Recruiting and Retention hard for the Reserves
OK, everyone who reads TAH and is surprised by that headline, go back to grade school and work on your reading comprehension. From Army.mil;
All the time, people tell Lt. Gen. Jeffery W. Talley how the recent drop in force structure end strengths must mean that recruiting and retention must no longer be a problem, he said.
But that just isn’t the case, said Talley, who is chief of the Army Reserve and commander of the U.S. Army Reserve Command. He was speaking at the 2014 USARC Commanders Conference in Alexandria, Virginia, July 21.
“We have a crisis in manning the Reserve. It’s a lot harder to recruit and retain than it used to be,” Talley said, acknowledging the irony of the situation.
About three out of four men and women ages 17 to 28 are not even eligible to be recruited, he said, particularly since requirements have been tightened. Some of those requirements have to do with education and criminal records and others have to do with weight and fitness standards and even certain visible tattoos.
Besides private-sector businesses and industry, “all of the services and components are competing for these talented young men and women,” he said.
Many Soldiers are also leaving the Reserve.
When was it a few months ago when we all read that the operational tempo for the reserves was going to increase while the active force sheds experienced warriors, so, who the hell wants to be a part time soldier and working almost full time? Who wants to burden their lives with petty BS like tattoo-bans for a part time job? The plan was flawed from the first word that came out of some flag officer’s mouth.
They thought recruiting would remain a constant no matter what they did to the troops, and the troops are marching off with a duffel bag over their shoulders. They’re looking at personnel cuts, like pay cuts and a COLA that doesn’t keep pace with inflation (the White House and Congress are looking at a 1% COLA raise this year, but inflation has been over 1.8%), closing Commissaries, ending Tricare Prime, ending selective reenlistment bonuses.
Category: Big Army
COLA of 1%? Gee, why be so generous?
Is that going to be across the board, including Social Security and VADC? There are people who depend on both of those because they have nothing else.
I’m just gob-smacked that this administration thinks it’s OK to demand $3.7 billions for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut military and other compensations to mere token raises.
DT: I believe Social Security and VA benefits COLAs are defined by legal formula differently. COLAs for serving military and Federal civilian personnel are set by annual appropriation (military) or annual executive order (civilian), so they are sometimes different that those received by Social Security.
Oh, Hondo, you know quite well that COLA raises for SocSec and VADC recipients are less important than an expensive vacation in a privately-owned Boeing 747.
Possibly true, DT – and also irrelevant.
The VA and Soc Sec COLAs are defined in permanent law, not in an annual appropriation or by Executive Order. (The Soc Sec annual COLA is by law based on the CPI; by law, the VA COLA is equal to that of Soc Sec.) I’m pretty sure they’re not the only ones so indexed, either. All of these (as well as some other benefits defined in law) form Federal “mandatory” vice “discretionary” spending.
When money gets tight, only the “discretionary” spending gets cut. The mandatory stuff keeps rolling along – and increasing because the law says it must. It thus keeps eating a greater and greater part of the Federal budget each year.
If you want to see Congress fix our financial problems, make “mandatory” spending for entitlements subject to the same cuts as discretionary spending – e.g., kill all increases defined in permanent law. Change the law so that ALL Federal programs, including VA bennies, Social Security, and all other currently-protected mandatory spending entitlements, take the same cuts when money is tight as so-called “discretionary” spending does today. Add a balanced budget amendment phased in over a 5-year period to ease the stress of a transition, and by year 6 we’d be on a Federal budget that wasn’t looking at structural collapse in 20 years or so.
Of course, either bennies would get cut substantially or taxes would go WAY up to pay for them. Either is probably preferable to a systemic collapse, but either would be painful as hell. Just not as painful as a collapse.
There ain’t no other way out. We can’t continue keep spending 1/4 to 1/3 more than the Federal government takes in in total taxes each year.
‘Balanced budget’ usually means that taxes will go up. It’s always a hot button issue, especially when elections roll around, as they do this fall. I don’t think there has been a balanced budget since Andrew Jackson removed treasury holdings from the 2nd Bank of the U.S. and sent them to regional banks and left a $1.5 million surplus (1837 dollars) after he left office. I won’t go into the financial fiasco that followed that.
The point is that the US is borrowing money it can’t pay back. What happens when those Treasuries come due in a couple of years? I can see a massive financial disaster happening if the Chinese actually decide to demand payment of whatever paper they hold, instead of rolling them over for interest payments.
It’s bad enough when you have to borrow money to buy a house and you’re discouraged from saving to pay for it, the way it’s done in Europe. But the kind of spending that is going on now is out of hand and the only way to stop the potential slide into disaster is to raise taxes to cover the debt. And you know that means inflation starting up again and creaming your income and mine.
BOHICA!
When was it a few months ago when we all read that the operational tempo for the reserves was going to increase while the active force sheds experienced warriors, so, who the hell wants to be a part time soldier and working almost full time? Who wants to burden their lives with petty BS like tattoo-bans for a part time job?
Well gee, when you put it like that…
Anyway, all of this was perfectly predictable when the most left-leaning president in American history was elected. Those with power reward their friends and punish their enemies, guess which one we are.
Well… he also left out that USAREC went to a new “team” style of recruiting that puts the focus on the Active component and less on the USAR. The USAR recruiters are folded up into the overall team and from what I’ve heard the USAR recruiting mission is on the back burner… So… I’d imagine that doesn’t help things either…
The higher in rank you get, the worse the deal gets for reservists. If you’re a student, you’ve got to juggle classes and drill, but you can schedule schools for summer, and AT schedules normally account for classes. And junior enlisted will have some mandatory training to knock out between drills, but the outside-of-drill workload isn’t too demanding. But once you get put into a leadership position, the balance starts to shift. Same schools, same mandatory training, but now you’ve got to counsel soldiers, track their progress, keep tabs on Joe and report up the chain. It’s great stuff – it’s why you want to be an NCO – but it’s all gotta be prepped before drill, because all you have time for that weekend is execution. Then a couple times a year, you’re put in charge of a training event for the unit – researching, resourcing, assigning tasks, planning, scheduling, all that is done outside drill. And of course, every NCO has additional duties. For me, that meant answering every clearance-related question anyone in the unit had. Which meant researching regs, healing write rebuttals, helping with E-QIP, maintaining the SCAR, riding Joe to fill out his shit, circling back with Joe’s NCO, etc., etc. By the time I was made acting NCOIC for a platoon-level element, I scheduled a day off work after every drill weekend so I could knock out Army shit – writing NCOERs, prepping training, researching regs, knocking out my own soldier responsibilities (mandatory training, maintaining my gear, stuff like that). And I loved it. But the scope creep was getting out of hand, so I found a new unit closer to home, where I’m lower on the food chain, so fewer outside-drill responsibilities – it was that or ETS. But I only had platoon-level NCO responsibilities. I can’t imagine being an officer. I mean, say you’re a solid O3 who just got booted; you need to build a civilian career. Do you really want to work 1-2 hours/night, take phone calls any time of the day or night, be printing, signing, scanning and emailing papers… Read more »
This hit the nail with regards to retention in the reserves. Some pointed out the “mobilization” aspect, but I know of a lot of reserve Soldiers who want to mobilize and deploy. The deployment aspect isn’t the issue. My unit was supposed to fully mobilize, but they drastically cut the requirement down. The vast majority of the Soldiers in the unit were on the “waiting list” in case someone selected to deploy wasn’t able to make it. One main issue affecting reserve retention is leadership. Not just leadership in the unit, but leadership going up the chain above the unit. You have big Army trying to push its requirements down, to include going back to the Mickey Mouse issues of the garrison Army. When you have these requirements superimposed on the regular drill requirements, you have added requirements that has to be planned for, prepped, and carried out. There isn’t much emphasis on Soldiers being informed of how much responsibility of managing their own careers. So we have Soldiers sitting around expecting the unit to initiate important paperwork for them when they should be the ones initiating that paperwork. Not knowing that, many Soldiers end up disillusioned and thinking that the unit doesn’t care about them. We also have some leadership that doesn’t seem to have time for the Soldiers. As was mentioned, there’s some major homework that has to be done between drills. Too many Soldiers, and family members, don’t understand that the reserves isn’t something that you only concentrate on one weekend a month, two weeks during the summer. It’s something that requires your time and effort throughout the month, and year. It’s something where people should continue to communicate with each other between drills, something that dictates lots of time to focus on preparation for the upcoming drill, and so on. Reservists have to create and do their own training. Sometimes, the Soldiers assigned don’t look at this training until the last moment. So, they use the time left to either create a crappy training event, or cause a chain reaction that leads to another Soldier’s overfilled… Read more »
This goes for the Guard, too. It’s spot on!
Amen, brother!
Dead on with the deal being bad higher up the food chain you go. Army needs to stop blowing smoke with the whole “employers love Reservists” BS as anyone who works private sector knows that is not true unless you work for a federal contractor. At the Brigade level, out of 20+ field grade officers, there were less than 2 that were “true” private sector employees – the remaining were government employees or AGRs or working a federal contractor job. At the BN level, I looked around and realized that most of my CPTs were the same way – and the ones that had private sector jobs were dropping their IRR papers the instant they qualified. Less than six months after coming out on the promotion list, I was dropping my IRR paperwork. Reality – my employer does not give a shit about my Reserves service, it is time away from the company, and I have been the ONLY reservist company-wide in every company I’ve worked at. Employers don’t understand, and when the scope of involvement in the Reserves exceeds that one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer (phone calls, emails, additional duty days or MUTA 6s) they wonder whether your priorities are straight. Is what it is, but I don’t think our Reserves are going to be better when every Joe is either a government employee or government contractor if he has a civilian job.
Couldn’t agree more! Most of even our company leadership is AGR/Full-time, and they very clearly expect that everyone treat the Army like it’s a full-time job, and if you don’t then you’re a shitbag who doesn’t care about the Army/hates ‘Merica.
Between Jan 1 and July 1, according to my last civilian paycheck, I’ve missed 207 hours of work because of the National Guard. I work armed security for a private company, and have for the last five years. I was the last person in the National Guard that they’ve hired, and for that exact reason. Whatever love any private company has had for the Guard/Reserves has long been pissed away because of commander’s expectations like this. Then you also figure in the fact that every drill except for one has been and will be a MUTA 5 from January of this year until June of next year. Who needs this shit?
A fellow E-6 needed time off of a drill because of an emergency situation at work. Our CO said absolutely no way, and if he missed drill they would put him on the AWOL list. He tried explaining that his employer would more than likely terminate him (right to work state, they don’t have to give a reason). The CO said if he did that, he would have the JAG team sue his employer, but he had to be at drill. He then informed the commander that his employer was the Koch Brothers, and did he really want to put a couple of National Guard JAG lawyers against the Koch Brother’s Legal Team. Hell, that’s the kind of piss-ant cases they train their interns on.
It’s that kind of mentality that the Guard/Reserve is fighting, and most of them have been AGR for so long, they don’t even realize it. If the Guard wants employers to work with drill weekends, then the Guard should damn sure return the favor, which they never do.
I’m happy to say my leadership in both units has been VERY different from what you describe – if you’re a non-shitbag, they’ve been very flexible, very understanding about family and work obligations, all that. But that sort of underlines the point – even with very accommodating leadership, it’s STILL way more than a one weekend/month gig.
…and yeah, MUTA 5’s are stupid and suck…waste of taxpayer dollars (what really gets done Friday night?), I have to leave work early to get there, extra driving for half the pay, etc., etc…
Working for a gov’t contractor makes being RC easier– a purely civilian entity would’ve booted my ass on some pretext years ago.
The whole USERRA/ESGR “legal protections” are worthless. If you have to go to court, you’re screwed. What do you really get out of it? Six months to a year of legal wrangling to force a company to take you back when they will cut you the first layoffs they have? You can’t get blood from a stone.
As a Senior NCO in the reserves currently I agree it is hard to get and harder to keep Soldiers.
I say one of the problems with keeping them is “death by power point” mandatory training. We use to knock out all mandatory briefings in one day (the Saturday of Dec BA with family day on Sunday) but now we spend a day every other BA to learn how not to sexually harass, be Equal, not be racist, be resilient, reconise terror, drive safe, manage social media, risk management, etc
And this is on top of all the on line stuff.
We use to hardly spend any time in the center, we were doing STX lanes, MOS ex’s and FTX’s. This year we are going to spend five days of training (out of 24) just to meet the TEC’s and BDG’s mandatory classes.
My guys would rather be in the woods in the rain in winter that sitting through another resilient class.
Mandatory training, ie. sexual harassment, Gilbert BS, blah blah blah. Give it the attention it deserves. Create a sign in sheet for each class, have a mass formation and announce “Don’t be an asshole”. All personnel sign all of the various sign in rosters. Voila, it’s done. Actually had to do all of that shit as part of demob from Iraq. Soooooo prior to leaving Iraq I created 1 massive slide deck. Couple hundred slides in less that 3 hours. Annual mandatory training done!! Updating everyones training record was a bitch though…
Couple of hundred slides in three hours? Sounds like you were combining existing ppts, unless you can create, write coherently, format
etc. in under a minute each. (And yes, I frickin’ loathe PowerPoint.) Thank God I got out before it became career-necessary.
I well remember a time when all Naval Reserve personnel just had to review a certain speech by some Admiral. It arrived on a BetaMax and all we had was a VCR. I borrowed a machine from the local library but now we had a space problem.
There were over 500 selected reserves in our building and only room for 50 at a time to view this major announcement. We ran this thing all day Sat and Sun. I must have viewed it about 50 times and can’t even remember what it was about. However, all hands had to view and of course we had reports up the ying yang. This was on top of all the other BS that had to be accomplished during drill weekend. BZ to the Pentagon for putting this together.
The only thing I have to say is I’m surprised it took this long.
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=30410
I feel bad for my buddies that are still in. They are dreading the next years of their enlistment. It’s gonna be one inspection on top of a police call on top of an EO class on top of another inspection. I knew it was bad when they told me they would rather be deployed. I can’t put into words the level of disdain I have for the current Army/DOD “leadership.” They act like discipline has eroded completely. That’s not the case at all.
I can’t help but think this was by design in order to lower standards for the jobs program the DoD has turned into.
Here’s your problem; OPS tempo has remained high for the Reserve, even with the mission in Iraq ending. Yes, the Reserve is a part time job, but leadership expects us to complete additional tasks on our own time, often minus compensation. I’ll do a lot for my country, but the bottom line is I have to keep my civilian boss -the one that signs the check that actually pays the bills happy too. Add in their latest good idea fairy plan to promote anyone not flagged, regardless if they are actually qualified for promotion, and this final year and a half can’t end quickly enough. Some information released at last battle assembly greatly disgusted me.
Your forgetting gays in the military and women in combat roles being forced down everyones throat. I would not recommend a life of service under these conditions to anyone.
I just put my retirement request in last week (Guard). Most of the old timers I knew from 15 years ago are long gone, and the new crowd and ways just doesn’t sit well with me. I joined the Army in 1984, did 8 years RA and then 8 more Reserve before going Guard. I tell all the younger NCOs and Officers that this is reminding me more and more of the post Desert Storm Army from the early 90s. I went through that once – no way am I doing it twice.
Meanwhile in Russia- some Kremlin douchevag is reading this and making a damn good assessment of the US’s military morale.