As we plan for the force of 2025, we are focused on recruiting America's best young men and women who can become resilient, fit Soldiers of character. We want to attract our Nation's youth who have the potential to be competent, committed, agile and adaptive leaders and can serve on cohesive teams comprised of trusted professionals who represent the diversity of America. Although we are drawing down the current force and will continue to do so for the next several years, we are committed to attracting and managing the talent of every Soldier and Civilian and providing them opportunities to realize their full potential. While Army force structure requires that some individuals depart the Army before a full career, we must be absolutely certain that we are keeping our very best. Likewise, we must encourage those who have served honorably and leave active duty to pursue continued service to our Nation as a "Soldier For Life". The force of the future demands we shift our current "personnel management" practices to a state-of-the-art "talent management" system. I'd like to highlight three main efforts that have the potential to make a tremendous difference in sustaining an All-Volunteer Force while maintaining the focus on our most important asset - people.
RECRUITING
Today's recruiting environment is challenging. Unemployment is down, youth obesity rates are up, and unfortunately, national high school graduation rates continue to disappoint. To counter this, we will select our very best non-commissioned officers to serve as recruiters and work closely with communities to ensure we are a positive influence with today's youth. We also want to tap into our retirees and veterans who are "Soldiers For Life" and key influencers to America's youth. They understand first-hand the benefits of serving in today's Army and know that Army service could be one of the most rewarding experiences in life. Today, only 8% of 17-24 year olds are propensed to serve in the Army. It is clear that we must actively engage those who may not be propensed to serve by educating them and demonstrating to them the value of serving in the Army.
Research shows that lack of knowledge about the military contributes to low propensity among America's youth. Lack of a personal connection to someone who has served, also means that misperceptions and misinformation about military service are often unchallenged by this population--they believe what they see on TV and at the movies. To attract the best talent, we need our young men and women to hear and see realistic examples of military service. We can't do this through marketing and recruiting alone, and need Soldiers and veterans to share their military experiences.
TALENT MANAGEMENT
Once we recruit the Nation's best people, we must ensure we provide them the best training, education, and leadership. As we match individual knowledge, skills, and behaviors to the needs of Army, we are better able to optimize individual talents and ensure we get the right person with the right skills in the right job at the right time.
To accomplish this, we are developing an Integrated Personnel and Pay System -- Army (IPPS-A). Most importantly, IPPS-A will allow us for the first time to see the total force in one Human Resources system. This unprecedented level of visibility will enable greater permeability between components and allow us to better employ the talents we have in the Active Component, U.S. Army Reserve and the Army National Guard. Next, IPPS-A will help us better manage talent through an integrated system that matches Army requirements with inventory based on the knowledge, skills, and behaviors of the Total Force. Finally, IPPS-A provides us an audit capability for pay and benefits to ensure the best use of resources and a greater return on our human capital investments.
We are exploring ways to add greater flexibility to officer careers through talent based branching and assignments. We are looking at ways to move from narrowly defined timelines and with branch "time based" gates to broader career paths that more fully consider the Service Member's talents and desires. This includes expanding the use and design of sabbatical programs, performance-based advanced civil schooling, and opportunities to train with industry or compete for a fellowship. Currently we allow lateral entry into the Army profession for medical, legal and chaplain communities -- in the future we may expand this to include the cyber force. Ultimately, our efforts will be focused on ensuring we retain a high quality force who can contribute more fully.
A major focus this year has been on increasing opportunities for women to serve by opening positions and occupations previously closed to women. We've taken an integrated, incremental, and scientific approach that places unit readiness, cohesion, and morale as paramount. The Army is completing its validation of gender neutral physical demands, and this work will inform the Army decisions on opening the remaining closed occupations.
CIVILIAN PERSONNEL
Commensurate with the military drawdown, we have drawn down our Civilian Workforce from a wartime high in Fiscal Year 2011 of 285,000. We have internally reprioritized and realigned some Civilian manpower authorizations from lower priority functions to meet higher priorities, such as Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention. We have developed decision support tools to ensure we have better information to determine workforce mix and can better develop the capabilities the Civilian workforce needs to support the Army's mission. As we reduce the size of our Civilian workforce we will use all available workforce shaping tools such as Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) and Voluntary Separation Incentive Pay (VSIP) to reduce turbulence in our Civilian workforce.
We are undertaking significant changes in the way we recruit, manage, and develop our Civilians. We are focusing on preserving the most important capabilities of this critical element of our Total Force. The Army will continue to make investments in talent management and leadership development of our Civilian Corps through our multi-year Civilian Workforce Transformation (CWT) program. The CWT initiatives are designed to institutionalize the Army's career programs, leadership training, individual development and senior leader talent management, ensuring the Civilian workforce is developed on par with their military counterparts to strengthen the Army overall.
The Army Civilian Training and Education Development System (ACTEDS) Intern Program provides for a strategic succession plan to replenish the Civilian workforce while maintaining the requisite skills required for functional proficiency. Program re-engineering efforts have resulted in improved hiring execution, with program goals to hire 1,000 interns annually. Fifty percent of the intern hires are within science, technology, engineering and mathematic fields, and about half of our intern hires are veterans.
SOLDIER FOR LIFE
America now has the largest population of young veterans since the Vietnam War. Almost half of those serving in the Army today are between 22 and 30 years old. The Army transitions approximately 120,000 Soldiers to civilian life every year, and will continue to do so for the next several years. Since only about 10% of our enlisted force and 30% of our officer corps serve to reach a twenty year retirement, we owe it to Soldiers who have voluntarily served to make sure their transition leaves them career-ready, with an opportunity for education, meaningful employment, or entrepreneurship. We want every Soldier to lead a meaningful life of service within their communities. To help us in this endeavor, the Army's Soldier for Life program was founded.
The Soldier for Life program works with industry partners, communities, and government agencies to connect our Soldiers to an established network where they can find employment, education, and health resources. We are fortunate to have partners from all kinds of industries willing to train, professionally certify and hire Soldiers. This is good news for American businesses that reap the benefit of hiring high quality men and women who are transitioning from active military Service. These Soldiers take with them the continued desire to serve others, be part of a winning team, and contribute to something bigger than themselves.
Soldiers live by the Army values of Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage. These values are taught and modeled at every level of our organization and they guide our decisions, behavior, priorities and missions. Soldiers do not leave behind their values and skills when they take off their uniforms for the last time and transition to civilian life. We want the pride that our people feel in serving to motivate the next generation to serve.
Supporting our transitioning Soldiers is an investment in our Nation's future. For our young men and women, serving their country and being part of something bigger than themselves could be one of the most important things they do in the lives. As a nation, we must support that choice.
Today, more than one million Soldiers and Civilians serve our Nation at home and abroad, at peace and at war. Some serve far from loved ones, sacrificing the comforts of home and risking their lives and others serve in the generating force ensuring we sustain the world's best fighting force. I am proud of the freedoms and liberties we enjoy and even more proud that I have the opportunity to serve with those who value and protect those freedoms and liberties.
Lt. Gen. James C. McConville is the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-1. He previously served as the commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) at Fort Campbell Kentucky. A 1981 graduate of the United States Military Academy, he also holds a master's degree in aerospace engineering for the Georgia Institute of Technology.
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