Newsletters - Volume 51

What has Defense Intelligence Career Field have to do with the Branch?

Article written by Col Loos and CPO1 O’Hare

Defence Intelligence Career Field? What on earth has that got to do with the C&E Branch? If you are Communicator Research (Comm Rsch), your occupation has been involved in discussions regarding this for a couple of years. Commencing in 2000 the Branch became involved in the Military Occupational Structure Analysis Redesign and Tailoring (MOSART) Project. While this project officially came to an end at Armed Forces Council (AFC) on the 17th of January 2007, several facets of it actually carried on. In the case of the Sig Op, LCIS, and Lineman this formed the basis for the “Military Employment Structure” (MES) which will be discussed in another article. In the case of the Comm Rsch it manifested into a decision to investigate the creation of a new Career Field.

According to CMP Instruction 3/07, the definition of the terms “Career Field” is:

"A Career Field (CFd) is a grouping of occupations and/or common jobs with a similar function or operational goal." CFds have the aim of providing a cohesive service to an environment or to the CF as a whole, and broadening the CFd member's individual career development and employability. The common jobs may be available at any rank level but often the greater percentage of them occurs at more senior ranks after both technical and professional development have happened/occurred. CFds can be used to manage jobs or work that draws people from several occupations, whose work leads to a common goal or output.

The first thing that needs to be done as part of this endeavour is to dispel the various rumours and concerns that have been voiced by people. This is not an Intelligence Branch function, this is in fact about the concept of providing Intelligence to the CF. A great number of occupations fulfil this role under the C4ISR concept. The driving force behind looking at the Intelligence Operator, Intelligence Officer, and Comm Rsch occupations was the fact that they all have a common Managing Authority (MA), which is the Chief Military Personnel (CMP). Looking at occupations under a single MA streamlined decision making and the need to have consensus among competing interests. The long term goal is to investigate additional occupations, which are outside of CMP, to determine if they are also candidates for the Career Field. While occupations may be designated as part of the Career Field they remain within their respective Branches but “could” share jobs. A position could be designated as a Career Field position and the best individual, from any of the member occupations, would be selected to fill that position.

Very similar to the current situation for CWO/CPO1’s whereby a number of positions are designated as “Signals Any”. In those cases the individual filling the position needs a Signals background but does not necessarily need specific knowledge.

The data which was collected by MOSART has formed the basis to determine exactly what jobs are done by each of the occupations. One of the first challenges dealt with terminology. A statement like “creates reports” can be very common to several occupations but the process to do so, the material used in the creation, and the end product may be significantly different. Therefore, it is important to ensure that we were in fact comparing apples with apples. This involved administering questionnaires to the vast majority of the members of the occupations and then deciphering the results. The personnel from DPGR who were tasked with this endeavour have worked tirelessly with the members of the occupation to ensure that everyone’s input was considered.

In early 2009 the analysis stage for all of this data commenced. Early indications are that below the rank of Sgt/ WO there is very little if any overlap involved. The members of the individual occupations carry out their tasks and only at the senior levels do we start to see indications that the work could be carried out by different occupations. The study indicated that there is an interworking relationship for some positions not only within the proposed career field but also with other Branch occupations. This is particularly true when looking at Network Operations. The total number of positions within the occupations that could fit into the category of “Career Field” is a relatively small percentage. It is up to senior leadership to determine if this is the way ahead or if the status quo is the preferred option.

A Senior Advisory Group met at the beginning of May to prepare the next remit to AFC which is due in the June timeframe. The recommendation that will be submitted is that a CF Defence Intelligence Career Field is not currently viable due to a lack of directly transferable skill sets and the relatively small number of Career Field jobs/positions identified. The work conducted by the team was very valuable as it provided a superb Job Analysis which has already resulted in a number of new occupation and specialty specifications being identified and in turn resulted in revised/updated training. A small program will be conducted whereby select individuals from the INT Op and Comm Rsch occupations will be cross pollinated into positions which had been identified as suitable for career field positions. This exchange will commence towards the end of this year’s APS and involve 2 positions from each occupation. CDI has stated that he understood the reasons for the recommendation and the way ahead but was concerned that we were missing opportunities to give personnel work outside their primary field, in particular smaller occupations. The recommendation to conclude the Def In CFd was arrived at after more than two years studying all aspects of the Def Int “World of Work” and after much consultation with key CF stakeholders He further stated that the results of the study might have been different if the pace of operational tempo had been lower. At AFC he will emphasize the need for better management of small CF NCM occupations that do not have related officer occupations to provide full time oversight, direction and management function.