Retention and Recruitment Crisis

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Devildoc said:
Somebody has to chip rust and paint ships...

That sounds harsh, but maintaining a ship is 24/7/365, and these are the perfect people to do it. Then get mentored and tutored, strike for a rate, learn a job. Kinda like what they did in the Ye Old Navy.
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@Devildoc the Navy has plenty of those.

Recruited for Navy SEALs, Many Sailors Wind Up Scraping Paint

Gotta love the failing NY Times in how they characterize things.
 
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The Marines being so "Hoorah hardcore Marine Corps" is the same type of mindset that had the Marines on my FOB during deployment having Gen 1 IBAs and M16A2s instead of better gear.
They aren't hurting like the Army is, but they also have a much smaller recruiting goal and only just passed it.

@Devildoc the promotion for recruiting thing has existed since I've been in (09) and maybe longer, but the ribbon is new.

Choice of duty station has never been an enlistment option (aside from the 18x to 82nd ABN pipeline) AFAIK, but a reenlistment one.
 
25% are eligible for service, what eliminates the other 75% and should we change those standards?
FAA just changed cardiac standards, maybe ADHD drugs as a juvenile should no longer be a disqualification?
Let a few folk who are slightly overweight (say 10 lbs or less) in and work them in basic so they lose weight.
 
Cookie_ said:
The Marines being so "Hoorah hardcore Marine Corps" is the same type of mindset that had the Marines on my FOB during deployment having Gen 1 IBAs and M16A2s instead of better gear.
They aren't hurting like the Army is, but they also have a much smaller recruiting goal and only just passed it.

@Devildoc the promotion for recruiting thing has existed since I've been in (09) and maybe longer, but the ribbon is new.

Choice of duty station has never been an enlistment option (aside from the 18x to 82nd ABN pipeline) AFAIK, but a reenlistment one.
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Some of my first deuce gear (782 gear, ahhhh, LBE stuff) was Vietnam-era, and a ton of what we had was army hand-me-downs. It wasn't until fairly recently that the Marines got their fair due (HK rifles, suppressors, LVPOs, etc.). We just made do with what we had, and parlayed it into a chip on our shoulder. Indeed, a Marine mindset.

Yeah, I thought the promotion for recruiting had been a thing.

I know from time to time the Navy would offer duty station-job contacts to incentivize letting you go to, say, Hawaii, if you filled a high-vacancy need. There, too, I don't know if it's a regular recruiting thing or a special thing. For most jobs you don't get your ship or duty station until after your school.
 
DA SWO said:
25% are eligible for service, what eliminates the other 75% and should we change those standards?
FAA just changed cardiac standards, maybe ADHD drugs as a juvenile should no longer be a disqualification?
Let a few folk who are slightly overweight (say 10 lbs or less) in and work them in basic so they lose weight.
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The army has a special pre-basic training for overweight recruits and those who scored below standard on the ASVAB. I recall reading they had good results. I agree, I think a pound/percent can be waiverable.

I also agree about meds and DQ. And certain medical conditions. There are a lot that are waiverable; but there is still more that should be.
 
Doc beat me to it on the Future Soldier Preparatory Course.

It's a 90 day program to get them within weight/education standards. It's had really great results so far, at least on getting people good for boot camp.

Applicants in both tracks have 90 days to boost their scores or lose enough body fat to come into compliance with Army standards. In total, 3,206 students have attended one of those tracks so far, of which 2,965 have graduated and moved onto basic training.
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Cookie_ said:
Doc beat me to it on the Future Soldier Preparatory Course.

It's a 90 day program to get them within weight/education standards. It's had really great results so far, at least on getting people good for boot camp.
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That's a pretty incredible success rate. Good on the individuals, and the Army.

I wonder what the longer-term success rate is for them once they get into Basic Training and then out into the force. As a young guy it was easy for me to follow instructions and make good choices about what to eat, how much to exercise, etc. when I was getting yelled at and closely supervised to do it, but once I was on my own...
 
Marauder06 said:
That's a pretty incredible success rate. Good on the individuals, and the Army.

I wonder what the longer-term success rate is for them once they get into Basic Training and then out into the force. As a young guy it was easy for me to follow instructions and make good choices about what to eat, how much to exercise, etc. when I was getting yelled at and closely supervised to do it, but once I was on my own...
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In the navy if you are not in a school you're pretty much on your own; you had better be self-motivated. In the Corps, there's a ton of peer pressure, and PT is usually built into most schedules. I felt it was much harder to slide back into bad habits.*

*except excessive drinking and tobacco use....
 
"Receive a recruiting ribbon"

What in the absolute donkey fuck? The Army practically gives you a ribbon for breathing, now it wants you to show off your bling of "I duped someone into doing this shit?" Think of how dumb and out of touch you have to be to A. think of the ribbon, B. approve the ribbon, and C. actually want the ribbon. Imagine the back-slapping circle jerk it took for that ribbon to go from stupid idea to an actual thing. How much money are they wasting in this?
 
AWP said:
"Receive a recruiting ribbon"

What in the absolute donkey fuck? The Army practically gives you a ribbon for breathing, now it wants you to show off your bling of "I duped someone into doing this shit?" Think of how dumb and out of touch you have to be to A. think of the ribbon, B. approve the ribbon, and C. actually want the ribbon. Imagine the back-slapping circle jerk it took for that ribbon to go from stupid idea to an actual thing. How much money are they wasting in this?
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"A soldier will fight recruit long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon."
-Napoleon (probably)
 
I may have covered this in the past, on another site, if so I apologize. I have a grandson, who is a police officer, that was disapproved for enlistment into the Army because he had taken a special education class in his freshman year of high school. That was his only disqualifying reason as he had passed the physical and test. I have another grandson, that is an Army Recruiter, that says they now have to access all a recruits former prescription records to see what medications they were ever prescribed. If they ever took a perscription, even at 7 years old, for ADHD or something comparible then they are disqualified. When I was a recruiter, all an applicant had to do was pass a background check, a physical, and the test, and they were good to go. Spend a short time as a reenlistment counselor and all a person had to do to reenlist was to fill out the request and get sworn in. Thinks have sure changed.
 
Teufel said:
Did you read the article? Marine Corps Recruiting Command draws from one pot of money for recruitment and reenlistment incentives. The Commandant is pushing all that money into retention bonuses now.
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Weird article and title. Should it not say "MARINE CORPS HITS RECRUITING GOAL FOR 2022, TAKE THAT NAVY!"?

You know, I always thought these bonuses were kinda ass anyways. I have great idea...what if we just raised wages?
 
Teufel said:
Did you read the article? Marine Corps Recruiting Command draws from one pot of money for recruitment and reenlistment incentives. The Commandant is pushing all that money into retention bonuses now.
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I did.

My point was, and perhaps it was poorly articulated, if people are walking to the office next door because the name-your-branch-other-than-Marines are offering a bonus or sign-on money and the Corps isn't, then that is something that may come back to bite them. Duke ain't the Marines, but people are going to people. I do agree that retention is a significant issue that needs to be addressed, and retention bonuses and special incentives (i.e., extending time at a duty station) would go a long way with that. When that money is all in the same pot, it's often a damn if you do/damn if you don't when you try to prioritize where to put that money with regards to recruitment and retention.

Again with personal experience where I work, they put their big bucks on recruitment and lost a lot of good staff when they weren't doing anything to make us want to stay. That has since changed and we aren't hemorrhaging experienced nurses like we did. Retention is important.
 
ThunderHorse said:
Weird article and title. Should it not say "MARINE CORPS HITS RECRUITING GOAL FOR 2022, TAKE THAT NAVY!"?

You know, I always thought these bonuses were kinda ass anyways. I have great idea...what if we just raised wages?
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The Navy has a whole set of problems right now, getting bodies into the fleet is just one of them.

I think bonuses are important, especially for the technical or undermanned jobs (rates, MOSs, NECs, whatever you want to call them). But to your point, so it raising wages.
 

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