Research for retention
May 1, 2006
We examine the relationship between sea duty and first-term reenlistment decisions from FY95 through FY04. Once we control for other factors, we find that Sailors with 4 and 5-year initial obligations are more likely to reenlist if they are rotating to shore rather than rotating to sea over the entire time period examined. Recently, however, there has been a convergence between these reenlistment rate trends that is not explained by any factors in our model. From FY99 to FY03, Sailors with 6-year initial obligations going to sea duty had higher first-term reenlistment than those going to shore duty even controlling for other factors. For Sailors with 4, 5, or 6-year initial obligations we find that a marginal increase in the amount of time expected to be spent on sea duty in the second term does not have a large negative effect on reenlistment. Finally, we find that increasing deployment spells reduces retention, especially since FY00. While we find that marginal changes in sea duty or deployments will not have large negative retention effects, significant changes may. Thus, we discuss how different compensation tools could be used to address any negative retention effects related to sea duty.
January 1, 2006
The paper focuses on the post-9/11 relationship between deployment tempo and retention, especially on differences in responses for Marines with and with dependents. The main text describes major findings; the statistical work is found in the appendices. We found that, at least for career Marines and officers, high deployment tempo had little negative effect of reenlistment/continuation decisions. In fact, we found that officer retention increased with total days deployed or deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. On the other hand, we found that increases in deployed days lowered reenlistment rates for first-term Marines—particularly those without dependents. First-term Marines without dependents also averaged more deployed days than their counterparts with dependents. We focused mainly on retention in FY04, but we also looked at retention patterns in FY02 an FY03.
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October 1, 2005
The Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps asked CNA to examine the effects of current deployment tempo on retention. This study, which was sponsored by the Deputy Commandant, Manpower and Reserve Affairs, reports on the relationship between deployment tempo and reenlistment. It draws on information gathered through a series of focus groups with Marines on the east and west coasts as well as statistical analysis of deployed-day data matched with Marines’ personnel records. The study recommends several measures that could be adopted to ease the stress caused by deployments, including facilitating local exchanges between heavy deployers and nondeployers, providing forward-deployed mobile education vans, considering a wartime regular reenlistment bonus, and offering BAH/BAS for outstanding first-term NCOs.
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September 1, 2005
Congressional mandate requires DoD to review its forces, resources, and programs every 4 years. As part of this Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Personnel & Readiness requested an overview paper on how DoD can improve military manpower management. Given increasing personnel costs and budgetary pressures to control spending, cost-effective manpower management has taken on additional importance. We conclude that the military compensation package could be better aligned with what Servicemembers value. In particular, the value of the military retirement package to personnel is not commensurate with its significant cost to DoD. Furthermore, current rotation policies can significantly detract from military service; programs that allow personnel choice in their assignments would lower cost and improve the value of the overall compensation package. On the demand side, we conclude that current processes increase requirements. Rotation policies increase turnover and directly reduce performance. Furthermore, units and commands do not have visibility into the compensation or full cost of military personnel. Finally, DoD faces several constraints that result in decisions unrelated to the military mission. More discretion in using military personnel funds and relaxing the endstrength constraint would improve the cost-effectiveness of military manpower management.
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May 1, 2002
In recent years, the Seabee community-the Navy's 'construction force'-has become concerned about its ability to retain skilled enlisted personnel. It fears that the Seabees' expanded mission, hectic deployment schedule, and harsh work environments have created retention and manning difficulties, which will worsen due to recent sea pay increases for seagoing personnel. In response to these concerns, NAVFAC asked CNA to assess whether an additional Seabee compensation is warranted and, if so, to recommend appropriate pay delivery vehicles. For mid- and senior-grades, the Seabee sea retention and manning environments are generally similar to or worse than those experienced by similarly skilled shipboard personnel. Yet recent sea pay enhancements are designed to address fleet recruiting, retention, and manning problems. As such, they will provide a "fix" for the problems facing the shipboard groups, but will not improve Seabee conditions since Seabees do not receive sea pays during sea tours. Providing the Seabees with a pay comparable in size to sea pay enhancement would cost $2.9 to $4.3 million annually, depending on whether it targets manning shortfalls or is equally distributed. The most promising near-term compensation vehicles for this pay would be an increase in the meals or incidental expenses portion of per diem for Seabees, whereas a long-term fix might require the implementation of a distribution incentive pay with targeted Selective Reenlistment Bonus.
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January 1, 2002
CNA performed the Navy Specilaty Physician Study at the request of the Navy Surgeon General. The objective of the study was to further explore retention of Navy physicians, by identifying and tracking critical indicators of Navy physician retention, to provide BUMED information for improving personnel policy business practices. Years of practice in specialty, percent board certified, number of residents and fellows, and demographics are some of the critical indicators we tracked by specialty. In recognition of the typical career path of Navy physicians, our retention analysis considered matriculation and attrition rates. We found that the matriculation rate of newly trained specialists has improved since FY 1987. We believe this is a result of the April 1988 active duty GME obligation policy change. To provide policy-makers some context and comparison for our findings, we explored some of the physician recruitment and retention strategies being used in the civilian sector. This information will help policy-makers better understand the Navy's competitive position when it competes for physicians.
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November 1, 2001
This survey represents a survey of enlisted retention models and findings. It includes discussion of: the Annualized Cost of Leaving (ACOL) model; panel prohibit models; conditional logit models; multinomial logit models; reverse causation between bonuses and the reenlistment rate; joint models of attrition and retention; elasticity computation; elasticity estimates; estimation of discount rates; and, effects of variables other than pay.
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July 1, 2001
The Navy expects to enlist about 55,000 sailors each year in the near future, and faces the challenge of training and delivering these recruits to operational billets. Accordingly, policy-makers wish to monitor the fraction of recruits who complete training, as well as the time it takes them to reach the fleet. In this report, we track sailors "from street to fleet, " analyzing factors that influence attrition from the Navy during the period of initial skills training. A companion report describes street-to-fleet trends and focuses on the time it takes recruits to reach the fleet. The Director, Assessment Division (N81) requested this study as part of the Navy's Manpower and Personnel Integrated Warfare Architecture (IWAR). The IWAR is a planning vehicle that uses analyses to shape long-range goals and policies. This study examines prefleet attrition from the Navy; it does not investigate losses from the fleet, attrition from specific courses, or transitions between training programs. CNA conducted a regression analysis to define patterns in attrition as they relate to gender, rating, and training time.
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September 1, 2000
One of the biggest issues of concern to military personnel is the military "pay gap". Many are troubled by the possibility that the level of military pay has declined significantly relative to that of civilian wages. A common concern is that a civilian-military wage differential will quickly lead to retention and recruiting problems for the military. Furthermore, many in the Navy believe that the differentials are more prevalent in some ratings than in others-specifically, that the highly technical ratings are having the largest retention and recruiting problems as a result of relatively high civilian pay. Given these concerns, the objective of this study is to examine the correlation between manning shortfalls in various Navy enlisted ratings and the relative earnings of enlisted personnel in these occupations. We also examine differences in military compensation from one rating to another and compare these differentials with those in the civilian sector. In addition, we examine the relationship between military compensation and the propensity to reenlist, using our mew measure of occupation-specific relative military compensation. This analysis yields estimates of the responsiveness of reenlistment rates to changes in relative pay, which can be used to estimate the change in compensation necessary to achieve manning level targets on a rating-by-rating basis.
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