Management and Use of Army Enlisted Personnel:

What Needs To Be Done

FPCD-78-6: Published: Feb 16, 1978. Publicly Released: Feb 16, 1978.

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For many years, the Army relied on the draft to acquire a large, continuing supply of new personnel. Since the draft ended, it has pursued an aggressive program to recruit volunteers, paying bonuses to enlistees for critically needed skills. Although the Army has shortages of enlisted personnel in critically needed skills, it has substantial numbers of individuals qualified in those skills. It has had problems in maintaining an inventory of personnel with skills to match its needs. The Army needs a workable system for distributing, assigning, using, and accounting for its personnel.

Army personnel management policies, regulations, and instructions need to be made more specific to guide officials at headquarters and field installations in attaining the most effective distribution, assignment, and use of enlisted personnel practicable. The Army's combat mission capability has priority, but its peacetime role and demands on personnel are important. Headquarters has not officially recognized that its personnel management policies and instructions must also serve peacetime needs. There is little or no peacetime need for some authorized positions in garrison, but some garrison needs that do exist are not always met. The personnel distribution and assignment system often does not get the right people to the right place at the right time. In the absence of standard procedures, each installation manager must, to some extent, apply his own techniques and judgment to the allocation of skilled personnel.

Recommendations for Executive Action

  1. Status: Closed

    Comments: Please call 202/512-6100 for additional information.

    Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense, with the cooperation of the Secretary of the Army should: designate a single authority to prescribe and enforce policies and regulations; issue specific instructions to guide officials at all levels; develop techniques for managing enlisted personnel by skill to provide more effective control over the acquisition, distribution, assignment, and use of personnel; determine whether the policy for the payment of enlistment bonuses is administered prudently; clarify criteria to be used in measuring personnel readiness; modify the personnel reporting system to provide realistic data for each individual; and direct the audit, inspection, and other evaluation organizations to intensify their examination of and reporting on the effectiveness of personnel management.

    Agency Affected:

  2. Status: Closed

    Comments: Please call 202/512-6100 for additional information.

    Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense, with the cooperation of the Secretary of the Army should: designate a single authority to prescribe and enforce policies and regulations; issue specific instructions to guide officials at all levels; develop techniques for managing enlisted personnel by skill to provide more effective control over the acquisition, distribution, assignment, and use of personnel; determine whether the policy for the payment of enlistment bonuses is administered prudently; clarify criteria to be used in measuring personnel readiness; modify the personnel reporting system to provide realistic data for each individual; and direct the audit, inspection, and other evaluation organizations to intensify their examination of and reporting on the effectiveness of personnel management.

    Agency Affected:

 

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