US Military Talent Management: Systematic Investment for Optimal Performance - Essay Sample

Introduction

One of the problems that hinder the optimal performance of the US military is talent management. Talent, in military terminology, can be described as the summary of a soldier’s unique skills, behaviors, and skills. A soldier’s raw talent comprises of various factors including background, education, familiar background, personality as well as learning style. US Army 2016) describe management of military talent as the systemic investment in soldier, ensuring proper placement, empowerment in the process. The US has been facing severe issues in terms of manning the Military, especially in keeping good quality talent within its ranks. Several factors have contributed to this problem, among them being competitive with the private sector for the same talent. This report will outline several findings of what prevents the Military from retaining the right talent and how it can be solved.

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Findings

Recent research by the US army recruitment found out that only 1% of the Military’s prime demographic targets are willing to join the Military, and even if they considered joining, 30% would not meet the required standards.

Pay and compensation terms have been termed as one of the contributors to the low talent retention rates within the Military. Even though the pay is competitive, it has been a contributing issue for solders and well taken signing off. In a recent survey, approximately 30% of Army soldiers are satisfied with their basic salaries (Nissen & Tick, 2018). Only 24% believe that the compensation is appropriate given their lifestyle, expectations as well as working conditions. It has been noted that soldiers are leaving the ranks in large numbers to join the private sector, which has been paying better salaries compared to the mainstream Military.

Frustration due to complex military bureaucracies. It has been noted that a lot of quality military talent has left the military ranks because of its rigidity and institutional bureaucracies in its promotional processes (Alvarado, 2019). Career progress in the form is filled with many processes, which has contributed to several ambitious recruits to leave. The army and the Military, in general, have failed to ensure that they upgrade and ease their bureaucratic tendencies, which affect morale and will to continue serving in the forces. For the Military to deal with this challenge, it needs to come up with processes that inspire and challenge their young and battle-tested officers. These would include policies such as merit-based promotions and training opportunities to encourage more to continue serving in the Military.

Private-sector competition and a growing economy: The private sector has been fiercely competing for quality talent with the Military, especially in areas of technological subjects (Nissen & Tick, 2018). The availability of private sector opportunities has been encouraging soldiers to leave the army and join the private sector for better pay, work-life balance, among other benefits. Besides, before Covid 19 pandemic, a growing economy and availability of job opportunities have encouraged soldiers to take employment opportunities. The US economy before 2020 has been growing steadily and creating many job opportunities that saw the US military miss their recruitment quotas in 2018 for the first time in many years (Asch, 2019). To counter this challenge, the Military needs to improve the available opportunities within the military forces. These could be in terms of training opportunities and promotions. Therefore, the military talent management system would need a lot of reforms and progress. To compete effectively with the private sector for quality talent (Kane, 2017).

Failure to manage talent appropriately: this is a contributing factor in that leaders at the low-ranking military levels fail to keep the performance records of their officers and soldiers accurately. This implies that eventually, great leaders are denied available opportunities since their performance evaluations were done poorly. This makes such quality talent to feel dejected, which prompt them to leave the military ranks for better opportunities in the private sector.

Lack of training efficiency: despite the substantial investment by the Military on leadership development of soldiers and Non-Commissioned Officers, there is evidence to suggest that there is a need for significant changes in the training of soldiers. There is an argument that there is a lack of a business-like approach in how resource allocation is done. The consequence of this problem is that officers in the Military lack critical management skills despite spending their whole careers in staff positions. This renders them inadequately prepared to handle large projects and budgets. This significant critical training gap is further made worse by an inefficiency culture that rarely focuses on the evaluation of a soldier’s performance, productivity (Bressett, 2018). This ultimately leads to soldiers, and otherwise, top talent feels there are adequately taken care of in terms of training needs, which prompts them to leave the Military in search of other fulfilling careers. The Military should adopt a strategy for training by employing tools used in the private sector, such as the lean Six-sigma development programs. These programs will ensure soldiers' productivity is actively evaluated and improved, which will bring a sense of career growth for top talent within the military ranks.

Another challenge of recruiting and retaining the right talent within the Military is the ever-shrinking pool of qualified recruits. US Army (2019) noted that at least 75% of American citizens of ages 17 and 25 are unqualified to join the military service due to obesity or other health complications, criminal records, or inadequate education (Taylor, 2020). This makes it difficult for the Military to get qualified recruits for some ranks, especially the technically challenging roles. This, however, can be solved by changing American immigration policies that would increase people seeking to serve in the Military as immigrants.

Recommendations and conclusion

One of the keynote recommendations to address the above challenges in talent retention in the Military is to embrace an advanced talent management program in the Military as a way to retain top offices and soldiers. Other programs should include issues such a family programs for the soldiers, suicide prevention among the ranks. Besides, to improve retention rates and compete effectively with the private sector, the Military should offer better monetary and non-monetary offers to soldiers. For instance, the US Navy has already embraced this going by its program dubbed Sailor 2025, where they seek to modernize their personnel management initiates and training programs through several programs (Asch, 2019) . These include both family-based incentives and offering abundant education opportunities, as well as career growth. This will serve significantly to motivate soldiers and officers, which will enable them, increase the number of years they would serve in the Military. There has been a distinct challenge in keeping high-quality marines within the military ranks. Still, the Military is addressing that by offering better pay and bonuses to compete with those of the private sector, especially in the high-tech sector.

References

Asch, B. J. (2019). Military Compensation to Support Retention, Performance, and Talent Management. RAND CORP SANTA MONICA United States. https://www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/CT505.html

Kane, T. (2017). Bleeding Talent: How the US military mismanages great leaders and why it is time for a revolution. Springer. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13722388-bleeding-talent

Alvarado, A. (2019). Recruiting and Retaining Air Force Talent: The Key to Tomorrows Air Force. US Army School of Advanced Military Studies Fort Leavenworth United States. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1083153.pdf

Nissen, M. E., & Tick, S. L. (2018). Toward Integrating our Understanding of Talent in the US Navy (No. NPS-IS-18-002). Naval Postgraduate School Monterey United States. https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1073568.pdf

Asch, B. J. (2019). Setting Military Compensation to Support Recruitment, Retention, and Performance. RAND Corporation. https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/109046/witnesses/HHRG-116-AS02-Wstate-AschB-20190312.pdf

Taylor, J. V. (2020). Military Retention: Quit Decision-Making Process of Servicewomen (Doctoral dissertation, California Baptist University).’ https://search.proquest.com/openview/0dfab131f5479da13c43e5e507df3476/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

Bressett, S. J. (2018). Bleeding Talent: A Qualitative Study of Pilot Retention in the B-2 Community (Doctoral dissertation, Creighton University). http://dspace.creighton.edu:8080/xmlui/handle/10504/119699