Army adopts corporate-style 'exit meetings'

[third eye]

Seventy-seven officers of the Indian Armyare due for retirement from services at the end of May. Their organisational and operational experiences span several years and therefore, their ideas on what needs to be changed or improved within the existing structures are of immense value. So feels the Army too.

Last week, these officers -- three Lieutenant Generals, four Major Generals, nine Brigadiers, 44 Colonels and 17 Lieutenant Colonels – met the army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag here over a session of critical feedback sharing.

A rather recent phenomenon in the army, it has been doing it every month with a set of departing officers and these sessions are much on the same lines as is commonly known in corporate world as 'exit meetings'. Such meetings help organisations better its employee satisfaction levels, overall working environment and operational efficacy.


So, when officers raised that command tenures should be raised from 14 months to 18 months for it will allow better task results, Suhag made a note. So did he when an officer raised a rather unusual but pertinent point about how older batch officers suffered from a sense of being less savvy about information and technology in comparison to young crop of officers.

Other suggestions they put forward were on working towards improving the ethos for good maintenance of arms and equipment by soldiers so that they last longer. Improvement in the standard of army schools across the country too was raised.

"The army and the nation is proud of serving soldiers and veterans. You are our ambassadors and we will ensure measures to keep you part of our extended family," Suhag told the group of officers.

It was on the basis of feedback from one of the earlier batch of retiring soldiers that the department was working continuously on streamlining the Army Welfare Placement Organisation that help veterans, war widows and dependents get jobs, a senior army officer told dna.

Likewise, more hospitals are being empanelled under the Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) and working of the ArmyWelfare Housing Organisation (AWHO) is also being improved, he said.

The 'Exit' interaction or the seminar as the army calls it also includes with handing over of a packet containing pension order, ECHS card, canteen Stores Department (CSD) card for ex-servicemen , a booklet that mentions the government benefits for retired officers and their kin and a service particulars booklet to each officer. Earlier, for collecting these documents, the officers had to contact respective departments.