Officer Retention

[Ski]

There will be no solution until the Army leadership stops working off a "100% = success" system.

It's all about meeting numbers at this point. The entire Army, throughout all components, is becoming critically short on CPT's and MAJ's. Just look at the promotion rates over the last three years. It doesn't matter if you are the Morale and Welfare Officer at Ft. Greely, or the 977th Dishwashing and Laundry Company Commander, you're still going to make 04 without any difficulty, and 05 with a tiny bit of difficulty.

And since the Army has decided to expand by 35,000 pax, these strains will be accentuated rather than addressed because the focus is still on quantity, not quality.

[Van]

Footnote on the "Bad Bosses";

The tour where I decided to exit active duty ('99-'00), I had a BDE CDR who was a real 'go-to-war', light fighter, steely-eyed killer but had a command climate that made it clear that anyone without a ranger tab, anyone who wasn't an infantry officer, wasn't really worth his time, effort, or resources, and should be replaced by a "REAL" officer. In a light brigade, he might have been OK, but this was a mechanized BDE... I left that unit, and was back in the reserves a year later.

Fast forward six years... I did some drill days supporting an exercise, and COL Hoo-ah was in the same room as I was... He wasn't selected for BG, and all the Hoo-ah had left him.

I firmly believe that the heart of the problem is the 'flesh-trader' mentality of the Army's personnel system, treating all officers as interchangable with other officers of a given rank and specialty. That's what put an end to my time on active duty. The best example and most pathetic attempt at negotiation ever, was from my branch manager during my last phone-con with branch. This harassed, overworked/bumbling non-people oriented (you choose) individual couldn't wrap himself around the idea that there might be incentives other than my next assignment to pursuade me to stay on active duty, and that money was not the only reason I was leaving active duty.

[wm]

I firmly believe that the heart of the problem is the 'flesh-trader' mentality of the Army's personnel system, treating all officers as interchangable with other officers of a given rank and specialty.

Van,

I am sure that we all have some story (or stories) about a benighted branch assignment officer. But, these stories are just anecdotal symptoms of the big disease. The "flesh trader mentality" is not unique to the Army's personnel system. It has a much larger scope. It is best expressed in the discussions about reducing the "tooth to tail" ratio.

The miltary could have a very focused effort to match faces and spaces, put the best person for the job in that job. But to do so would require a much larger investment in people and time doing administrative/non-combat/tail sorts of things than our budgets allow. We see this fact in many places--reduction in lengths of time that folks are kept in training, the number of times that people are allowed to train, the move to replace manned with unmanned combat and surveillance vehicles being just a few examples. The point is that budgets drive us to do things we might not otherwise have chosen. However, I think that, to borrow Dr. Seuss's title, if I ran the circus, I'd spend a lot more of my money on the commodity most precious to any organization--the people and better systems to support their needs at the higher levels of Maslow's hierarchy.

Lest I be accused of one-sided thinking, let me acknowledge that there are other considerations that may be more unique to the military's need to manage people at the least common denominator. These have to do with interoperability and continuity of operations. When a TOC gets blown away, one must hope that the leadership was not so specialized that it was irreplaceable. (I realize that this example has a fair amount of hyperbole.) Perhaps a better example would be Army Engineers--one of their explicit missions in the 1993 vintage FM100-5 from is "to fight as infantry when required." Too much specialization and selectivity in assignments run counter to these requirements.

We must find a the middle way.

[Dennis]

I agree with the points made by Cavguy as the source of the issues and I concur with Rob's approach to the problem.

The system is way to focused on the 50 meter target (retaining first term guys) at the expense and disillusionment of the 100-150 meter target (2nd term and career guys.

The system of rewards have to get back to encouraging long term buy in to the organization and not just doing your 2-4 years and taking your money or education and heading off to the private sector to make some real money.

It's about rewarding the right behavior, which in turn shows what the system values. Right now those who have been sacrificing and who continue to do so are not rewarded accordingly. The incentives that were recently proposed for young CPTs is a perfect example, focus on getting the new people to sign up for longer but no reward for those that are already committed and will likely stay for 20.

I know that I initially joined the Army as a way to ensure an acceptable quality of life for my family and because I wanted to be part of an honorable and respected profession. I really can't complain about the rewards I have recieved as I have been able to give my family a great quality of life and have had a BA and now a master's paid for by the Army. However, it is difficult to see others who have done less and likely will do less get rewarded more simply because we need the bodies.

I agree with Rob's assessment that we must make the military be an attractive profession to the masses. This is very difficult in an economic environment that offers much greater monetary opportunities in the civilian sector.

Although I too would like to remain positive about this, the pragmatic side of me feels that this really won't get better until the US economy takes another down turn and it becomes attractive again for those high quality people, who succeed in everything they do, to stay on board for the long haul.

[Van]

WM
The solution is imbedded in your restatement of the problem, if I may quote slightly out of context:

a much larger investment in people

There's the solution, but noone in a position to change things is ready to acknowledge that the baby is really this ugly.

Now just a little more of the story; at the time that I left the AC, my branch had THE worst retention rate for company grade officers. Was the Korean War era personnel management system the only issue? No. Was it a major issue? Yes. I'll agree that it is part of a bigger problem, but I believe that it is "the last straw" for many folks we should really be trying to keep.