Okay.
I will talk about two aspects: recruitment and retention.
On recruiting initiatives that are significant, I'll start with the reserve force, first and foremost.
We used to have a fairly long process. That discouraged young Canadians who were trying to be part of the reserves. The chief of the defence staff was adamant that we would change that, that we would change it down so that you could do the recruitment and, instead of taking multiple months, you could break it down to a period of 30 days at the most. That's what is being done right now in a trial on the east coast and with some air reserve organizations. It's been trialed with some success. It means that on that aspect we're taking some risks, and there are aspects of looking at enhanced security clearance, but we're thinking that if we have a good, solid police check and a credit check, then we can continue to start training these young men and women so that we can actually get them in uniform and excited about what it is that they're going to do. That's one of the initiatives we're doing that is significantly changing things.
As well, the other one that we're looking to do is to significantly change how we're recruiting the regular force members, by going with an electronic format but also by changing how it is that we attract them, with a much higher reliance, if you will, on social media. With the millennials we have, it's no longer one of these large ad campaigns that you're going to see in newspapers, because most of them don't read them. However, the reach-out that is occurring on a multitude of platforms for social media is significantly different. On this particular one, we also need to move ahead faster, so that we can actually reduce the lag time for them to get interested in the Canadian Armed Forces. That's what we're doing in recruitment.
Retention is probably one of the most important ones as well, because if we can prevent young men and women from leaving the Canadian Armed Forces at various gates by making it more attractive, that will be important for us. One of the key programs we're looking at doing right now is to facilitate the move between the regular and the reserve forces. It used to be a complex process to make the transition, but we now want to make it as simple as a transition of a matter of a week or two after showing intent. The reason for this is that it will be attractive to a lot of the population, whether they are trying to satisfy linking up with spouses on other postings or whether they're at the point in their life where they want to have a family and concentrate more on raising their family and maybe parading some part-time.... We want to make it so that we have the terms of service that will enable that. That's a significant change.
Also significant is the change of giving them the opportunity to make sure they have their chance to take a break and come back without a penalty in how they're getting paid, and certainly with the opportunity to continue contributing to their pension fund, so that they can have a full career but with the breaks in their career that are necessary so they can raise their families and so they can achieve other things—for example, pursue another degree—and after that continue as a valued member of the Canadian Armed Forces, perhaps in very bespoke responsibilities and capabilities for which they have the training and for which there might be a short-term contract.
