Attracting qualified recruits and the costs associated with essential skills training make military recruitment an ongoing challenge; low recruitment affects, among other things, enlistee counts, unit readiness, and morale. RAND has provided objective evaluations and recommendations that support decisionmakers' efforts to monitor and manage military recruiting, including examinations of demographic groups and communities where recruiting could be more successful.
Report
Lessons from the military can be used to inform police personnel management who are concerned about recruiting and promoting a racially/ethnically diverse workforce: qualified minority candidates are available, career paths impact diversity, and departments should leverage organizational commitment to diversity.
Commentary
Honoring the sacrifices of veterans should be front and center on our policy agenda and not limited to one day a year, says Terri Tanielian.
Commentary
Despite the fears of some, but in line with the experience of every other institution, both in the US and abroad, that has experienced such a transition, there have been no significant problems, writes Bernard Rostker.
Research Brief
Examines the possibility for the Department of Defense to save money on military pay while sustaining a high-quality force.
Report
Assembles the latest available data on recruiting, retention, and military versus civilian pay, and recommends a slower increase in military pay. Discusses implementation strategies if the Defense Department moves forward with limited pay increases.
Report
The Air Force has a continuing interest in reducing high attrition and training-block failure (washback) rates, as both increase training and recruiting costs. This report describes research into these issues for nine career fields.
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
To counter the decline in the fraction of youth meeting weight and body fat enlistment standards, the U.S. Army developed a waiver program tied to a new physical fitness test, ARMS. The authors examine the program's effect on accession and attrition.
Report
Examines how active component (AC) and reserve component (RC) bonuses interact -- that is, the extent to which RC enlistment bonuses draw service members away from the AC, and AC bonuses reduce prior service enlistment in the Selected Reserve.
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
Report
In advance of the repeal of the law known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Secretary of Defense requested that RAND update its 1993 study and analysis of sexual orientation among U.S. military personnel.
Report
Data from 2007 through 2009 are used to tabulate the incidence and prevalence of recruiter irregularities.
Report
Presents three essays on obstacles to improving demographic representation in the armed forces.
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.
Multimedia
In this Congressional Briefing, held on June 14, 2010, James Hosek and Beth Asch describe the effect of enlistment and reenlistment bonuses on military recruitment and retention efforts and on attrition.
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 with regard to end strengths, accession levels, promotion flow, and attrition since the late 1970s.
Report
Reports the results of an examination of the worth and validity of the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test.
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.
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