Admiral Moran on retaining talent

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The ability to put the quality inside of our calculus and be able to tailor our compensation packages and tailor a compensation approach to retaining talent — we are going to have to do that with this new retirement program,” Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Bill Moran said. “It starts in fiscal year 2018, two years from this January. We are going to have to be ready to look at it differently.

SECDEF announces first round of Force of the Future reforms

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Here is the list:

  1. Improve and Enhance College Internship Programs
  2. Establish the Defense Digital Service (DDS)
  3. Launch Entrepreneur-in-Residence Program
  4. Designate Chief Recruiting Officer
  5. Expand Secretary of Defense Corporate Fellows Program
  6. Increase Size of the Career Intermission Program
  7. Update and Modernize Retirement System
  8. Implement Web-Based Talent Management System
  9. Establish Office of People Analytics
  10. Implement Exit Surveys
  11. Examine Ways to Improve Recruiting
  12. Diversity Briefings
  13. Talent Management Centers of Excellence
  14. Civilian Skills in Reserve Component
  15. Compensation Study
  16. Increased Use of Reserve Component Service Members
  17. Doctoral-Level Program in Strategy
  18. Center for Talent Development
  19. Civilian Human Capital Innovation Laboratory
  20. Defense Innovation Network
  21. Active and Reserve Component Permeability

Some of these are low hanging fruit (10, 12) and driven by need (7, 15). Also, the Department has been working on making better use of the Reserve Component (14, 16, 21) for many years. The Army (via OEMA) has operated an Office of People Analytics (9) and worked on talent management (8, 9, 13, 18) for many years.

Establishing a doctoral-level program in strategy (17) is not a comparative advantage of DoD. Many well-regarded business schools offer PhDs in Strategy. A homegrown program would focus more on military applications. But, it would be more valuable to send our officers to civilian programs but bring them back to well-placed post-doctoral positions to leverage their education and tie it to military applications. I believe this is true with AFIT and NPS as well.

I am especially excited that each of the services is directed to establish a "Talent Management Center of Excellence to provide labor economics data and [modeling] for Service personnel chiefs and senior leaders." This is an under-served area, and I hope the services truly invest in this area.

Ovearll, this is a great initial set of initiatives. Their success will depend on the level of resourcing (manpower and funding) and the talent DoD puts into these reforms.

Service academies boost the officer talent pool →

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There is little doubt that the military, with its up-or-out promotion scheme and rigidities throughout its personnel system, must continually replenish its talent pool. I found this line from Barno and Bensahel's recent article interesting:

The U.S. military is in a competition for talent. The best and brightest graduates from American universities are in high demand. According to the Department of Defense, only a half of 1 percent of officers entering the military last year hailed from the top 20 U.S. colleges and universities—a percentage that is half that of just 20 years ago.

This top 20 list must exclude the service academies which produce roughly 20 percent of officers. Of course, there are many ways to rank colleges and universities. Forbes magazine, which focuses on a return-on-investment methodology, ranks all three service academies in the overall top 40 with the U.S. Military Academy ranked #11. And, in their Best Public Colleges category, West Point is ranked #1, the Naval Academy is ranked #2, and the Air Force Academy is ranked #5 -- all three in the top 5! In U.S. News's rankings, the Naval, Military, and Air Force Academies rank #9, #22, and #29, respectively. Either of these lists would boost the number of officers hailed from top 20 schools well above 1 percent. Unfortunately, the rankings that the Economist recently released did not include the service academies.

Also, the reestablishment of ROTC at other prestigious schools (e.g., Harvard and Yale) should bolster the top 20 talent provided by the academies. Regardless of the rankings, students who are capable of attending these elite programs have the highest opportunity cost. It will take substantial changes to attract these graduates to serve in the armed forces.