does the environment cause personnel turnover in the royal navy? sarah cudmore & professor david...
TRANSCRIPT
Does the environment cause personnel turnover
in the Royal Navy?
Sarah Cudmore & Professor David Uzzell
Presentation structure
• Context of study
• Environment
• The study - approach and methods
• Findings- life at sea on deployed ship
• Conclusions
Context of study
• The problem - retention of OMs
– “Culture shock”?
– Breaking psychological contracts?
Environment
• The RN, OMs and their ships– Who are they– Why they join– Their lives in the RN– Type 42s
• Deployed ships as ICE
The study – theoretical approach
• Psychological contracts
• Environmental psychology perspectives?– Affordances
– Theory of planned behaviour
– Affect heuristic
– Isolated and Confined Environments • “home”, territoriality, privacy, personalisation…..
• Grounded theory approach– Qualitative
– Which theory fits data?
The study - methodology
• Focus on males and Type 42 ships
• In-depth interviews with OMs with different levels of sea experience
• Measured perceptions/experience of physical and social environment over time– Questionnaires
– Word association
– Structured Multiple Sort Procedure
– Critical incident
– Structured and semi-structured discussions
The study - participants
UK portAt sea after 5 ½ months deployed
Training base
Interview
location
POSTSEVERALFIRSTPRE
2-4 ½ years
4-5 years2-2 ½ years
8 monthsTime in RN
5335Number interview-
ees
Post one or more
deployment
On second or more
deployment
One deployment
NoneSea experience
The study – research question
• How do participants feel and behave with respect to the ship as a combined living and work area?
Bunk
“It’s the one place on board where no one can get you. No one can poke fun at you, …no one can touch you at all. It’s a rule that you don’t mess. It’s sacred. Your pit is your own personal private space. “ FIRST
Toilets
“in the toilets you get like sad cases writing stuff like how much they hate other people on the ship…. what wrens they’d like to shag and everything like that…….it’s like a newspaper.” POST
0 1 2 3 4 5
Ops Room
PRE FIRST SEVERAL POST
Feelings - places
0 1 2 3 4 5
Type 42
0 1 2 3 4 5
Messdeck
0 1 2 3 4 5
Bunk
++ + / +
++ + / +
++ + / +
++ + / +
Living spacesWork spaces
0 1 2 3 4 5
Divisional Officers
PRE FIRST SEVERAL POST
Feelings – people and RN
0 1 2 3 4 5
Officers
0 1 2 3 4 5
Royal Navy
0 1 2 3 4 5
Operator Mechanics
++ + / +
++ + / +
++ + / +
++ + / +
AB(OM) view of their job
Sep. from family and friends (4.6)
Control over own life (4.3)
Long hours (4.3)
Away from home/local environment (4.0)
Living and working conditionss (3.9)
Privacy (3.9)
Get good qualifications (3.8)
Discipline (3.7)
Personal freedom (3.5)
Worst factors (Av score >=3)
Good social life (1.2)
Top factors (Av score <= 1.5)
Scale 1 = ++ 5 =
Difference between ship & “home”
• “Then you’ll go down the mess and you can’t sit down and, you know, have a cup and tea and just sit there and cool down because the mess is just as hot and you’ve got no space to just sit down and relax or – the mess square is just packed. You can’t, you know, watch TV, you can’t … potter round your house, you can’t do your bits and pieces or anything like that.” SEVERAL
Conclusions – theoretical basis
• Findings fit previous psychological contract work
• Theories can explain findings:
Affordances
Affect heuristic Theory of planned behaviour
Environment / Organisation / Organisational agents
Choices / actions – psychological contract
Information from environment – state of psychological contract
Information from environment – state of psychological contract