Military Personnel: Services Need to Assess Efforts to Meet Recruiting Goals and Cut Attrition

摘要

To address mounting problems in recruiting sufficient numbers of qualified enlisted personnel, three services-the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force-have increased their numbers of recruiters and their advertising budgets and have offered larger enlistment bonuses and more money for college. These tools have been shown by past research to help the services attract new recruits. The services have also sought innovative ways of expanding their recruiting market without reducing the quality of recruits, for example, by targeting persons attending community colleges and persons without high school degrees who meet other quality standards. Because so little time has passed since the services have begun to respond to their recent recruiting problems, they cannot yet assess the long-term success of their efforts. Also, the services do not yet know which of their new recruiting initiatives work best. For example, the Navy does not know the extent to which each of the changes it has made to its recruiting program- increasing its number of recruiters, its advertising budget, or its enlistment bonuses-contributed toward meeting its goal in fiscal year 1999 and whether that strategy will work in the future. Finally, while each of the services might point to localized successes, such as the Army's ability to channel young people into hard-to-fill jobs by offering large enlistment bonuses, DOD does not know the extent to which the services might be competing with each other for the same potential recruits. Until sufficient time has passed and each of the services consistently meets its goal, DOD cannot be assured that individual service strategies will collectively enable DOD to meet its overall recruiting requirements.