The retention of qualified military personnel—enlisted forces as well as officers—is essential to preserving morale and unit readiness and to avoiding the costs associated with training replacement personnel in essential skills. By examining issues from PERSTEMPO and the effects of multiple deployments to family readiness and child care, RAND research supports military leaders' efforts to monitor and successfully maintain an optimal force structure.
REPORT
RAND research conducted in the late 1990s documented differences in rates of promotion and retention among male, female, white, and minority officers in the U.S. military. This volume updates the earlier RAND study, using data from January 1988 through September 2010. It also examines the career progression of women serving in military occupations that are partially closed to them.
RESEARCH BRIEF
This report describes the socioeconomic environment officers will encounter if they leave active-duty service and analyzes its potential impact on Army retention and how it can be effectively communicated to officers making stay/leave decisions.
REPORT
This monograph develops a comprehensive picture of the socioeconomic environment officers will encounter if they leave active-duty service and analyzes the potential impact of these factors on Army retention and how major differences between military and civilian employment can be effectively communicated to officers making stay/leave decisions.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Describes a framework for thinking about commanders' critical information needs in countersurgency operations and offers practical ways for commanders to integrate influence activities into combined arms planning and assessment.
RESEARCH BRIEF
To assist the Army's move of its Human Resources Command from the Washington, D.C. area to Fort Knox, Kentucky, RAND Arroyo Center produced personnel competency models and a framework for training to support the future delivery of personnel services.
REPORT
A major source of reserve manpower is the flow of enlisted members from an active component (AC) to a reserve component (RC). This volume examines how effective RC bonuses are in attracting prior service members and, in doing so, explores how AC and RC bonuses interact to affect both AC reenlistment and prior service enlistment in the Selected Reserve.
REPORT
Since 2004, the U.S. Air Force has provided personnel for "joint sourcing solution" assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result, certain Air Force career fields are experiencing greater-than-expected deployment strains. Air Force personnel and deployment data were used to populate a RAND-developed model to assess the supply of and demand for Air Force personnel and various types of capabilities to fill joint assignments.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Summarizes results of a RAND Corporation study on sexual orientation and U.S. military policy requested by the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Secretary of Defense in order to weigh repeal of the law known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
REPORT
This study on sexual orientation and U.S. military policy, requested by the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Secretary of Defense in order to weigh repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, examines public and military opinion on allowing gay men and lesbians to serve without restriction; research on sexual orientation, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention; and experiences of domestic agencies and foreign militaries.
REPORT
Examines the link between practice opportunities and physician retention in the Army, Air Force, and Navy.
REPORT
When U.S. Army Reserve Component units experience a surge of personnel turbulence as they approach deployment, units must repeat some training, making pre-mobilization preparation less efficient and potentially increasing the extent of training that must be accomplished after mobilization.
REPORT
Sending officers to graduate schools is costly to the services. While officers incur specific service requirements in return, does that recoup the investment? The authors found that, in the U.S. Navy, breaking even financially is not always realistic. But the skills and general knowledge that officers gain in the process extend the value of their degrees beyond their majors, particularly in careers leading to flag rank.
RESEARCH BRIEF
A study of Army Reserve Component (RC) units finds that personnel instability is widespread, driven mostly by soldier losses and nondeployers, and affects training prior to deployment.
REPORT
While most U.S. government officials working in Iraq believe the use of armed private security contractors has been a useful strategy, many worry that the contractors have not always had a positive effect on U.S. foreign policy objectives.
NEWS RELEASE
The increased use of cash bonuses by the U.S. Department of Defense to encourage military enlistment and reenlistment had a positive effect on recruiting and retention in the armed forces.
REPORT
The increased use of cash bonuses by the U.S. Department of Defense to encourage military enlistment and reenlistment had a positive effect on recruiting and retention in the armed forces. Until recently, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have placed greater stress on military recruitment and retention.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Congress has questioned the scope and efficacy of enlistment and reenlistment bonuses, but Army high-quality recruiting would have been lower without them; they are more cost-effective than pay but less so than recruiters as a way to gain recruits.
REPORT
Analyzes the Air Force's seven medical and professional officer corps — the Biomedical Sciences Corps, the Chaplain Corps, the Dental Corps, the Judge Advocate General Corps (attorneys), the Medical Corps (physicians), the Medical Service Corps, and the Nurse Corps — with regard to end strengths, accession levels, promotion flow, and attrition since the late 1970s. Recent accession and retention trends have been most adverse in…
NEWS RELEASE
Although U.S. Army deployments have been linked positively to the likelihood of reenlisting for much of the past decade, by 2006 the mounting burden of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan reached the point where deployment had a negative effect on reenlistment.
REPORT
Although U.S. Army deployments have been linked positively to the likelihood of reenlisting for much of the past decade, by 2006 the mounting burden of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan reached the
point where deployment had a negative effect on reenlistment.
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