![]() ![]() ![]() Officers deemed high-performing by promotion boards, for example, will wear the rank and be compensated for the promotion up to a year before their peers. Using existing regulations and provisions granted in recent defense authorization acts, the services have announced some changes and begun implementing others to promote officers based on merit and performance. Take the “up or out” system, whose rigidity can delay the advancement of talented people - or force them to leave the service altogether. They have also been removing inefficiencies in recruitment and retention by eliminating outdated barriers to entry and reentry into military service. Related: Esper to DOD: Expect to Telework for 'Weeks For Sure, Maybe Months' Related: The US Navy Needs More Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchells Related: Barred from Combat, These Women Rose to the Top of Military Intelligence. In response, military leaders have been mulling, and in some cases actually implementing, personnel policies and personnel management technology that acknowledge and serve the needs of a modern work force. Defense budget cuts and a predilection to cut military personnel/end strength before multi-year acquisition programs will continue to strain the force. Skills that are vital to a 21st-century military are also coveted by well-heeled corporations. Changing societal norms and technological advances mean that recruits and troops want flexibility in career and family decisions. Public-opinion polls show that fewer Americans have a personal connection to the military. Demographic trends show a declining population of young men and women who are eligible for service. ![]() Meanwhile, all of the pre-pandemic pressures are still in effect. The move toward virtuality in work and personal life will further power the tech industry’s ascendance in a post-pandemic world, driving competition for people with technical skills. But the work-from-home revolution engendered by the country-wide lockdown shows just how flexible corporate America can and will continue to be. If the trillions of dollars in pandemic-relief spending lead to lower defense budgets and end-strengths, the services will need to be better equipped to identify and retain exactly the right people with the right mix of skills and experience.Ĭurrent record levels of unemployment, coupled with the way calamity often draws Americans to public service, may yield a bumper crop of talented recruits in the months and years to come. Yet for all Defense Department leaders’ talk about the qualitative advantage that American troops possess over our adversaries, still innovation and investment in people processes have taken a back seat to exquisite and expensive weapons. The COVID-19 crisis has shown how critically important personnel are to overall readiness. Now is the time to press forward with reforms. But the pandemic will bring changes to the labor market and to defense budgets that will make it harder to compete for the talent that is key to great power competition. military has long seen the need to move past various industrial-age personnel policies as it works to attract and retain talented people, and has begun to do so. ![]()
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