Reserve Components: Factors Related to Personnel Attrition in the Selected Reserve

Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined enlisted personnel retention in the Selected Reserve, focusing on the causes and extent of personnel turnover and attrition.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected	Recommendation	Status
Department of Defense	To help to properly manage attrition, even in an era of likely force reductions, the Secretary of Defense should direct the services to examine the nature and extent of potential ramifications associated with their reliance on nonprior service recruits to meet manpower requirements.	Closed – Not Implemented Until the issues surrounding downsizing the active and reserve forces are resolved, DOD indicated it would not be feasible to develop a more specific policy.
Department of Defense	To help to properly manage attrition, even in an era of likely force reductions, the Secretary of Defense should develop common, uniform measures of attrition for all services that provide more appropriate and usable data for decisionmakers on losses in the Selected Reserve than the current overall loss rates.	Closed – Implemented DOD Instruction 7730.54, published March 15, 1991, revised definitions and reporting procedures.
Department of Defense	To help to properly manage attrition, even in an era of likely force reductions, the Secretary of Defense should improve the accuracy of the Reserve Component Common Personnel Data System.	Closed – Implemented DOD has standardized attrition information based on analyses conducted by the RAND Corp. and DMDC.
Department of Defense	The Secretary of Defense should test, with selected units of the Selected Reserve, whether there are more effective options than the current 1 drill weekend a month and 2 weeks of annual training schedule that would make reserve training more flexible, while still meeting training requirements.	Closed – Implemented Revised DOD Directive 1215.13 has been drafted to increase flexibility.
Department of Defense	The Secretary of Defense should test, with selected units of the Selected Reserve, whether it is possible to pay reservists at the end of their drill period as a means to improve attendance and reduce nonparticipation.	Closed – Implemented DOD stated that payment at the end of drill would create too many problems. It stated that other efforts are underway to improve the timeliness of reserve pay.
Department of Defense	The Secretary of Defense should test a revised enlistment/reenlistment bonus program for reservists and National Guard members to shift bonus payments to monthly installments, with special bonuses for completion of each year of added satisfactory participation.	Closed – Not Implemented Due to uncertainty surrounding downsizing, DOD stated that such a test would not be worthwhile.
Department of Defense	The Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretaries of the Army and Air Force to establish procedures that will identify vacant positions in other National Guard and reserve components when no positions exist in the reservist's own component.	Closed – Not Implemented DOD agreed that such a system would be desirable, but indicated that it is not feasible before fiscal year 1996, when this recommendation will be reexamined.
Department of Defense	The Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Navy to establish a relocation program to assist relocating reservists to find unit positions near their new place of residence.	Closed – Implemented DOD indicated that while such a program would be nice to have, it would not be prudent to devote resources to it in light of more urgent priorities.
Department of Defense	The Secretary of Defense should develop a uniform policy for dealing with nonparticipating reservists that recognizes that reservists are part-time volunteers and provides for standard disposition procedures.	Closed – Implemented DOD has developed a revision to its policy, DOD Directives 1215.5 and 1215.3.

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Armed forces reserve trainingArmed forces reservesAttrition ratesCombat readinessDefense capabilitiesDefense contingency planningManagement information systemsMilitary enlistmentMilitary reserve personnelMilitary forces