Generation Z Marine provides suggestions for recruiting from his generation
Marine Corps Second Lieutenant Matthew Weiss is 25 years old, a member of Generation Z. Prior to his commissioning as a Marine Corps officer, he had experience with a company that specialized in artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons systems. Weiss noted how this organization attracted new talent after they graduated from college. He wrote a book that addresses one way the recruiting challenge could be navigated.
From Military.com:
For starters, the book says Gen Z needs an impact they can strive toward; a unique calling, bigger than the individual. Weiss suggests determined mentorship, where Gen Z service members would provide a certain number of hours per year talking to potential recruits, a “Z-Z, heart-heart meaning discussion.”
Weiss also believes the current military pay structure is “incongruous” for a generation that watches their peers gain followers on social media. In their mind, better performance should mean more money. To that end, he suggests performance bonuses be added to military pay for those who succeed.
A somewhat counterintuitive suggestion Weiss offers is rooted in Gen Z’s connection to devices. Some, Weiss believes, are being “crushed” by the “constant pinging,” causing them to crave time to be unplugged from the rest of the world. The military can offer this like no other institution, he says, with real-world responsibilities and experiences away from their devices.
Those are just a few interesting examples. In all, Weiss offers 21 chapters of fact-based problems and solutions written with “the intention of diagnosing and solving a real and serious issue facing our nation,” coming from the personal experiences of a Gen Z military officer who did a lot of research to help solve it.
“We Don’t Want You, Uncle Sam: Examining the Military Recruiting Crisis with Generation Z” is on sale now in both paperback and on Amazon Kindle e-readers.
Military.com provides the balance of the story here.
Category: Military issues
And I thought performance based rewards in the military were getting promoted and more choice of assignments.
I know its been 40 years but I hope that the promotions are a bit faster now than then. When you see just regular Marines in a fast moving MOS get promoted, and your the 6th award rifle expert, 300 PFT with tons of MCI’s and a box full of atta boy’s… it pisses you off. Do not get me started on all the office Marines running around with NAM’s and you have been recommended 3 times. Being a squared away grease monkey did not matter much back then.
It’s still kind of the same, at least in the Army. Rapid promotions for Combat Arms through at least E6/SSG, while lower density MOS’ usually have higher points for the semi-centralized system, making E5 and E6 hard to get. A buddy from recruiting was a 91C (A/C repair) and had to max out everything to make E6, but he made E7 on his first look.
In the Army, you see the S1 types (42-series Admin) with a bunch of awards. They know how to write awards and have the battalion/brigade/division commander’s confidence, so it’s not uncommon to see an E3 with a ARCOM and a few AAMs, while an E4 in another MOS might spend 3-4 years in a unit and leave with a single AAM.
“A buddy from recruiting was a 91C (A/C repair) and had to max out everything to make E6, but he made E7 on his first look.”
Amen to that. Signal was exactly the same through the 90’s into the early 2000’s. All those crusty old SSG’s that couldn’t get promoted and were waiting on retirement all ran for the door in 2002. Took 9 years for me to make SSG, SFC was easy.
If it makes you feel any better my father received his first and only personal decoration (NAM) in his 26 year Marine career after he was already a Master Gunnery Sergeant in his end of tour award after serving with I MAW at Danang.
Some of those MOS’s like 0351, you cannot get paroled out of, let alone promoted in.
Choice of military schools, assignment of choice, and of course promotions were all motivators when I was in. Oh, and the fact that lackluster performance would lead to early separation or a bar to reenlistment. Got it, different generation, and one which wants a participation trophy for everything and more money for less work.
Good idea fairy time here: Let’s twist around the concept of performance-based bonuses. Instead, offer leadership pay. Maybe even some form of overtime. You could use the current Special Duty Assignment Pay (SDAP) as a basis. For example, a Team or Squad Leader might receive SD-1, or $75/month; Platoon level leadership SD-2, or $150/month; and company and battalion leadership SD-3, or $225/month. This would incentivize Soldiers to aspire to hold leadership positions and would be awarded based on position and not rank. All the E3 and E4 Team Leaders would get a little extra, as would the frocked E7s serving as 1SGs. Special Operations personnel already receive SDAP based on rank and position.
This would also differentiate between personnel holding the paygrade and leaders wielding the rank. Don’t get me wrong, most NCOs and officers perform an excellent job, but as someone who spent more time in S3 and J/G3 than I did on the line, I think that a SFC PSG was worth a little more pay than I got standing in my cubicle.
As for the “overtime”, it could be used in two ways: paying overworked troops a little more for their time and holding leaders accountable for poor planning or toxic command climate. Work around an 11-hour day, say 0600-1700. Planned training events wouldn’t qualify, but the CO deciding that a layout is necessary at 1600, or the 1SG putting out at 1400 that annual online training will be 100% before release should. Create proactive leaders, instead of reactive ones who push things back until the final day and keep Joe at work until dark.
Performance based bonuses? Won’t that put the kibosh to “screw up, move up”?
“Gen Z needs an impact they can strive toward…”
I don’t know what the fuck this is supposed to mean. Know what? The author knows that too since two clarifying comments follow after commas.
Nit picking here, I despise the word ‘impact’ if not used to describe objects striking or hitting.
It’s a lazy fucking word used as a synonym for nearly everything.
Listening to that word pop up in mindless meetings and BUBs and CUBs…God, I fucking hate that word.
Sounds like that word has had a negative impact on you.
Rates right up there with “raising awareness”…and fingernails across a chalk board (remember those?).
Military Recruitment is just like Head Hunting for civvie employees. Folks ain’t gonna apply for a job somewhere that they know the Company is f*cked up and not a good place to work, ‘specially long term…now-a-days long term means 3-6 years. Same same. Like many here, I served, did my job, got out, moved on, but over the years sent many a young’un toward Military Service. Haven’t sent anyone in that direction in nearly 3 years.
The Military and/or the politicians/woke f*cks have f*ucked themselves with the endless wars that have nothing to do with the defence of these States United. The potential recruits have seen how people of a lighter skin tone are cast aside for promotions, MOS, duty assignments, ect simply because they have a lighter skin tone. The civvie workforce is doing the same in the Big Corporations. Until they unf*ck themselves, it is not going to change.
Smart money today for a sharp kid that’s good with their hands is the skilled trades. Very easy to make a comfortable 6 figures income and take those skills to a place that will appreciate you.
Fuck “awareness”. Awareness accomplishes nothing. Get out there and do something.
Hey, now, don’t knock awareness…especially if it comes with with a snazzy vest!
Blowin’ sh*t up? Now that’s an “impact” I can get behind. Anything else in the military is politicking and suspect.
A second lieutenant with a better idea?
AW1Ed,
And a website to sell his new book.
https://www.unclesambook.org/
Yep. The dude has an MBA from Wharton and wants to apply business practices to the military.
We have already been down that road. A fellow named Macnamara tried using commercial business management practices to reform the military in the early 60’s. He was LBJ’s SecDef. His programs were a disaster for our military.
Bob McNamara thought bean-counting centralization (sorta Soviet-style, actually) worked good because it produced the Edsel at Ford.
Because of McNamara, The Iwo Jima class LPH’s were supposed to be 100 feet longer with 2 screws and due to macs budget cuts, the LPH’s were 100 feet shorter with one 22 ft. diameter screw
Great point, rgr. You cannot implement business “solutions” in a bureaucracy. They are polar entities.
You will not achieve the impactful impact you strive to achieve.
The above sentence is for all you rabble-rousers…
The rub is that business management principles do not work as a substitute for military leadership and military esprit de corps.
Me first, f*ck everyone else (except “who you know” to get ahead), where’s muh bonus $$$ fer “face time”?!
At least he isn’t stuck in a fence after advance map reading
I have to find out what generation Z means before I comment. I’m A member of the silent majority being born in 1945. The Baby boomers are the ones born in 1946 after their fathers came back from Europe and the Pacific after WW2 making babies faster than a mailbag at a railroad station whistle stop.
Gen Z’s are the young folks born during the period of the mid 1990’s through the early 2010’s.
You know, whiners.
Many moons ago the Army used to have something called “Proficiency pay”, whereby personnel with two years or more of active duty took and passed a test would receive a monthly payment.
A 25 year old butterbar with an MBA writes a book based on his vast business experience involving, among many other things I am sure, recruiting college graduates. I am suitably impressed.
You’re a 2LT. You don’t know shit.
He might know what motivates his generation, though.
He might know textbook answers as to what works as far as business or civilian employment. Doesn’t necessarily translate to the military.
Only if one can tell command from control. Believing book learning is real is a control-only phenomenon.
Agree, anon.
Every time I see “book learning” I think of Ricky complaining to Julian in Trailer Park Boys.
“The Book” is a great place to start. But it is absolutely worthless without the knowledge that comes with experience. A 2LT writing a book about fixing Army recruiting makes him the Good Idea Fairy’s wingman.
Your right, When I was a Volly Fireman in one Dept, I read the books and was a company level training officer so after I moved and joined another Dept, I was a truckee on a 100ft rear mount and the first job i went to, I kept telling the other guys, this stuff you taught me to do ain’t in the books, and that was it and gave tips to other Vollys on mutual aid to us like I was shown by members of my rig when I joined.
A college education, even an MBA from Wharton (genuflects three times in direction of U. of Penn.), prepares a person to be a probationary trainee.
Because they all think alike? I don’t know how many people there are in a generation, but I really really doubt that one 25 year old knows what they all think.
As a 2LT, I knew a great deal of shit. I had already spent four and a half years learning to become a professional army infantry officer, and I had completed IOBC, jump school and Ranger School. I knew how to move, shoot and communicate. More importantly, I could read a map and land navigate. But I did learn a great deal from my first platoon sergeant and first sergeant.
“As a 2LT, I knew a great deal of shit.”
Yes sir, Lieutenant, Sir.
😐
(That’s my straight face)
Concur. When I was a 2LT, I had an advanced degree in war, people had already tried to tried to kill me for example and direction for several years, and I’d lived overseas before– and I still had a sh*tload to learn. (God help dumbasses from the ‘burbs who’ve only been to college and offer no more than the “poh-tential” of being a selfish, impulsive loudmouth– y’all are f*cked!)
Like this dude (you can’t make this up… death by stupidity– probably alcohol-involved– and guy who shot him won’t charged):
https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-fatally-shot-south-carolina-211634503.html
Nor should he (the home owner).
The locals are losing their cotton pickin’ minds over how some states allow homicide of a mostly peaceful home invader.
Even to the point they’re “rethinking” sending their kids south for college.
With these people I am a foreigner in my native land.
“The locals (here in CT)…”.
I hope these faux Nutmeggers stop spreading the dumb by exporting it.
Build a wall?
Not to mention the problems with data leaking everyfkwhere. Remember the fitbit BS? Hell, there was a guy on Camp Liberty Iraq that had his media and doc folders discoverable and shared, with A LOT of weird machine-on-woman action-type material in there, along with awards, packing lists etc. And I’m no tech genius!
The face he made when I told him…. priceless? Oh, shit yeah!
But to the more tactical point, when we go up against a peer/near-peer the first thing to go will be E-spill. Everything will change.
GPS? Nope, map and compass.
Freq Hop? Nope, burst SCPT with data packet capability and directional antennae.
Drones? Yeah, but also counter-drone operations with signals tracing and good ol’ fashion stalking back to POO (point of origin).
Precision guided weapons? Maybe Laser guided… maybe.
This is all predicated on no use of electro magnetic pulse weapons and/or free-flowing power in the form of hydrocarbons. You need fuel to make electrons (unless I’m missing something).
The basics should be focused on even more intently than in the past; iron sights, analog landnav, patrol base with field phones, battlefield plotting, records keeping, etc on paper.
With the current state of combat as it is, Gen Z and on are going to have a tough go at it. Now is the time to turn off, tune out, drop in, Airborne!
My GPS is paper, foldable, and can be used even when soaking wet after a river crossing!
It’s “peripheral device” is a lensatic compass; and, about the only formula I need to memorize is “east is least and west is best.”
Gen Z car theft deterrent: manual transmission.
And COMSEC is a rotary phone..
I always thought it was “East is East, and West is West, but that don’t mean you’ll meet Mark Twain”
Or something like that…
Unplugged from the rest of the world?
Good luck with that.
Since the adoption of the electronic leash (cell phones) “leaders” will not give up the item that let’s them track and control ALL of their subordinates 24/7.
MG Beagle at Fort Drum tried to impose some common sense controls on “leaders” like no calls/texts after 1800 or before 0600.
He got promoted and moved on, so it’s back to the electric leash.
Even the new Sergeant Major of the Army thinks it’s a good idea to put fitness/health trackers on soldiers. It won’t get the chow halls open, but the Army will know when soldiers are eating trashy fast food again. And “counsel” them for not eating healthy.
Having served since 1985 (28 months til retirement), I have seen how leadership has embraced devices to crank Command & Control up to unheard of levels.
Listen to Milley on Mission Command, especially as we’ll need it fighting peer/near-peer opponents again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60RHo4PaMug&t=1765s
He may actually know something!
Now what to do about Ivan & Zhang’s gazillions of mines?
More pay for better Soldiers? Been saying that for years. My plan: every year, you get rated as either top third, middle third or bottom third. Bottom third gives up ten percent of their pay to the top third. Too easy.
That would be a solution. I had a similar philosophy when it came to NCOERs. As an NCO, and especially as a leader, I took care of my Soldiers but didn’t kiss anyone’s ass when it came to leadership. As such, I never expected the “1/1, Among the Best” NCOER and was happy with a “1/2” or a “2/1”, though I got a few “1/1” evaluations somehow. In my opinion, a “3/3” should be perfectly acceptable for a capable but thoroughly average NCO (say, 30-60 percentile), instead of being the essential career-stalling evaluation it is, while a “2/2” should be used as a wakeup call but not necessarily effectively end a career like it does. “1/1” should be reserved for the bottom 5%; those who are collecting NCO pay without acting like NCOs. Of course, the Rater and Senior Rater might have different opinions, so you might get a “3/4” or something different.
I know the NCOER has changed, arguably for the better, and now Senior Raters only have so many top ratings they can give. Even so, add an element of monetary incentives, and instead of the whining senior NCO refusing to sign an NCOER because they failed height/weight at Drill Sergeant School and were rated accordingly, you might have people who properly prepare. True story, by the way, a female E7 (who happened to be a “POC”) went to DSS and failed, while the SMA was observing. She filed a Congressional complaint stating that her NCOER was subpar due to discrimination based on her race and gender. A few years later, when I was selected for the duty, I did what most NCOs would do and got into decent shape again, while ensuring I was under my table weight. I was past my PT stud days, but brought my run time down from high-16 minutes to low-14 minutes and despite making tape at 215 lbs., I reported to the School at about 180 pounds.
A butter bar who comes onto the scene and starts spouting about how he has a better way to do things and everyone should just take his word for it. It seems I’ve heard this story before.
I’d trust this (or any 2ndLt) to navigate the complexities of recruiting and retention about as far as I’d trust him to navigate the forest around Breckenridge Reservoir with a map and compass.
http://forum.difflock.com/userpix/369_lost_lt_1.jpg
Lol. So true
We were at 29 Palms doing a CAX 1990. Doing a night maneuver. A 2nd louey called a halt to our convoy. I walked up to the front of the trucks to see what the halt was. I was a boot SGT and a just under Eagle Scout as a kid. I looked at the map and told him we were in a bad area. He told me he was in charge of the convoy. I told my guys to sleep under their trucks that night. At 5 am 155,s we’re going over our head and impacting a few football fields away. A quick frantic call from me to Bearmat got the arti stopped. I received no recognition. It was swept under the rug. As a boot Sgt I was senior MOTOR T person there within days a SSGT SHOWED UP and I was just a maintanence platoon Sgt. True story
Pretty much that was when I decided to get out. All the other stuff I delt with. I have done well for myself.
So, the traditional motivations ain’t sh*t no more? (Dang, they worked for me.)
Check out this old Marine dude on new Infantry folk today:
Are you fuckin serious….
A book written by a butterbar…
About recruiting lazy fucks…
First-hand knowledge?