Challenges in Military Recruitment Strategies

Contemplate the importance of competence. I recommend listening to this podcast, but most importantly to the last twelve minutes for a sobering understanding of the U.S. military recruiting problem. Bill Roggio, Stu Velasco, and Zach Popp are all veterans with significant service and numerous deployments, and they have covered and commented on the Global War on Terrorism for some time. In the last segment of the podcast, they each express why they wouldn't want their children to serve in the military. To sum it up, they all question the competence of those who direct, plan, and lead service members in their deployments. I have thought for some time now that the perceived incompetence of military and civilian leadership is one of the primary reasons people are disinclined to recommend the military to their children or why a person might be less interested in choosing to serve. The military demands a lot of its members in terms of personal sacrifices of sleep deprivation, physical challenges, and demanding performance. It also demands a lot of families in the form of separation that means missing major milestones. Finally, there are numerous risks associated with service to include death, mental or physical injury, and long-term health challenges. If the organization is going to require that much then it owes the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and guardians the best and most competent leadership. THAT HAS NOT BEEN THE CASE IN THE LAST DECADE OR TWO. That deficiency needs to be corrected. https://lnkd.in/gJmtwx2t

At MyNavy HR, we recognize that the recruiting environment has changed. Many of our traditional assumptions are no longer valid...and so our recruiting force, MyNavy HR and our Navy are adapting to meet the challenge. The best evidence of this environmental shift is the fact that Navy projects that we will miss our active enlisted recruiting goal for the first time since the late 1990's. That alone does not mean the environment has changed, but when combined with the Army and Air Force also expecting to miss their goals...environment, rather than some gross error isolated to the Navy, is in play. What are some of the bigger factors driving the change? - The percentage of young Americans who are fully qualified for service AND see the military as a viable option has declined to about 1% to 2% of the population...smaller pool. - There are fewer parents, uncles, aunts, teachers and counselors who have previously served based on the post-Cold War draw down...fewer first hand "sea stories" to guide young people and help them see themselves as Sailors. - A growing desire among young people to ensure emotional safety in the places that they work and live that contrasts with actual and perceived cultural shortcomings in the service. - A broad lack of understanding of what the Navy does and what Sailors actually do in the Navy. What are we doing about it? A few examples among many: - Aggressively growing the size of the recruiting force...more bandwidth. - Improving recruiter training...more bang for the buck. - Closely monitoring recruiter performance and sending tiger teams of our most experienced recruiters to help those who are off track...rising tide lifts all boats. - Expanding our Forged by the Sea campaign to reach the digital places young people congregate to showcase Sailors who are just like them...seeing themselves as a Sailor. - Growing relationships with high school leaders to bring a better understanding of who we are and what we offer...connecting with those most in contact with young Americans. - Detailed analysis of testing scores that predict successful completion of the initial training pipeline...expanding opportunity to the max extent possible. - Future Sailor Prep Course at Recruit Training Command to give a physical or academic 'hand up' to those in need without lowering standards (Thank you Army)...expanded the pool of eligible young Americans. - Leadership focus on improving quality of service drivers...eliminating actual and perceived cultural shortcomings wherever possible. - Navy-wide focus on advancing Navy culture to accelerate building great people, leaders and teams...growing the best parts of our Navy. - Telling our story every chance we get, like right here! - Never giving up...incredible recruiters working every day to ensure our Navy is ready today, tomorrow and every day!! Even with the challenges, there is great hope...more on that in part 3 of 4 next week. Questions? Suggestions? I know they are out there!

Let's talk about military recruitment. As NATO builds out its new war plans this year to defend against a potential Russian attack on three axes—north, central, and south—it is struggling to find enough troops. The alliance plans to train NATO’s new 300,000-troop Allied Response Force this summer, but to keep pace with Russia’s buildup of people, the alliance is going to need reserves—a lot of them–perhaps something closer to the 3.5 to 4 million troops in the alliance's overall militaries. “We have to think about making sure that we have enough military to execute the plans that we have agreed to,” Royal Netherlands Navy Lt. Adm. Rob Bauer, the chair of NATO’s Military Committee, told Foreign Policy. Most of NATO—led by the United States—has been recruiting all-volunteer forces for the past half-century (though all eligible American men have to register with the selective service in case Congress or the president authorizes a draft). 🇺🇸, 🇪🇺: Falling unemployment rates in the United States and across the Atlantic Ocean have made hitting recruiting numbers more difficult. Since the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. employers have kept adding jobs, keeping the unemployment rate hovering around 4 percent (In the U.S., fewer people are meeting military recruitment standards, leading to a shrinking pool of recruits). 🇳🇱, 🇩🇪: In the Netherlands & Germany, unemployment is low—about 3 percent—meaning that anyone who’s out of work is either switching jobs or just entering the workforce. The biggest factor that has driven down recruitment, experts think, is the lack of an existential national security threat. 🇺🇸: The U.S. military missed its recruiting target by more than 41,000 people last year. 🇬🇧: The UK Army has fallen short of its targets every year since 2010. 🇩🇪: Germany’s Bundeswehr shrank by 1,500 military personnel last year. 🇺🇦: Even Ukraine, which is outside of NATO, has had to drop its conscription age from 27 to 25 to bring on enough troops to help fight off Russia. 🇷🇺: Russia has adjusted its conscription age, raising the maximum age at which someone can be conscripted from 27 to 30. The Kremlin has also raising the service age to re-conscript old soldiers. So America and Europe are going out to try to find people. 🇪🇪, 🇫🇮, 🇱🇹, 🇳🇴: A handful of nations, such as Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, and Norway, already conscript service members for some length of time. 🇱🇻: Latvia is bringing conscription back. 🇸🇪: Sweden—which once conscripted half of its population—has brought back the old mobilization model. 🇵🇱: Poland is trying to resist economic gravity, building a 250,000-troop active-duty army and adding 50,000 territorial defenders—while unemployment is ~2 percent. “If you talk about people, [and] you can’t find them in terms of voluntary service in a professional armed forces, then you need to think about other ways to find people,” said Bauer. “That’s either conscription or mobilization.”

Exceptional piece by Colonel Justin Overbaugh. “…the US Army fails to meet its recruiting goals not because of a challenging market environment, but rather because a sizable portion of the American public has lost trust in it and no longer sees it as an institution worthy of personal investment.” I’d add that the interconnectedness of the force has only exacerbated this problem. Senior Enlisted Leaders can shout “we are fixing barracks” from the rooftops, but there words fall on deaf ears when service members watch video after video after video of mold on social media. It is not enough to simply say “we’re addressing sexual assault” or “we’re working to enhance quality of life.” If these words are not backed with action, trust will continue to decline and #recruiting will continue to suffer. Acta, non verba. #betheone #veteransstrengtheningamerica #army #qualityoflife #qol Jeffrey Abigail