The recent pandemic created shocks of all types all around the world. More people within the world realized how fragile they are and have made different adjustments to their lives to ensure that they can withstand different shocks.
There were incidents ranging from winter storms in Texas that made it to where people were without power for a few days. Then there were incidents where people’s lives genuinely changed significantly due to the loss of a loved one, sickness, etc.
As COVID has taught many lessons to many industries worldwide, it is no wonder that the FR2020 policy has developed in such a way to learn lessons from deployments and create a reserve that will help in the future. The multiple developments which are helping to convert TA into a specific force are being hindered by mismanagement. A few of these examples include rivalry and lack of coordination between departments.
Due to a lack of understanding of roles, many promotions of the soldiers have also been diminished. Moreover, a shift to the One Army method has been introduced, which involves the progress of the unemployed and unemployable only. Hence, the seniors have to adjust their expectations to decide what type of reserve they desire.
From The Territorial army To The Army Reserves
During the days of the cold war, TA’s role was different from its usual role. This is because it was seen as a force to deploy “en masse” as formed units. Moreover, it also supplied augmentees to those units short on augmentees. Later, the TA was renamed AR. However, as time passed, the AR received handsome recognition too. In the end, a group of recruits had a chance to experience operational deployments in their respective roles.
Recruiting
According to the government’s official statistics, the recruitment was poor, with untrained people joining and many leaving the reserves. Hence, this led to multiple arguments and various forms of frustration too. Moreover, recruitment was also easy to back then; however, it has become a difficult task. The overall timelines have become much more prolonged and more challenging, with some recruitment plans taking more than two years.
Promotion and The One Army Concept
As the soldiers pass much time in the army, they continue to learn and develop to reach new heights. Hence, they opted to enroll in courses that run in specific modules and are usually on weekends. As AR was created, many drawbacks started to become a part of the picture. These included no weekend courses but only regular courses and a lack of recognition of the realities of soldiers. Soldiers used their annual leaves to receive their reserve training. This led to soldiers being invariably unemployed.
As a generalized structure was introduced, promotion means that a person cannot hold a job and is now dependent on the Reserves as a sole source of income. Moreover, it also led to a degradation in training. This degradation affected the quality and also had an impact on retention.
They are now making structural changes to address these matters.
