Research for Personnel Retention

CRM DOO03033.Al Documents the Marine Corps Commissioned Officer Accession Career (MCCOAC) file, an events-based file that combines information from several data sources to describe the street-to-fleet process. Explains the method of compilation, and presents some initial analyses. Contains an Appendix describing the MCCOAC file format.

The Marine Corps has committed considerable resources to the development of the Total Force Data Warehouse (TFDW). This Oracle-based system allows Marine Corps analysts to look at the force historically and to do very detailed analysis of what it looks like today. A shortfall of the TFDW is that it cannot answer such "street-to-fleet" questions as: what enlisted recruit characteristics are associated with successful adaptation to the Marine Corps; and, what officer characteristics are associated with retention? The purpose of this Street-to-Fleet study was to identify the best historical data that could be found and to build accession-based files, for Marine Corps commissioned officer and enlisted personnel, organized by fiscal year of entry into the Marine Corps. In this volume of the final report, the Marine Corps attrition reasons (MCAR) and Marine Corps attrition interactive database (MCAID) databases for the enlisted personnel are described along with the procedures developed for updating them.

The Navy plans to recruit more than 55,000 youth into its active enlisted force each year for the foreseeable future. However, decision-makers fear that recruiting difficulties will continue and that this goal-recently revised downward from 58,000-is not feasible. The Integrated Warfare Architectures (IWARs) are a part of the Navy's annual planning process. This year's Manpower and Personnel IWAR focuses on increasing retention and the appeal of naval service. As part of this effort, N813 asked CNA to describe and evaluate alternative retention available to the Navy.

As the military health system (MHS) evolves to meet the managed care environment of the peacetime benefit mission, Navy Medicine in particular, and DOD in general, must continue to concern themselves with three principles: (1) Navy Medicine will attract and access quality individuals; (2) the medical department will retain the best of the people accessed; and (3) the best people will want to remain in the military because of the challenge, training, professional ism, and overall environment of Navy Medicine. DOD implemented TRICARE to maximize the quality of healthcare while minimizing the cost of that care. To meet this goal, military medicine must continue to attract and retain quality personnel under this changing work environment. Given these challenges and concerns, the Navy Surgeon General asked CNA to evaluate physicians' job satisfaction within the existing climate to determine whether major problems exist that adversely affect relation of specialists. We have examined Navy physician retention and compensation patterns over the past decade, and find that there has been a decline in retention for the majority of specialists, but the cause and extent of the decline are difficult to quantify. We have attempted to identify the main drivers behind this decline, including compensation, work environment, and promotion opportunity. Contrary to anecdotal evidence, there has been no decline in promotion opportunity] however, we do find that the military- pay gap has been widened by 4 to 24 percent for most specialties during the 1990s.