Retention In The National Guard Capstone Project

1. Introduction

The United States Congress has for many years been directly involved in ensuring that the country has a fully equipped standing military force that is capable of dealing with any external or internal threat. One of the ways it does this is to make laws that influence how the different branches of the United States military recruit and retain soldiers. For example, the Congress has the power to set the maximum number of men and women a branch of the military can have. This will have a direct influence on the branch’s recruitment policies (Kapp, 2014; 2012). The Congress can also set compensation levels e.g. separation incentives, educational benefits, recruitment bonuses, retention bonuses, and salary. The Congress can also set the eligibility criteria for recruitment and retention i.e. the qualifications that one must meet to serve in any branch of the United States Armed Forces. Some of the eligibility requirements in place right now dictate the behavior, the citizenship, the cognitive capacity, and the age group that a potential recruit must have to be enlisted. The Congress also sets and authorizes funding for enlisting and retention of enlisted soldiers. Lastly, since the Congress has the oversight authority on behalf of the public, it is its duty to also monitor the quality and performance of each branch of the Armed Forces and to recommend remedial measures in case it notes any issues.

Retention is a rate. Specifically, it is the rate at which soldiers voluntarily opt to continue serving the country as military personnel at the end of their mandatory term of service. Poor retention by some branches of the military can unbalance the country’s Armed Forces. One of the biggest concerns with regards to the retention rate is when the rate is low resulting in fewer experienced soldiers and leaders. This often, in turn, results in lower job satisfaction and reduced efficiency. Poor retention was especially a concerning issue a few years ago when many soldiers opted to leave the military immediately after their mandatory service because of battlefield trauma and PTSD. But things have changed. Now experts are more concerned about the government’s own move to reduce the size of the US military. The experts are thinking that this will result in many people fighting for the few remaining leadership and serving positions. Some are thinking that promotions, which are an incentive in the current military structure, will also reduce in a bid to keep the military as streamlined as possible in the proposed lean structure (Kapp, 2014; 2012). There is no doubt if the structure is actualized, the military will become less attractive for many young people.

This paper investigates the issue of retention in one specific branch of the United States Army – the Army National Guard. Some of the sources utilized to inform this paper include official references from the Army Reserve and Active Component and civilian sources.

2. Statement of the Problem

The retention of experienced army staff – both officers and recruited forces – is important to make sure unit morale is high and that the unit has a natural leader who is prepared to make them ready for war. Retention is also key to avoid the cost and time taken to retrain new enlisted forces and officers. Good retention rates are also important to ensure assigned tasks or missions can be completed quickly and efficiently. The best way to ensure that the Army National Guard (ARNG) retains as much of its personnel as possible, is to teach enlistees the right attitude from the get go and to instill in them the ethos of togetherness and other aspects that the Army National Guard is associated with before they start experiencing the inevitable negatives of serving in the army (Kapp, 2014; Figinski, 2017). The ARNG has not been able to meet its retention goals for many years. This has been a major issue in political circles. The fact that the budget of the military branch continues to be slashed almost every other year, ARNG is seemingly unlikely to reverse the trend. Many experts, researchers and commentators have given different reasons as to why soldiers are leaving ARNG just after the completion of their mandatory term (Kapp, 2014). The two most commonly cited reasons why ARNG has poor retention rates are: lack of useful training and lack of good leadership.

3. Research Question(s) and Strategy

· How well is the National Guard retaining soldiers? Is the military meeting its strength numbers target?

· How can the ARNG staff especially the Sergeant Majors and the Command Sergeant Major help to reverse the poor retention in the military unit?

· What strategies can implemented to deal with poor retention at ARNG.

To find the answers to the above questions, the author of this paper decided to use a systemic review study design. The study also involved looking at official documents, policy documents, reports, government papers, declassified documents and journal articles. The search commenced through the search of the ProQuest, EBSCO and Google. Keywords search as “national army retention,” “Army retention strategy,” “retention in the National Guard.” The search went well and yielded important information articles that were later reviewed and used by the author to write the final paper. Recency was one of the factors looked at by the author. Only those information materials written less than 14 years ago were considered for this study.

4. Literature Review

Serving the United States military is a high-demand job but with very little control. Some former soldiers say it is one of the most stressful jobs they have ever done (Kapp, 2014). Soldiers usually are given tough tasks but not enough resources to complete them quickly and effectively. And even when soldiers complete assigned tasks, they usually do not spend a lot of free time before getting assigned another task. The little control is brought about by the fact that the US Army, like most other Western Nation armies, is very hierarchical. This structure makes it easy to control personnel but it is not very progressive as it leaves the worker with no choice or social support. Since social support is very important, soldiers usually end up feeling tired and without any morale to complete regular tasks.

The recruitment and retention of officers and enlistees is very important to the Army National Guard. This is because without enough personnel, the military unit may not function effectively. The power and usefulness of the Army National Guard is based on its capacity to recruit the right people in numbers and to retain them for long. However, despite the importance of recruitment and enlisting, the Army National Guard has not acted decisively to stop its poor enlisting and retention numbers. A recent report, in fact, showed that the poor retention is hurting the operations of the Army National Guard. Moreover, since the unit’s recruiting strategy is to look for young people with no prior experience via its many recruiting and advertising strategy, it just ends up getting more people instead of finding those who are committed to the Guard and developing those already recruited. The advertising strategy is to display adverts of men and women in uniform training or in action. This leads to recruits signing up for that kind of action. And after a while, when the unit does not to war the excitement and job satisfaction goes down and hence the defections. However, in some cases, the advertisements work to help recruiters to attract people to work for the National Guard for the excitement, the income, the education, and the brotherhood.

Civilian careers

Before the September 11 Bombing in New York military reservists typically trained just once a month and a couple of weeks every summer. However, after the bombing and because of the threats the country faced, reservists are now required to train almost full time (Figinski, 2017). And with more countries needing the help of the United States, it is likely that the importance of reservists and the national Guard as a whole will go up. However, the increased reliance on reservist has continued to strain the lives of those affected. For some reservists it has affected their civilian careers. This is because for one to be a reservist nowadays and there is a need for lots of training and that may…