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.
Here is the list:
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.
The internal, hierarchical military personnel system requires constant attention.
Large-scale data collection and analysis will eventually provide the armed forces with a far richer understanding of their human capital than has ever been available before, paving the path for the services to take a fresh look at the qualifications and skills necessary for commissioning into the military. How we choose our officers will lay the groundwork for the management of the force of the future. Given the challenges that lie ahead, it is something we cannot afford to get wrong.
The Pentagon wants to send more officers to earn graduate degrees at top-notch civilian universities, a key piece of soon-to-be released personnel reforms that could fundamentally alter the career tracks of senior military leaders.
Having spent several years in civilian graduate school, I know how beneficial this opportunity can be. But, the issue isn't how to replace the war colleges. As long as the military operates graduate schools – Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) and the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) – it will be difficult to justify sending members to civilian institutions.
Bob Hale says the tortoise is winning:
The tortoise represents a persistent Obama Administration that has pushed for changes that can become law, freeing up billions a year to improve military capabilities. The tortoise also represents a Congress that, while sometimes reluctant, has approved many of the Obama Administration changes and, in a few cases, has gone beyond them.