Retention and Recruitment Crisis

Topkick said:
I get it, but money always incentivises. People will eat shit for decent pay and job security.
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There comes a point where black mold in the barracks, no food in the chow hall, shitty leadership, and no money for training will absolutely overcome pay increases.
 
GOTWA said:
There comes a point where black mold in the barracks, no food in the chow hall, shitty leadership, and no money for training will absolutely overcome pay increases.
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This is true when, even with pay increases, the pay is still shit.

Survey results recently showed over 40% of reenlisted soldiers report that pay and benefits, as well as retirement pay and benefits are the main reason they stay in. That's not insignificant. I think your right though in part, as I'm guessing single soldiers living in the barracks and eating in chow halls have always been the most likely to leave after their first enlistment. A little pay raise isn't going to keep them if there's no food, shitty barracks, etc.
 
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Well, the data are clear: people don't leave because of pay, people leave because of bosses, culture, or environment. That's true even in the military. But a 14% raise is no joke, That's almost a $300/month increase. Even so that bring E1 to about $27,600/year; or, about $14/hour. That's horrible. Of course the knife that cuts both ways says "but you don't pay medical, your uniforms are no-cost, you get 30 days of leave, and you don't pay for housing/food, and bennies can be adjusted for location." That ain't nothing, either.

A pay raise is essential for sure as are signing bonuses, but none if it will matter if people are leaving after first enlistment because of food or barracks issues, poor leadership, or their family isn't being taken care of.
 
Devildoc said:
but none if it will matter if people are leaving after first enlistment because of food or barracks issues, poor leadership, or their family isn't being taken care of.
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Some of which can be addressed with better pay and benefits. People will tolerate a lot more for a price. This is not to say that other issues do not need attention. I just disagree that pay increases won't improve retention and recruitment.

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GOTWA said:
There comes a point where black mold in the barracks, no food in the chow hall, shitty leadership, and no money for training will absolutely overcome pay increases.
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Just you wait until they try and put a band aid on the problem by recalling folks to active duty to fill mission critical duty positions - JUST TO MAINTAIN SOME ODD RESEMBLANCE TO WHAT WE ALL USED TO REFER TO AS "READINESS"
...mark my words - its coming.

Thee asshole are going to keep irritating the world stage to do a war - and the same poor sous that got out of the military because they were tired of getting butt fucked by shitty leaders...
BAM
...they're going to get butt fucked AGAIN by getting recalled to active duty
...by the same generation of shitty leaders that butt fucked them in the first place

So you ask, "whose fault is it?"
Well, its the fault f these shit bag Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airmen (and AirWomyn) that got out because all they think about is themselves
It HAS to be their fault
otherwise it would be thee fault of our current crop of senior leaders
 
I think had I gotten married while in I would have stayed. The life of a single barracks dweller sucks. You arent afforded the same opportunities to gain wealth as a married person.

I know a number of people that are active duty who own homes in multiple cities pulling in large amounts of rent each month from those. When they retire they will have well north of $2m in extra assets to their name. Single military person? Gotta wait till around year 10 to 12 before you can start thinking you can get that but by then you are already behind the power curve.
 
BloodStripe said:
I think had I gotten married while in I would have stayed. The life of a single barracks dweller sucks. You arent afforded the same opportunities to gain wealth as a married person.

I know a number of people that are active duty who own homes in multiple cities pulling in large amounts of rent each month from those. When they retire they will have well north of $2m in extra assets to their name. Single military person? Gotta wait till around year 10 to 12 before you can start thinking you can get that but by then you are already behind the power curve.
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Part of me wishes I had purchased a house and maybe rented rooms to some other O's, but then the other part of me is glad I don't have rent houses in places like Radcliff and El Paso. Being a landlord can be difficult and it is unlikely that you'd have 2M in extra assets. At least from what I've seen it's been more a of level up each station if you're someone who was stabilized for four years. (Taking the four years of equity and rolling that into the next house) You can look at BAH as free money or your can look at as a way for Uncle Sam to fake their accounting of what you should actually be getting paid. Unfortunately, civilian wages don't make consistent jumps like TIS/TIG jumps do and I'm finally back to making what my gross was when I was last on Active Duty. There's a reason why so many enlisted and officers live on post.

I just punched the numbers and there is a $24k difference between what my last gross was and what that gross would be today. Which is good because I was adamant on this board back then saying servicemen are underpaid. But that also tells me how tough working in start up sports is where a first lieutenant/junior captain is making more than me right now lol.
 
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ThunderHorse said:
Part of me wishes I had purchased a house and maybe rented rooms to some other O's, but then the other part of me is glad I don't have rent houses in places like Radcliff and El Paso. Being a landlord can be difficult and it is unlikely that you'd have 2M in extra assets. At least from what I've seen it's been more a of level up each station if you're someone who was stabilized for four years. (Taking the four years of equity and rolling that into the next house) You can look at BAH as free money or your can look at as a way for Uncle Sam to fake their accounting of what you should actually be getting paid. Unfortunately, civilian wages don't make consistent jumps like TIS/TIG jumps do and I'm finally back to making what my gross was when I was last on Active Duty. There's a reason why so many enlisted and officers live on post.

I just punched the numbers and there is a $24k difference between what my last gross was and what that gross would be today. Which is good because I was adamant on this board back then saying servicemen are underpaid. But that also tells me how tough working in start up sports is where a first lieutenant/junior captain is making more than me right now lol.
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Not my fault the Army only has shitty base locations. The Navy and Marine Corps both have locations that are prime real estate locations where I know multiple people own multiple homes that put them well north of that number. What’s the going rate for a house in San Diego, Hawaii, Monterey, Washington DC, and Virginia Beach?

Sure being a landlord can suck but owning real estate has nearly always been a great investment.
 
BloodStripe said:
I think had I gotten married while in I would have stayed. The life of a single barracks dweller sucks. You arent afforded the same opportunities to gain wealth as a married person.

I know a number of people that are active duty who own homes in multiple cities pulling in large amounts of rent each month from those. When they retire they will have well north of $2m in extra assets to their name. Single military person? Gotta wait till around year 10 to 12 before you can start thinking you can get that but by then you are already behind the power curve.
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My recruiter, 11B before the wars...did just this. He decided to swap over to Recruiter MOS in the 90's and ended up having houses all throughout the southwest. Last I heard he had $millions in property and retired as an E-9. I think his path wouldn't be an option if he was stuck at Bragg his whole life. :ROFLMAO:
 
BloodStripe said:
Not my fault the Army only has shitty base locations. The Navy and Marine Corps both have locations that are prime real estate locations where I know multiple people own multiple homes that put them well north of that number. What’s the going rate for a house in San Diego, Hawaii, Monterey, Washington DC, and Virginia Beach?

Sure being a landlord can suck but owning real estate has nearly always been a great investment.
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Let's start with the premise of that I agree that Real estate is a great investment. BUT there are so many factors that play into this. IFF you're blessed to put in 20 years and you decided to be a landlord and it worked out where you got your house rented and qualified for another loan and own 5 houses, great. But these folks are exceedingly rare today, I think more existed 20 years ago.

Sure, but the BAH rate for enlisted (as you were) is far different than it is for officers. Officers, certainly the economy and housing market was a bit more depressed when you first were in, but did you have the capacity at the time to think about buying a house. Could you have afforded on your BAH (likely not) a house in a decent part of Oceanside or Encinitas and definitely not living in San Clemente. Yeah closer to the beach but let's be intellectually honest on this.

The math in this for a junior enlisted Soldier/Marine to get married to an educated and employed person making decent coin so that you can afford said house in said desirable location is a very low possibility.

Yes, the Army has some trash posts. But so does the Corps, anyone wanting to be stationed at Yuma or 29 and buy a house? Bless. My old wing man's wife bought a house in Ewa Beach, while he was in Saudi, their mortgage is double mine. But she's a tenured professor at UH and he's a Major with 13 years of service. Only way for them to afford that is his gross salary (including BAH) and her salary.
 
My wife's friend's husband is a colonel in the AF, now in Texas (Randolph AFB?). They've lived in Maryland (Pentagon), California (March AFB?), and somewhere in Florida. In each location they have bought a house and renting for income and they seem to do pretty well. My coworker's husband is a 18D and is on staff at the school, they've done the same thing.

Both my wife's friend and my coworker say the income is nice, but the headaches of dealing with contractors, leasing agents, tenants, etc. are pretty significant.
 
Just let everyone in... or maybe streamline the enrollment process that takes to long.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan said the four medical conditions that will now be evaluated when people apply are attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, asthma and allergies.

Carignan said previously any applicants that arrived with an allergy were immediately disqualified.

“Nowadays, with the technology available to us, that might not be the case unless you have a very, very severe case of allergy that within the trade or, you know, operational fields that you are choosing, you may not have access to the medical support to allow you to, you know, to proceed,” she said.

Carignan said the changes to the military’s entry medical standards came into effect this January.

“We need to understand that things that are diagnosed now were not diagnosed many years ago,” Carignan said, adding that diagnostic tools are “a lot more sophisticated” than they were 30 or 40 years ago. “It’s adapting to the environment of today while also exercising risk management.”
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“Instead of having a bottleneck right at the front and having people wait for a longer period of time, we on-board them and then we keep working on the security level as not everybody needs to have a top-secret clearance as they join for recruit training,” Carignan said.

Carignan said the CAF has also worked on “digitizing” and “modernizing” its tools for recruiters to better manage files and ensure that people coming in are tracked. There is constant communication with them to “humanize the process.”

In the wide-ranging interview, Carignan also discussed the CAF’s goals of building a diverse force, sexual misconduct, its involvement in wildfires and emergency response and Canada’s relationship with the U.S. military, which she said is “extremely strong.”

According to data provided by the Canadian Armed Forces, the population of the force as of late last year was 87,638 compared to the target of 101,500.

For the past several years, Carignan said the CAF has only been able to reach about 60-65 per cent of its recruitment target. Within only a few months of making changes to its enrolment process, she said the force is already just above the 80 per cent mark.
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Canada’s military stops some automatic disqualification in applicant crunch - National | Globalnews.ca
 
So a lot of tweets about downsizing...and yet my email is getting flooded asking me to go into an active reserve role or active duty role. Let me guess, not enough senior captains? Next week automatic promotion to O-4 with ILE waived will be on the table. Or will a full recall to active duty be? Don't threaten me with a good time now.
 
ThunderHorse said:
So a lot of tweets about downsizing...and yet my email is getting flooded asking me to go into an active reserve role or active duty role. Let me guess, not enough senior captains? Next week automatic promotion to O-4 with ILE waived will be on the table. Or will a full recall to active duty be? Don't threaten me with a good time now.
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When I got out a long time ago during the middle portion of downsizing of GWOT, I got a lot of offers. Probably not as many or as juicy as you because I was in the reserve, but I was also in a undermanned field. Some of those offers sounded too good to be true and always curious it what strings were attached.
 

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