It's minus 15C, the snow is gusting sideways and Michael Page, a product manager with Sage Group, the accountancy software firm, is 150 miles inside the Arctic Circle, halfway up a Norwegian mountain.

He has jumped into a lake through a hole in the ice, wearing skis and an 801b backpack. This evening he must trek higher up the mountain, dig a cave in the snow and sleep in it.

Tomorrow he will learn how to skin and gut a reindeer - and then cook one over a brushwood fire.

This is not some extreme Nordic take on The Krypton Factor - the ITV1 show that Sage sponsors - but Exercise Hairspring, a gruelling two-week boot camp during which 82 recruits from the Royal Marine Reserve (RMR) and Territorial Army learn how to survive and fight in some of the harshest conditions on Earth.

Each participant has their own motivation. Mr Page, who has military forebears - one grandfather was a Marine, the other a paratrooper - is no different. He cites the physical and mental challenge, the contrast to office life and a belief that “you can't expect others to go out and fight on your behalf if you're not prepared to add your own name to the list”.

But just as simulating war in the snow might seem increasingly irrelevant at a time when most of Britain's Armed Forces are deployed in deserts - an anachronistic re-enactment of the Cold War that first brought them to train in Soviet-neighbouring Norway in the 1960s - such exercises might appear out of step with recession. Employers can't spare what staff they have and employees might think twice before spending too much time out of the office.

The demand side is straightforward. Military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan mean that Britain is leaning on its 39,000 reservists more heavily than at any time since the Second World War, with about half having been mobilised for full-time service over the past six years. Last April alone, an unprecedented 45 per cent of the RMR was on active duty.

And the supply side? John Lunn, a member of the management group of PA Consulting, the management consultant, who has an employee on exercise in Norway, is typical of the implicit encouragement provided by employers. “We do what we can to support staff within our commercial constraints,” he says. This means flexibility for employees using lunch hours to keep fit and one evening a week and one weekend a month for training. Most companies grant reservists additional leave for their annual fortnight of continuous training.

Yet if there is a clear upside from employing a reservist in tougher times, it is the financial benefit from the Ministry of Defence, which funds the sort of management development programme that otherwise might have to be undertaken by the company. According to research by Leeds Business School, employers would have to pay about £9,100 to purchase the same type of training in civilian skills.

Lieutenant-Colonel Phil Sampson of RMR Tyne, commanding officer of Exercise Hairspring, says: “The training is the key. Employers get their people developed at our expense.”

Peter Brennan, director of leisure and amenity services at Wandsworth Borough Council, concurs: “I spend around £30,000 a year on training. If I have a way of reducing that without reducing the skills at my disposal then that is extremely useful.”

Wandsworth might be considered unusual, in that it goes out of its way to hire from the military by placing recruitment adverts in Armed Forces' magazines. “I don't have to worry about personnel development because it's already been covered by their training. They know about budgeting, forecasting and business plans. The risk that comes with any new recruit is minimal.” His message to other employers is simple: “Don't worry about the time out. It is more than compensated by the added value you get back in terms of the finished package.”

Mr Brennan cites an additional, perhaps unexpected side-effect of an engagement with reservists. One of his staff, a tree surgeon, suffered shrapnel wounds and tinnitus from a grenade attack in Afghanistan in 2007 and was off work for 12 months. “He's a bit of a hero within the department. It's hard to pin down, but having that direct connection gives a bit of a lift to everyone who works with him.”

What is surprising is that some private sector organisations do not keep tabs on how many reservists they employ - a sharp contrast with most parts of the public sector, especially the police, fire brigade and prison service, which for operational reasons have a quota systems for reservists.

That might be an oversight, given the leadership and teamworking that military involvement can bring. If, according to Winston Churchill, the reservist is “twice the citizen”, a part-time member of the Armed Forces might be double the regular employee.

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