By GPCAPT Kevin McEvoy, Assistant Chief of Air Force Personnel
GPCAPT Kevin McEvoy
Personnel Branch has undergone a significant change recently, with the Branch being restructured and renamed to better reflect the new direction and focus for Human Resource Management within the Defence Force.
Following an Executive Leadership Team decision and consultation with Personnel Branch staff, the new Defence Personnel Executive (DPE) was stood up on 31 May 2010.
The first part of implementing the DPE was to set up the Transitional Organisational Structure. This brought together the following teams under Assistant Chief Personnel, Brigadier Mark Wheeler as the single point of accountability:
- existing Personnel Branch employees
- single Service HR Heads and their Wellington- based staff, and
- the interim Centres of Expertise:
- Workforce Planning
- Psychology
- Policy, and
- Recruitment.
These changes mark the beginning of a significant transformation that will result in stronger, consolidated personnel services, providing quality support and advice to everyone in the Defence Force. This is a transitional structure until the end of the year, and positions within the transitional structure have only been confirmed to the Director level. There is still a lot of work to do in determining what the final structure will look like. In addition to the name change, the restack of Defence House in Wellington has allowed space for DPE personnel to move to the second floor of Defence House.
This restructure was the result of months of work by Personnel Branch heads and the Human Resources Management Change Programme—part of the Defence Transformation Programme (DTP)—with constant involvement from Human Resources personnel from the three Services. Although the HR functions within each Service have been consolidated under AC Pers, there will be single Service representation at the Group Captain level within the DPE. I will still undertake my current functions, with a primary responsibility to AC Pers, and a responsibility to Chief of Air Force, Air Vice-Marshal Graham Lintott for Air Force personnel issues.
While you won’t see an immediate change in your day-to-day HR activities, this is the start of a series of changes that Defence Personnel Executive and DTP will implement by early next year. These include changes to HR Administration and Advice, working on a new organisational design for Training and Education, and continuing to develop and refine each Directorate within the DPE.
The changes are for the good. We won’t be making change unless it is simpler and better, but we will need to change the way we operate. The Base HR Advisors will be critical in providing advice and supporting commanders on base, with the transactional stuff being dealt with separately. There will be a cultural change also necessary when dealing with the DPE—Air Force perspectives will be considered but may not be dealt with by somebody in a blue uniform. Rest assured, however, that your needs and those of CAF, AVM Lintott will still be met.
The HRM Change Programme is working towards more streamlined, consolidated Human Resource Management support within Defence. You’ll hear more information about HR changes over the coming months.
In quoting AC Pers, BRIG Wheeler, “I am confident that as a result of these, and future changes, we will fully succeed in delivering on our Mission—to enable and optimise the personnel capability to achieve the Defence Force Mission—and to accelerate our ability to achieve the first part of our intent, that: The Defence Personnel Executive delivers world-class, simpler and better support to enable Defence Force outputs.”