Hiring ex-armed forces personnel is a topic that doesn’t get as much bandwidth as it deserves. So how should employers be behaving and communicating to tap into this incredible pool of talent effectively?
My guest this week is Tim Redfern, Managing Director, Defence at Amey.
In the interview, we discuss:
- Tim’s own experience of transitioning his career on leaving The Royal Navy
- The broader transition challenges facing armed forces personnel
- Translating the language of transferable skills
- Common employer misconceptions
- Changing the recruiting mindset on skills
- Messaging that resonates
- Salary and marketing value
Tim also shares details on what Amey does to attract and retain forces leavers.
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
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Matt Alder [00:01:23]:
Hi, everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 225 of the Recruiting Future podcast. Hiring ex service personnel, or veteran hiring, if you’re in the us, is a topic that gets nowhere near as much bandwidth as it deserves. So how should employers be behaving and communicating to effectively tap into this incredible talent pool? My guest this week is Tim Redfern, Managing Director, Defence at Amey. In the interview, Tim talks about his own experience transitioning his career after leaving the Royal Navy, the broader challenges facing X Forces personnel and shares some excellent advice to employers. Thanks to safa, the Armed Forces charity, for their help setting up the interview as part of their Friendly to Forces campaign, an initiative to encourage employers to show their willingness and support to hire forces leavers. Hi, Tim, and welcome to the podcast.
Tim Redfern [00:02:24]:
Nice to be here, Matt. Good to speak to you.
Matt Alder [00:02:26]:
An absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Could you just introduce yourself and tell everyone what you do?
Tim Redfern [00:02:31]:
Sure, Mat. Hi, my name is Tim Redfern. I’m the Managing Director for Defence in Amey and we have a number of quite large contracts in defence with the MoD. We look after all of the UK MoD defence estate, from barracks to runways to bunkers to hospitals. We also look after 51,000 of the marine quarters, in old parlance. And we’d also look after the MIT main building and we run a joint venture which looks after 2,300 vehicles worldwide for the British Army.
Matt Alder [00:03:10]:
Fantastic. So could you tell us a little bit about your sort of background story and how you got to do what you do now?
Tim Redfern [00:03:16]:
So I had a quick Eight years in the Royal Navy. I found myself in Hong Kong having had a great, a great time. Learned a lot about leadership, about people, about managing stress in difficult situations and then made a transition out of the Royal Navy, say in 1997 in Hong Kong into industry. And from there I’ve been working in defence outsourcing. Last about 17, 18 years. And I think actually the transition out of armed forces, no matter how long or short you’ve done, is very difficult, very challenging and you end up, you know, it’s difficult because you are generally an expert in the field that you’ve left and the transition can be pretty scary. So I spent one or two years doing a job that wasn’t the job I thought I would do. I got into maritime ship sales but then, you know, moved into defense and defense outsourcing and actually spent the last 17 years in the defence market working with like minded people, I hope delivering value.
Matt Alder [00:04:28]:
So I mean you mentioned there the challenges that ex service personnel can face when they’re kind of sort of leaving and finding a job. Could you sort of tell us a little bit more about that? What are the typical challenges that people face, particularly that they sort of face in sort of 2019?
Tim Redfern [00:04:45]:
Sure. So I think there are a number of sort of macro through to the micro issues. I think one thing I hear quite often is that people say, well, do you know, I haven’t had an interview in the last 20 years. My first interview was when I joined the core of all engineers or the Royal Navy or the Royal Air Force. So people are nervous and lacking confidence in terms of those initial interview skills. I think there are some other things around the translation of transferable skills and the translation of qualification and competence and experience into language that people in City street can generally understand. And I think also there tends to be a lack of, often a lack of confidence because people are moving into an environment they are fundamentally unfamiliar with. It is much less collegiate, it is much less, much less supportive than in the armed forces. People then move from having a number of things done for them and with them to potentially being left to almost fend for themselves and you know, often in industry and I find this when I, when I left the Royal Navy that, you know, generally when you’re in the, in the armed forces, people are generally always pulling the same words in direction and you know, it’s not always the case in industry or in commerce or in, you know, in the private sector. So I think there’s a real challenge around the corporate culture bit which I think we and Employers have an obligation and a duty to help people out with.
Matt Alder [00:06:32]:
And are there any common misconceptions that employers have about recruiting ex service personnel?
Tim Redfern [00:06:38]:
Yes, I think there are. I think employers can take a view that the experience of ex service personnel is too narrow, that they often lack some of the broader skills such as commerciality, experience in finance, experience in procurement. And whilst they assume they’re very good at people management, which I think is invariably true, I think employers do and can take a view that they just haven’t got the right breadth of experience which they need. And generally I would take a view that those skills are entirely transferable and can be added on. And so I take slightly different views, but I think there is that piece that a perception around never worked in the private sector, never worked in Civi street and hasn’t got the right range of skills that industry, commerce, finance, whatever might want.
Matt Alder [00:07:39]:
Obviously this is a fantastic talent pool of people and I know that many employers want to be doing a better job at tapping in and recruiting in that talent pool. How should they be thinking and behaving, behaving to make sure they’re doing this effectively and supporting people in the right way.
Tim Redfern [00:07:59]:
So I think there are a number of things that employers can do. I think the first thing is that you need to be more ambitious in the way that the role is defined and in the requirements around competent skills and qualifications. So, for example, a requirement around a specific qualification may or may not be required and often that is a bar to ex personnel applying for these jobs because they feel they haven’t got the right initial qualification. I think employers need to think about the route to market and channel to market and how they reach into those organisations. You know, we operate through career transition partnership, through forces families, through officers associations, through buildforce, through a number of veterans associations. And employers need to, I think, reach into that pool of people differently, with a different mindset in terms of what skills do we actually want? And actually, even if somebody hasn’t got the exact requirements, you know, can we add those on? Can we put them through development or training in order to give them the last bit of the jigsaw? And I think it’s a much more about having a more rounded, a more pragmatic view on people rather than going through a very binary 01 qualification or competence framework. This is not always easy to transfer or translate those skills from a military background into a civilian one.
Matt Alder [00:09:41]:
And in terms of you sort of mentioned reaching out through various channels, what would your advice be around the kind of message that would resonate if employers are trying to improve their marketing in this area.
Tim Redfern [00:09:54]:
So I think the, as you say, and rightly say, the messaging is important. I think the message has to be that employers are an inclusive organization and that they respect backgrounds, ethnicity, competence, qualification, experience of people. I think employers also, and this is in some ways controversial, but I think employers need to look at the market rate for roles and help service leavers understand their value in the marketplace. And you know, one of the there are two questions, one I alluded to earlier, which is I’ve never had an interview in 20 years and that’s a problem for me. And the second question that often trips people up is the interview question around, so what’s your expectation around salary? And because typically servicemen and women have never worked in that competitive environment where there is maybe a combination of a salary allowances, potentially a bonus or potentially some sort of share incentive scheme, it’s very difficult for people to say, actually my ideal salary is X thousand pounds. And I think employers need to help people to understand their true value in the marketplace and sometimes not trade on potentially a and again, this is controversial, but not trade on a discount because there is a lack of certainty around people’s value in the marketplace.
Matt Alder [00:11:29]:
I think that’s an incredibly important point and certainly one that I think employers should most definitely be taking on board. Tell us a little bit more about what Amy do to recruit and retain ex service personnel.
Tim Redfern [00:11:41]:
So my business is a defense business. So really for many ex servicemen and women it’s a home game in that we talk and deal with clients and customers who are in the serving military. So there’s an immediate intimacy and understanding around language, culture, expectation and service delivery. But the rest of AAMI also reaches out from our rail sector, our consulting sector, our power utilities businesses. So what we do, as I said earlier, we do talk and reach into the careers and resettlement organizations. So we just had a very successful day with buildforce about 10 days ago where we’re able to talk to a number of service leavers that buildforce through Carol and Logan have got together and we’re able to, if you like, it’s almost a grown up milk round for, you know, a milk round which you know, which you would have had for university graduates, almost a milk round for servicemen and women. But we reach into service leavers through a number of those service organizations. And even if we haven’t got immediate roles which fit those people, you know, with their complete agreement around collection of their personal data and their agreement to store data, we keep CVs on file where we can and we’re able to say whether with their permission and we’re able to look into the future in terms of future roles and future requirements and reach into people even if there isn’t a role at that time, but a sort of a forward look in terms of future requirements. So I think reaching in through those transition organizations is really important. We do try and take a fairly agnostic view in terms of what the role really requires and try and take a view as to whether the qualifications companies experience of service leavers will fit and if it doesn’t fit but they’re close, what can we do? I should also say, Matt, that this isn’t a positive discrimination for service leavers. It’s about leveling. It’s about levelling the playing field such that service leavers have the same opportunity and the same ability to reach in to organizations like Amy. So it isn’t positive discrimination. It’s about leveling a playing field and making sure the opportunities are understood right across the marketplace.
Matt Alder [00:14:25]:
Tim, thank you very much for talking to me.
Tim Redfern [00:14:27]:
My pleasure.
Matt Alder [00:14:29]:
My thanks to Tim Redfern. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts or via your podcasting app of choice. Please also follow us on Instagram Search for Recruiting Future to find the Show. If you’re a Spotify or Pandora user, you can also listen to the show there. You can find all the past episodes@www.rfpodcast.com. on that site, you can subscribe to the mailing list and find out more about working with me. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
