular categories increases the likelihood that there may be a potential non-ab initio source of personnel available to re-enlist. High separation rates will increase the demand for personnel regardless of source and as such there is something of a feedback loop between high separation rates and the demand for non-ab initio personnel.¹² However, if a category is required to increase strength in times of low separation rates, there is unlikely to be a sufficient pool of personnel willing to re-enlist and reliance on these avenues may create personnel deficiencies.

A higher separation rate in particular categories increases the likelihood that there may be a potential non-ab initio source of personnel available to re-enlist.

Reduction In Category Options For Ab Initio Recruits

Some categories are likely to be more attractive than others for non-ab initio entry. The temptation will exist to increase non-ab initio recruiting into these attractive categories (in the absence of business rules defining what is appropriate for each category) because it is easy to achieve the target. However, a removal of a large number of ab initio targets may prove to be a disincentive for general ab initio entry because there are fewer diverse employment opportunities in Army. This may affect overall recruiting success and result in a small number of categories acting as proxy-feeder for the remainder of Army.¹³

Obscuration Of Poor Structures

Perhaps the greatest risk of a reliance on other avenues of entry is the obscuration of poor structures in some categories which can, if the supply of personnel through these avenues changes, result in a risk to capability. Non-ab initio entry which plugs gaps at various ranks, particularly into junior and senior non-commissioned officer ranks, can make a category appear sound, healthy and sustainable when in reality it is being maintained by an unstable or temporary source of labour. If this source of recruiting dries up due to external influences, particularly in highly-skilled categories, then gaps can rapidly open up in the category resulting in a descent toward critical status.

Uncertainty In Workforce Behaviour

The separation rates of ab initio entry are monitored and relatively well understood.¹⁴ Personnel enlisted through other avenues are far less homogeneous in their behaviour and their career decision points are unknown. This means categories which rely on non-ab initio entry will experience far less predictability in workforce behaviour. Unpredictability can be exhibited through unexpected instability in the separation rates which can result in detrimental workforce shocks permeating through the workforce system. In aggregate, this instability results in recruiting targets needing to be adjusted more frequently, which intensifies management requirements and creates variation in the workforce system.

Disruptions To Workforce Systems

When an individual leaves Army, the workforce system replaces that individual with a new recruit and/or promotes a more junior member into the vacant position; in other words, the workforce system adapts to the separation. Hence, when an individual enters Army at a rank or cohort higher than private or captain it is likely the position would already have been filled, or planned to be filled in the next posting and promotion cycle. Therefore, the acceptance of a non-ab initio above the rank of private or captain will deny or delay the promotion or posting of somebody else. The only exception to this generalisation is where there are long-term vacancies which cannot be filled through promotion and where there is already a reliance on lateral entry, in which case a return to discussion on the obscuration of inherently poor structures is relevant.

Training And Skills Assurance

Ab initio recruiting permits training standardisation to the requirements of the category. Other avenues, including re-enlistment, cannot provide this standardisation without an increased need for trade testing and gap training. Additionally, a career management decision is required to determine the emphasis to be placed on individuals recruited through different avenues of entry. Emphasis is likely to be placed on a skilled re-enlistment; however, a comparison of the competency between a previously trained re-enlistment and a yet-to-be-trained ab initio will not necessarily conclude the re-enlistment is the best candidate for the future requirements of Army. 

Ab initio recruiting permits training standardisation to the requirements of the category.

Find The Balance - Category Sustainability

In order to highlight the importance of ab initio recruiting, this article has been somewhat biased and focused on presenting the reasons for ab initio while arguing against overemphasis on other avenues of entry. In some cases, however, there is a strong justification for other entry avenues of entry and it is a reality, despite the risks presented, that there is a balance between avenues. The requirement for this balance can occur through several reasons including:

• recruiting deficiencies,
• unexpectedly high separations resulting in vacancies at particular ranks,
• a structure which cannot be supported through ab initio recruiting, or
• growth requirements.

Category structures are typically built from the lowest rank upwards using ab initio recruiting as the input. This allows the numbers of personnel required at each rank to conform to the capability requirements of the Corps, including the employment specifications and workforce attributes such as career progression and proficiencies. However, this is not exclusively the case in all categories. A category may require a larger number at a particular rank, for capability reasons, than the structure can support. Changing the structure to develop a larger base just to grow the rank that provides capability may be wasteful. Although Force Modernisation Reviews and Employment Category Reviews aim to address these rank requirements in the medium-term; in the short-term there may be no alternative other than to rely on non-ab initio entry to ensure capability requirements are met.

In theory, it is feasible to develop a category structure which is sustainable through a combination of ab initio and lateral entry. For this to be workable there must also be tacit acknowledgement that the rank ratios of senior to junior ranked personnel will be high, which may be appropriate for some categories. But in so doing, Army becomes vulnerable to the external environment and reliant on the ability of the external workforce to provide skilled labour at the right rank and cohort. Provided this risk is accepted, non-ab initio remains a valid avenue.

In practice, there are no categories in Army that have succeeded in balancing a structure which allows entry from a variety of methods and into a variety of ranks. Categories in Army where the rank ratio of senior to junior personnel is high and which rely on non-ab initio entry to fill vacancies are over-represented in Army’s Serious Category list.¹⁵ The dominant characteristic of these serious categories is a structure not supportable through ab initio recruiting and a resulting over-reliance on other avenues.

... there are no categories in Army that have succeeded in balancing a structure which allows entry from a variety of methods ...

Conclusion

The practicalities of recruiting and category structures have demonstrated that where ab initio recruiting is not the main avenue of entry, the category structure and ultimately capability can be compromised. However, this does not negate the legitimate need for non-ab initio recruiting in some instances. Specifically, non-ab initio avenues of entry are useful in filling vacancies occurring as a result of ab initio recruiting underachievement or unexpected separations. Regardless, there have been no successful attempts in Army in reconciling a poor category structure with non-ab initio recruiting.

Ab initio recruiting has several often overlooked advantages in managing the structures in Army. The relative consistency of ab initio recruiting allows a stable flow of personnel which extends through to other career management considerations such as stable posting cycles, promotion opportunities, training requirements and consistent application of workforce policy. IMPS and ROSO provisions associated with ab initio recruiting, along with the recruiting of unskilled labour, also assists Army in reducing its vulnerability to external competition for skilled labour and fluctuation in the national labour market.

Risks associated in increasing non-ab initio targets at the expense of ab initio targets are generally oriented around increasing uncertainty and instability in workforce behaviour and a reactive application of workforce policy. Separation rates and the general workforce system of training, posting and promotion can be detrimentally affected through inadvertently recruiting too many personnel through non-ab initio avenues and poor placement into rank and cohort. Perhaps the most significant effect of non-ab initio recruiting is the obscuration of poor category structures in Army for which, by the time a poor structure becomes apparent, prevention of the category reaching a critical or serious status may be difficult.

In many categories, a balance is necessary and practical; however, structures should not be developed that specifically rely on the continued and stable recruiting of personnel through non-ab initio avenues. A reliance on non-ab initio avenues of entry and any attempt to embed reliance exposes Army to far more risk outside its control or ability to mitigate than it prevents. Those categories to which recruiting through non-ab initio avenues may be suitable need to be sufficiently robust in their structure such that any variation caused through non-ab initio recruiting underachievement can be mitigated without causing unnecessary workforce management issues within the category.

About the Author

Lieutenant Colonel Phillip Hoglin graduated from RMC in 1994 and returned to ADFA in 1995 to complete a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics. Lieutenant Colonel Hoglin served in a variety of logistics and instructional appointments at DNSDC, 1 CSR, HQ LSF and ALTC before studying for a Masters of Science in Management at the United Stated Naval Postgraduate School. After a SO2 appointment in the Directorate of Workforce Modelling, Forecasting and Analysis – Army he attended the Philippine Command and General Staff College and was subsequently posted as the S5 at HQ 17 CSS Bde. In 2009 and 2010 Lieutenant Colonel Hoglin was the Deputy Director of Workforce Modelling, Forecasting and Analysis – Army, before taking his current appointment studying for a Masters of Philosophy at ADFA as the 2011 CDF Fellowship recipient.

Endnotes

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1     In 2005 the ARA separation rates were around 12.7 per cent for the duration of the year; this was the highest since mid-2001. Source: PMKeyS data analysed by DWMFA-A.

2     ‘The Enhanced Land Force: Implementation Plan’, Edition 3.0, October 2009, <http://intranet.defence.gov.au/armyweb/sites/chkDoc.asp?S=15808&D=14289…; accessed 24 August 2010; CA Directive 14/05, ‘The Hardened and Networked Army’, December 2005, <http://intranet.defence.gov.au/armyweb/sites/ca/docs/ca%20directive%201… > accessed 24 August 2010.

3     A reduction back to 763 in FY09/10 was primarily a result of personnel funding constraints on recruiting.

4    Project Boomerang website, <http://www.army.gov.au/boomerang/&gt; accessed on 24 August 2010.

5    The Macquarie Dictionary, Macquarie University, Sydney, 1999, p. 4, defines ab initio as ‘from the beginning’. In some cases, particularly in the case of the recruiting of specialist personnel, ab initio recruiting can occur into higher ranks.

6    It is only a relatively recent development since FY09/10 that recruiting achievement for non-ab initio entry has been closely monitored against a target.

7    Figures may vary slightly against the Defence Annual Report due to back-dated and/or corrected transactions in PMKeyS.