This Week at War: General Casey's Doubts

As a U.S. Army (Reserve) Major, I received an email last week offering $10,000 for me to stay in the Reserves; the military would guarantee me two years of non-deployment dwell time for that incentive bonus. I would guess that on the first day of the third year, I’d be packing my bags for a deployment. While my ethos is grounded in the military and my heart and mind are often on the frontlines, I – like many other mid-career officers – am pulled between my family/young children and this call to duty.

The CSA has acknowledged that we are already at a precipice with the health of the officer corps, specifically junior officers. In fact, the Army is about 15 percent short of its goal of 15,700 majors. Why is there a major shortage of majors during a period of growth for the Army, what is the cause, and how is the Army addressing the challenge?

A 2007 GAO on Retention report stated that the Army “projects a shortage of 3,000 or more officers annually through FY 2013. To address the 20% shortcoming in officer strength across the junior ranks, the Army implemented a zealous promotion rate for lieutenants (from 60% in 1997 to 90% in 2008). Furthermore, 97% of captains, and 95% of majors will be promoted this year. All of these factors have had a cascading effect on the overall force quality as young officers do not have the time in key jobs to master their duties and responsibilities. And, needless to say, there is little culling going on within these ranks.

As a “quick fix” to the shortfall, we have shifted our recruitment pools from traditional sources.

Officer Candidate School, which serves as a pathway for enlisted soldiers to transition to the officer corps and a mechanism for rapid acquisition of officers in response to mobilization requirements, grew from providing 10 percent of commissioned cohort to more than 40 percent, and was the single largest source of commission in 2008.

Army ROTC (from 2-4-year scholarship programs) traditionally provides the bulk, 70%, of candidates through a combination of military science training in conjunction with regular college education at approximately 270 colleges across the U.S.. Navy ROTC have a presence at 71 campuses, and Air Force ROTC is on 144 campuses. ROTC provides each service with the flexibility to adjust the number of grads who are commissioned into either the Active or Reserve components each year to meet changing manpower objectivesROTC has historically provided nearly 70 percent of the annual cohort; a steady decline since the late 90’s (when the Army commissioned approximately 3,500 each year) now hovers around 42% lowered the ROTC pool to 2,100 annually). In YG2006, ROTC was nearly 6,000 candidates short of its goal. The Army has filled the lacuna with commissions from the OCS.

The shift in commissions from ROTC to OCS requires the Army to reach deeper into its pool of seasoned sergeants to commission new officers. The consequence is that the quality of the share of OCS candidates is decreasing, as evidenced by their scores on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, which determines basic qualification for enlistment and predicts future aptitude and career success. Put another way, to fill our ranks, we are commissioning “officers with a reduced likelihood of academic or occupational success” at a pace faster than ever before. Finally, by granting commissions to senior NCOs who are already near their retirement mark, the Army gains a seasoned veteran but he or she will remain on active duty at lower rates than all other commissioned scholarship officers, so this ultimately does not help fill the dearth of high-quality mid-career officers.

USMA, a third source, provides a Congressionally-mandated 20% of commissions or approximately 950 candidates each year (of an applicant pool of nearly 13,000 annually). These numbers have remained steady over the decades, and thankfully, the quality selection pool has not dropped since 9/11.

Retaining officers from all sources is essential to the health of our military. “Unlike the corporate sector, which can expand or contract quickly in response to market needs, pulling talent from various sources such as the military or various industries,” there is no lateral entry in the Army because our developmental structure and “industry-specific” training limit the ability of even a successful corporate leader to assimilate quickly into the culture.

The good new is that the Army is no longer hemorrhaging junior officers, due in part to the state of the economy and incentives like the G.I. Bill. But the underlying bad news is that it is only holding steady at a rate that is 15-20% under required strength, and there is no comprehensive Army strategy to correct the market.

The root causes of understrength status are not exclusively associated with OIF and Afghanistan, however. The downward trend started in the late 90’s and has precipitously fallen, due in great part to low continuation rates from prosperous civilian opportunities and post Cold-War military downsizing.

Army Majors debating at the Army Combined Arms College are quick to note that many variables influence their decisions to leave.
--Majors are usually at the age where they are starting or raising a family, and more now than ever, balancing two careers with a spouse. Repeat deployments have caused unbearable strains on this demographic and family wellness.
---Second, “many majors feel a communications gap between them and senior leaders” that might easily be addressed through more effective mentoring.
--Third, a sufficient number of my classmates, USMA YG95, felt their skills were under- or poorly utilized, degrading the value of their undergraduate education as well as skills and knowledge gained through civilian schooling or self-development. In fact there are only 1000 “developmental” O-4 jobs available for which the 15,000 majors compete.
--Rising opportunity costs for well-trained young leaders and lack of job satisfaction - or in other words, ineffective officer talent management – are two of the greatest detractors from continued duty.

Maybe some of this is the typical whining that we all do at some point, and maybe only the best steel will survive the hottest fire, but with the threat of a hollow Army, these issues warrant further consideration, as does one other factor that the military can more swiftly remedy. . .

In summary, the confluence of downsizing, civilian alternatives, and the strains of combat intersects with still another significant variable influencing officer retention -- an anachronistic officer talent management framework in which we match faces to spaces, failing to associate talents and competencies with the needs of the Army. Talent management is a mindset that goes beyond the rhetoric toward a holistic and integrated approach to leveraging the greatest competitive advantage from people. It also refers to those special strategies an organization deploys to recruit, retain and develop its pool of top talent. It is key to leveraging a competitive advantage in peace and war.

We desperately need to improve our talent management system. An April 2009 paper published by the Director of OEMA puts it this way:

“The U.S. Army’s capacity to match officer talents to emerging challenges is antiquated. Its legacy personnel management tools were designed to align faces and spaces rather than talents and competency requirements. Today, the Army cannot fully employ the talented officers for whom it expends great resources to access, retain, and develop, nor does it articulate its talent requirements to officers so that they can structure their development in consonance with Army needs.”

To address the shortage in the quantity and quality of officers, the military has implemented financial and opportunity incentive programs for lieutenants and captains. For an exchange of three additional years of service, USMA and ROTC cadets receive the promise of graduate schooling, PCS station, or branch choice. Presently, 25% of ROTC and 15% of USMA cadets chose the graduate school option; besides improving continuance rates, it is hoped that this advanced civilian schooling will produce a better-educated, broader thinking officer corps.

For Army majors commissioned before 1998, however, there are fewer incentives available. In fact, According to a 2007 report by the Government Accountability Office, the Navy and Air Force pay about 10 times the amount the Army pays in retention-related incentives to equivalent ranks. As one Army “Major skeptic” stated, “a Navy lieutenant commander, the equivalent of an Army major, commissioned in 1997 could have received $121,000 in retention bonuses during his 12-year career; over that same time, an Army infantry officer would receive zero additional pay.”
.
In response to the call for improved “talent management”, a social networking Web 2.0 technology pilot program is underfoot in the Army Engineer branch that attempts to allow officers to proactively list on an Internet profile page (similar to “Facebook”) their unique skillsets or hobbies that may be of use to the military. While our officer records contain source of commission and education data, awards and training, this is ostensibly the limit of the information. As a result of this limited available information for branch managers or commanders in the field, our organizational capacity to adapt or link “the right person at the right place at the right time” is impaired.

An OEMA report advocating for this talent management program goes on to say, “The U.S. Army has been called upon to assume broad responsibility for reconstruction operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and New Orleans. Efforts to adapt to these new missions have generated considerable demand for officers who are professionally certified to guide structural, hydraulic, geological, transportation, power distribution, and other engineering projects. For example, while the Army carries hundreds of engineer officers on its ledgers, many of them lack the specific competencies required to conceive, plan, or execute reconstruction projects. Conversely, many engineer officers do possess these competencies, but as they stem from developmental experiences outside of those recorded within the current personnel information set, the Army does not “know” who or where they are in time of need.” The talent management Web 2.0 technology is an attempt to fix that.

Let’s hope that our Army can simultaneously address the quality of our officer corps and begin to better match talent to requirement in this time of need. Maybe a surge of forces is necessary in Afghanistan, but it goes without saying that talent management – placing the right person (e.g. from female engagement team experts to COMISAF) n the right place at the right time – and enabling them to do the job right – is even more critical.