Retention In The National Guard

1. Introduction
The United States Congress has for many years been directly involved in ensuring that the country has a fully equipped standing military force that is capable of dealing with any external or internal threat. One of the ways it does this is to make laws that influence how the different branches of the United States military recruit and retain soldiers. For example, the Congress has the power to set the maximum number of men and women a branch of the military can have. This will have a direct influence on the branch’s recruitment policies (Kapp, 2014; 2012). The Congress can also set compensation levels e.g. separation incentives, educational benefits, recruitment bonuses, retention bonuses, and salary. The Congress can also set the eligibility criteria for recruitment and retention i.e. the qualifications that one must meet to serve in any branch of the United States Armed Forces. Some of the eligibility requirements in place right now dictate the behavior, the citizenship, the cognitive capacity, and the age group that a potential recruit must have to be enlisted. The Congress also sets and authorizes funding for enlisting and retention of enlisted soldiers. Lastly, since the Congress has the oversight authority on behalf of the public, it is its duty to also monitor the quality and performance of each branch of the Armed Forces and to recommend remedial measures in case it notes any issues.
Retention is a rate. Specifically, it is the rate at which soldiers voluntarily opt to continue serving the country as military personnel at the end of their mandatory term of service. Poor retention by some branches of the military can unbalance the country’s Armed Forces. One of the biggest concerns with regards to the retention rate is when the rate is low resulting in fewer experienced soldiers and leaders. This often, in turn, results in lower job satisfaction and reduced efficiency. Poor retention was especially a concerning issue a few years ago when many soldiers opted to leave the military immediately after their mandatory service because of battlefield trauma and PTSD. But things have changed. Now experts are more concerned about the government’s own move to reduce the size of the US military. The experts are thinking that this will result in many people fighting for the few remaining leadership and serving positions. Some are thinking that promotions, which are an incentive in the current military structure, will also reduce in a bid to keep the military as streamlined as possible in the proposed lean structure (Kapp, 2014; 2012). There is no doubt if the structure is actualized, the military will become less attractive for many young people.
This paper investigates the issue of retention in one specific branch of the United States Army – the Army National Guard. Some of the sources utilized to inform this paper include official references from the Army Reserve and Active Component and civilian sources.
2. Statement of the Problem
The retention of experienced army staff – both officers and recruited forces – is important to make sure unit morale is high and that the unit has a natural leader who is prepared to make them ready for war. Retention is also key to avoid the cost and time taken to retrain new enlisted forces and officers. Good retention rates are also important to ensure assigned tasks or missions can be completed quickly and efficiently. The best way to ensure that the Army National Guard (ARNG) retains as much of its personnel as possible, is to teach enlistees the right attitude from the get go and to instill in them the ethos of togetherness and other aspects that the Army National Guard is associated with before they start experiencing the inevitable negatives of serving in the army (Kapp, 2014; Figinski, 2017). The ARNG has not been able to meet its retention goals for many years. This has been a major issue in political circles. The fact that the budget of the military branch continues to be slashed almost every other year, ARNG is seemingly unlikely to reverse the trend. Many experts, researchers and commentators have given different reasons as to why soldiers are leaving ARNG just after the completion of their mandatory term (Kapp, 2014). The two most commonly cited reasons why ARNG has poor retention rates are: lack of useful training and lack of good leadership.
3. Research Question(s) and Strategy
· How well is the National Guard retaining soldiers? Is the military meeting its strength numbers target?
· How can the ARNG staff especially the Sergeant Majors and the Command Sergeant Major help to reverse the poor retention in the military unit?
· What strategies can implemented to deal with poor retention at ARNG.
To find the answers to the above questions, the author of this paper decided to use a systemic review study design. The study also involved looking at official documents, policy documents, reports, government papers, declassified documents and journal articles. The search commenced through the search of the ProQuest, EBSCO and Google. Keywords search as “national army retention,” “Army retention strategy,” “retention in the National Guard.” The search went well and yielded important information articles that were later reviewed and used by the author to write the final paper. Recency was one of the factors looked at by the author. Only those information materials written less than 14 years ago were considered for this study.
4. Literature Review
Serving the United States military is a high-demand job but with very little control. Some former soldiers say it is one of the most stressful jobs they have ever done (Kapp, 2014). Soldiers usually are given tough tasks but not enough resources to complete them quickly and effectively. And even when soldiers complete assigned tasks, they usually do not spend a lot of free time before getting assigned another task. The little control is brought about by the fact that the US Army, like most other Western Nation armies, is very hierarchical. This structure makes it easy to control personnel but it is not very progressive as it leaves the worker with no choice or social support. Since social support is very important, soldiers usually end up feeling tired and without any morale to complete regular tasks.
The recruitment and retention of officers and enlistees is very important to the Army National Guard. This is because without enough personnel, the military unit may not function effectively. The power and usefulness of the Army National Guard is based on its capacity to recruit the right people in numbers and to retain them for long. However, despite the importance of recruitment and enlisting, the Army National Guard has not acted decisively to stop its poor enlisting and retention numbers. A recent report, in fact, showed that the poor retention is hurting the operations of the Army National Guard. Moreover, since the unit’s recruiting strategy is to look for young people with no prior experience via its many recruiting and advertising strategy, it just ends up getting more people instead of finding those who are committed to the Guard and developing those already recruited. The advertising strategy is to display adverts of men and women in uniform training or in action. This leads to recruits signing up for that kind of action. And after a while, when the unit does not to war the excitement and job satisfaction goes down and hence the defections. However, in some cases, the advertisements work to help recruiters to attract people to work for the National Guard for the excitement, the income, the education, and the brotherhood.
Civilian careers
Before the September 11 Bombing in New York military reservists typically trained just once a month and a couple of weeks every summer. However, after the bombing and because of the threats the country faced, reservists are now required to train almost full time (Figinski, 2017). And with more countries needing the help of the United States, it is likely that the importance of reservists and the national Guard as a whole will go up. However, the increased reliance on reservist has continued to strain the lives of those affected. For some reservists it has affected their civilian careers. This is because for one to be a reservist nowadays and there is a need for lots of training and that may require one to be absent for extended periods of time. Nevertheless, there is the 1994 USERRA (Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment Act that provides protection to such members as it makes discrimination based on military membership. It also calls for employers to provide employees with an unpaid leave when in military duties (Figinski, 2017).
Nevertheless, there are indications that the USERRA act that is is not entirely effective in preventing discrimination against National Guard reservists. The indications are in the form of news reports by mainstream media houses that some employers do not even give National Guard reservists even the chance to work with them. They just want to recruit employees who will be with the 24/7.
Command Sergeant Major (CSM) / Sergeant Majors
CSMs are the organization’s Senior Retention NCO. Every CSM ought to take personal accountability to make sure that the retention and attrition goals for their allotted command are met as stated below (“Retention of the Georgia Army National Guard” n.d.):
a. Stress on the responsibilities of SM to First Line Leaders, First Sergeants, Sergeants Major, as well as any other individuals in the support channel of NCO, offering guidance.
b. Make sure that the NCODP (Non-Commisioned Officer Development Program) entails SM training and highlights the responsibilities of First Line Leaders.
c. Stress on SM in every unit inspection and visit, putting special stress on retention-connected and attrition management activities.
d. Advise unit leaders and commanders on every action and event that impacts SM.
e. Guarantee the development as well as the implementation of the RMS Unit Sponsorship Program in order to integrate incoming or new soldiers to the unit. The successful application of this particular program leads to faster assimilation of new soldiers into the present team and heightens their satisfaction resulting to high retention and low attrition.
f. Make sure that both counselling and interviews are performed and recorded in RMS to standard and on time in order to expose and deal with challenges related to soldier retention in the National Guard.
g. Ensure that there is proper execution of flow of information (communication) from the organization’s leadership to the respective soldier as well as family members. Through ensuring that every unit and members of the family are receiving similar information, rumor control and the frustration of being aware of what is taking place will significantly decrease. Keep every soldier informed on the plans as well as programs of the unit.
h. Implement retention/attrition objectives in non-commissioned officer assessment reports to ensure the accountability of these objectives to these particular leaders.
i. Make sure that both attrition and retention training are carried out utilizing the full spectrum tools of retention available via the RRC.
j. Help the commander in the development of a USET (Unite Strength enhancement Team) to implement campaign activities of unit strength readiness in synchrony with the committed RRNCO in the course of IDT periods or in divided drill status as established by the commander (“Retention of the Georgia Army National Guard” n.d.).Every soldier assigned to the USET ought to be fully engrossed on strength connected activities for the entire duration of their appointment to their respective teams.
k. Utilize the DSRO (Director’s Strength Readiness Overview) and RMS (Retention Management Software) to sustain transparency of the strength readiness posture unit. The DRSO allows for the pushing of data to junior commanders to make sure that this data is effectively communicated and conveyed down the command chain (“Retention of the Georgia Army National Guard” n.d.). The Retention Management Software program was developed to take attrition/retention from handwritten driven procedures to automated procedures that make it a lot easier to keep track of attrition/retention at each of the ten levels. This particular data helps the leaders in determining trends of loss as well as soldiers approaching ETS and career counselling opportunities.
l. Make sure that the unit employees allotted to procedure incentive contracts specifically in RMS have been trained and understand the RMS re-enlistment/extension flow chart utilized in processing incentive plea.
The ARNG is not completely dependent on volunteers for recruiting positions. Most recruiters begin as soldiers that are pursuing a Title 32 Active Guard/Reserve (AGR) active duty. They might be interviewed and then eventually receive dedicated recruiter training. Nonetheless, most are inspired to acquire the job security of a full time Active Guard/Reserve position versus craving a recruiting job (“Retention of the Georgia Army National Guard” n.d.). The present process of screening mainly focuses on the potential of the recruited NCO’s personal success and history in his unit compared to his aptitude in the difficult job of Guard recruitment. An experienced recruiter does not conduct screening on the potential recruiters and communication skills do not get assessed. Successful recruiters should be capable of effectively communicating with different individuals of the civilian group and also be capable of convincing them of the great benefits of the military service. Apart from prospective recruits, these individuals include teachers, parents, coaches, guidance counsellors, school administrators, coaches and any other individuals that might influence prospective recruits.
Current Army National Guard Retention Strategy
The present ARNG retention strategy is mainly focused on the standard of total strength instead of an inclusive program. There exists a re-enlistment bonus plan for particular low density, high demand MOS employees but does not include majority of the rank-and-file unit soldiers. In the ARNG, there is a codified process of interviewing unit soldiers at various milestones as they near their End Time in Service (ETS) dates. Interviews move up the command chain as the end time in service approaches and the soldier is still not re-enlisted. The metrics, however, that are kept track of apart from raw strength numbers are the turnover and retention rates.
The majority of technique and responsibility is at the feet of the unit commanders in every level. In the majority of cases, it is at the Battalion level and below that tracking and guidance become specific enough to create one’s very own techniques, tactics, and processes. In this particular level and those below, leaders make a huge difference regarding whether or not a soldier leaves or stays. Unfortunately, a lot of young company grade officers don’t realize their role, both directly and indirectly. They are usually occupied trying to accomplish several tasks to keep their respective units trained, administered, and out of any trouble.
These particular company grade officers mostly require a little bit more than the mentorship from their commander who clarifies to them the importance of retention to the unit in completing its mission. This very important communication hardly ever takes place. The drill- particularly the OPD (Officer Development Program) is the best setting to achieve this, but the commander of the Battalion is always held up in a meeting or some recent crisis from the commander of the Brigade. Such basic guidance like requesting the soldiers to re-enlist themselves goes unmentioned. There are thousands of former soldiers out there who could have been valuable assets to the Army had their commander simply requested them to stay and re-enlist.
Support of the employer is a huge determinant in the present retention of National Guard soldiers. I strongly believe that for majority of the ARNG soldiers, the single weekend per month and two training weeks per year are not contention points with their respective employers. I also believe that employers consider and accept genuine state emergencies as a mission that their personnel is subject to attend to. Most employers are, indeed indirect or direct recipients of this relief effort.
Conceptual framework: Job Demand-Control-Support Model
The JDCS (Job Demand-Control-Support) model was initially developed to assess how the social arrangement of the work environment impacts physical health (Karasek and Theorell, 1990). Ever since then, the model has been utilized to assess several results connected to the welfare of employees, including distress, depression, job satisfaction and strain. According to the JDCS model, there are three different dimensions of the workplace; job control, social support, and job demand, that affect both the emotional and physical wellbeing of an employee. JDCS has two major hypotheses, the buffer and the iso-strain hypothesis. The former (buffer hypothesis) states that in high strain professions, social supports controls the impacts of high strain on the outcomes of an individual’s well-being. The later (iso-strain hypothesis) states that employees with lo control, low demand, and low support social jobs get to experience the highest strain and lowest levels of an individual’s well-being.
5. Reference List
“RETENTION OF THE GEORGIA ARMY NATIONAL GUARD.” Retention Program Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) (n.d). Retrieved from https://georgiag1.net/sopHub/documents/retention/GAARNG Retention SOP.pdfv4.pdf
Figinski, T.F. (2017). Research: Companies Are Less Likely to Hire Current Military Reservists. The Harvard Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/10/research-companies-are-less-likely-to-hire-current-military-reservists
Kapp, L. (2012). Recruiting and retention: An overview of FY2010 and FY2011 results for active and reserve component enlisted personnel. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.
Kapp, L. (2014). Recruiting and retention: an overview of FY2012 and FY2013 results for active and reserve component enlisted personnel. Washington, USA: Congressional Research Service.
Pflanz, S. E., & Ogle, A. D. (2006). Job stress, depression, work performance, and perceptions of supervisors in military personnel. Military medicine, 171(9), 861-865.
Takami, D. K. (2000). Recruiting and Retention in the Army National Guard: Back to the Basics and Back to the Future. ARMY WAR COLL CARLISLE BARRACKS PA.
Theorell, T., Karasek, R. A., & Eneroth, P. (1990). Job strain variations in relation to plasma testosterone fluctuations in working men?a longitudinal study. Journal of internal medicine, 227(1), 31-36.