[Inside Government] Mandatory Recruitment: The Other Side






Mandatory Recruitment: The Other Side
A Joint Article Written by Maowi and Istillian




In response to the controversy generated by the Europeian Broadcasting Corporation's (EBC) recent article on mandatory recruitment and the now-tabled Senate proposal of the Mandatory Recruitment Act (2019) presented shortly thereafter by Senator Calvin Coolidge, it felt only prudent that an alternative perspective on this topical debate should be presented by the EBC.

Senate Speaker Drecq has vociferously made clear his opinion on the matter of mandatory recruitment, first commenting in the Senate thread that mandatory recruitment would be a "barrier we introduce for little benefit," and shortly after stating in Maowi's article that it "is a bad idea that needs to be on the dustbin of history." While this reaction is a somewhat curt dismissal of the article, it concisely and accurately represents the overall feeling of several prominent citizens - why force extra duties through mandatory recruitment on those voluntarily fulfilling high level, high responsibility roles in the region if it's not necessary to do so?

In fact, two current senators - Drecq and Lloenflys - publicly stated that should the Senate legislation on mandatory recruitment pass, they would not be standing for Senate election again. These sentiments were also shared by many current non-office holders; for example, in the Grand Hall discussion thread on mandatory recruitment, Acapais remarked:

I'm against this legislation. It feels very knee-jerk and borderline emotional. It's well intentioned, but I think it would create more problems than it would solve. A better solution to our recruitment woes is finding the right Minister to do the job.

Furthermore, the recent poll conducted by Prim for private media outlet Another View indicated that 40.5 percent of respondents opposed the concept of mandatory recruitment by officeholders - a significant share of poll takers.

So with all of this information, heated discussion, debates, and some investigative drive on my behalf, I sought the opportunity to talk with Senator Drecq to discuss some of his opinions, experiences, and historical knowledge regarding the Ministry of Interior and mandatory recruitment.

According to Drecq, recruitment telegrams had no effect on his own decision to join Europeia. "I have been in Europeia for 7 or 8 years and my choosing Europeia was simply a happy accident. I looked at the major regions and for no good reason picked Europeia. I didn't look at any recruitment telegrams. My choice was essentially a random draw from the most populous regions list." However, in the recent debates, Drecq has not attempted to belittle the general importance of manual recruitment; "Manual recruitment needs to be done. I agree," he remarked in the Senate thread. His main objection lies in the offloading of such a duty from the relevant ministry to those already serving in other executive roles. "The absolute basis is provided by automated recruitment. Yes, we do not have sufficient levels of manual recruitment beyond that but that is in large part because of reasons that will not be helped by a permanent system of mandatory recruitment. Instead we need to make certain that manual recruitment and those who do it are lauded in the fashion they deserve and that everyone is properly incentivized by an active Ministry of Recruitment to manually recruit." Some have argued that, due to their higher speed, manual recruitment telegrams are more efficient than automatic telegrams, yielding higher crops of recruits. But Drecq believes that the potential costs far outweigh the expected returns. "In exchange [for the extra recruits] you are likely to increase dissatisfaction amongst elected and appointed members of the government. You are additionally likely to cause major disruption when a cabinet minister or council minister fails to do their recruitment and is suspended, which I can virtually guarantee will happen. And you will cause fewer people to be willing to run for office or be appointed to it. That is also a fact."

I was keen to find out what his thoughts had been on mandatory recruitment when it was first implemented many years ago. "I was in the region, and even Minister of the Interior, when we had a Mandatory Recruitment Act. I could understand the necessity then. Manual Recruitment was the only recruitment available. We had to provide at least a minimum of consistent recruitment. But even then the understanding was that mandatory recruitment only provided that minimum bedrock." He continued: "It was up to those who voluntarily recruited, especially the members of the Ministry of the Interior, to provide recruitment and incentives for recruitment beyond that bedrock. After automated recruitment in the form of scripts and stamps was introduced we repealed the Mandatory Recruitment Act because we knew that those would instead provide the bedrock. We assumed at the time, wrongly as it turned out, that that would mean manual recruitment was no longer necessary and instead it atrophied." Drecq maintains, however, that the region's recruitment priorities have shifted and levels of urgency have fallen. "Manual recruitment is necessary. And, just like back then, it is up to those who voluntarily recruit and the Ministry of Recruitment to do the manual recruitment that provides the growth beyond the bare minimum provided by automated recruitment. We therefore do not have the same basis of necessity as we had back then for mandatory recruitment. Now, there are other reasons provided by proponents of this bill. One brought forth is that it builds community. It brings us together in service of the region. But mandatory recruitment hits those who already serve the region. Senators and ministers."

One point regarding which Drecq has been absolutely unflinching, even in the face of particularly strong opposition, is his right to choose how he spends the time he has available for Europeia. By his argument, imposing mandatory recruitment on government officials would be detrimental to the successful execution of their assigned executive tasks: "it only affects those who are already actively contributing members of the community. Forcing a minority of already active members to do it won't fix the problems. It will only plaster them over. And in order to do so we would have to force an activity on those members."

Defending this further, and extending on earlier commentary from the Grand Hall discussion, Drecq added, "We would have to take away those members ability to judge for themselves what activities they wish to participate in, what activities they believe adds the most worth to the region.

"And while taking away their agency we would increase their workload, perhaps only by a slight amount in terms of time but nonetheless by a not insignificant amount in terms of willing activity provided for Europeia. For some it will remain within the bounds of what they wish to give. For others, me included, it will raise the amount beyond what we are willing to give. And for those of us it will mean choosing to take a less active part in Europeia."

Europeia's two most recent elections - the Senate elections and the chief of state elections - have fortunately been competitive and vibrant; but a concern raised by many is the struggle during recent times to find enough active members to fill executive positions, which is likely not helped by mandatory recruitment - surely that would act as a deterrent? "Only a few weeks ago we were debating what to do with months of uncompetitive elections behind us and no relief in sight. Now we want to introduce a policy that will make that worse. Maybe, hopefully, not a debilitating amount. But an amount which I believe is unacceptable in the current circumstances. The circumstances in which we have many other ways in which we can increase manual recruitment but very few ways in which we can increase the numbers of those standing for elections, of those willing to serve on Cabinet or Council."

The senator believes he has precedent to back up this claim, dating back to the days of mandatory recruitment. "I do believe it made people less likely to take up positions that had to recruit." However, before the advent of scripts and stamps, it was a necessary evil - whereas now, not so. "We simply did not have a choice at the time. While we had mandatory recruitment, if we had a bad Minister in charge of recruitment it was possible that the number of telegrams send could reach 0. Effectively that no one would be actively recruited. The worst that can happen now is that a nation is send a telegram via an automated method. Those are less efficient than manual recruitment, which is why manual recruitment is still necessary. But that does mean that we have a certain level of recruitment build in as a minimum which we did not have back then. A certain minimum which allows us not to have to enforce recruitment and instead rely on voluntary recruitment. We should increase incentives to recruit manually and we should make more of a deal about who recruits. But we should not return to a practice we let go of for good reasons."

When looking at the recent term, there's been an assortment of information on the ever changing leadership within the recruitment ministry, from the unfortunate resignation of two very capable ministers, to the removal of Brí Shakespeare from office. With this in mind I sought to question Drecq about good leadership and management under recruitment, asking whether he believed that the Ministry of Recruitment, under good management, would be able to recruit numbers high enough to sustain active engagement in the region without the help of those in elected and appointed or nominated positions. The response was firm. "Absolutely. Without a doubt. If only all those who have come out as proponents of mandatory recruitment voluntarily send 100 telegrams a week more, then they already would be sending more than we could require those within elected or appointed positions to send per week. An active and engaged minister of recruitment could conceivably more than make up for those numbers all by themselves. That likely is not sustainable, but a core of committed voluntary recruiters more than fulfilling our practical manual recruitment requirements should be easily achievable." Due to an inordinate amount of turnover in the ministry this term, as well as the apparent negligence of Brí Shakespeare, this simply has not been possible so far; but the intense scrutiny on the ministry for various reasons has already helped increase awareness of its importance and in a way moved towards advancing the general sense of duty advocated by some of those in favour of mandatory recruitment as a necessary societal characteristic. Drecq himself is optimistic for the future of the Ministry of Recruitment. "The instability in the recent past has certainly been unhelpful, but I don't expect that level of instability to continue. All we really need is one good term with one good minister to get us back on track. Who that should be I leave to others. This debate, even if the potential outcome of a Mandatory Recruitment Act I could certainly do without, at the very least has shone a spotlight on the Ministry and reinvigorated interest in manual recruitment. That alone should provide some incentive to start righting the ship."

These words are certainly reassuring and encouraging; I wondered whether Drecq approved of recently introduced initiatives in the ministry, such as the “Hogwarts” themed recruitment initiative brought in by now Minister of Recruitment Maowi. "Instead of a yes or no answer I will tell you some of the schemes I thought up when I was minister of the interior when we had mandatory recruitment. A family feud theme in which members of NS families would recruit and the family whose members recruited most won bragging rights. A MLK day themed one in which recruiters would pick MLK or Ghandi in a Rumble in the Jungle like fight between two famously non-violent figures. A WW3 scenario in which Americans (who after all make up most of our membership) recruit against non-Americans because they, in the story provided, managed to offend, and I quote: "Muslims, Jews, Europeans, South Americans, Communists, Fascists, and every other Color, Creed, and Nationality imaginable." In another one, recruiters could pick between two sides: Lethen or HEM. Lethen won. So I certainly came up with my share of "Hogwarts"-esque recruitment schemes. You can infer my support for the current initiative from that, if you like."

This history of Drecq's experiences reveals a past to the ministry whose success in terms of engagement has been a far cry from being reflected of late. Why? Does the fault lie in the department's leadership? "Partly yes, but not all leadership we have had in the Ministry of Recruitment/Interior has been bad. For a long time we simply had different priorities. The accepted wisdom was that automated recruitment and whatever small numbers of manual recruitment people wanted to provide without much incentive was sufficient. And because of that more time and energy was spent amending recruitment telegrams, to begin with, and setting up integration schemes that often lasted no more than a term or two. So sometimes it was poor leadership, but more often it was simply leadership directed into other avenues. A Ministry of Recruitment told to champion manual recruitment and a system set up to properly incentivize and reward manual recruitment would already be a great start. If that ministry would also then be well led we would be 9/10ths of the way to our goal. And all without forcing ministers and senators to recruit, or potentially even suspending otherwise active ministers and senators who had failed to recruit."

Back on track to Drecq's specific experience in today's Europeia, I asked, "as a currently serving senator, what are your responsibilities when reviewing the Mandatory Recruitment proposal, on behalf of the citizens of Europeia?" To which he succinctly responded: "my responsibilities are twofold: to consider whether I believe the policy to be, on average, harmful or helpful to the region. I consider it harmful. And then, if I can not stop it completely, which I still hope is a possibility, to mitigate the harm as much as possible." This response certainly displays a high degree of moral integrity that Drecq appears to have been determined to preserve, based on his comments on some of the discussion threads. I was curious, however, whether he would ever suggest mandatory recruitment if population growth in Europeia took a severe decline. For Drecq, it all depends upon how much power the Ministry of Recruitment itself would have in terms of reversing the situation. "Would the population decline be mirrored by other regions and thus probably be a reflection of an overall change in the creation of nations representing individual players? If so then probably not. If however Europeia were the only region affected by the decline and a change in management at the Ministry did not help and no increase in voluntary recruitment could conceivably be achieved in any way, then yes, I would support it. But we are not there. We are a long way from there."

With first minister elections looming and with them a change-over in Cabinet, I thought it prudent to obtain some advice for future leaders in the ministry. "A good Minister of Recruitment leads by example. They recruit and then they recruit more. But a good Minister of Recruitment also has ideas regarding how to incentivize others recruiting manually. That can be via games or competitions. It can be via rewards. It can be via sheer force of presence. It takes a lot of inventiveness to keep coming up with new ways to interest people in recruiting."

For those fresh, young Europeian eyes that may be wondering what this is all about, I asked Drecq if there is much he would say to them regarding mandatory recruitment, "Not really. Beyond maybe to keep an open mind and look at what the people arguing each side are saying. A good debate exposes a person to all sides of the argument. They then have to make up their own mind. I hope they agree with me, but if they don't then at least they will have come to that conclusion honestly and openly," he replied.

And for those that are still passionately debating the matter, Drecq responded, "Really probably the same thing, but long term Europeians tend to be an opinionated bunch. I would be surprised if most of them don't have an opinion already."

This interview has granted me a broader understanding of what drives people like Drecq to oppose this act. Having already stated my support for the proposal, I feel that my opinion has now slightly wavered with a more thorough understanding of the other side's view - although I still wouldn't say that I wholeheartedly oppose mandatory recruitment with a fervor such as Drecq's, or that of many others. What I can conclude, and what I have learned, is that the debate revolving around a proposal such as this isn't at all about a divide between Europeians; it's about the ingrained values that Europeians hold toward their rights and duties - values they stick to with a fury. Despite the strong divide in opinions, the discussion has been phenomenally productive, not only through its direct effects as the region considers mandatory recruitment, but by providing a stimulus to discuss successful recruitment, spread an understanding of the mechanisms to do with recruitment, investigate into and write articles about the effectiveness of manual recruitment, and simply to join the ministry and get recruiting. That is the beauty of our region.


 
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