Want to improve JO retention? Here are a few cheap and easy steps…

By Crispin Burke
Best Defense cross-trained columnist

The issue of junior officer retention is one which has gotten quite a bit of press in recent years. Unfortunately, no one has come up with a viable solution to keeping our best and brightest lieutenants and captains.

Fortunately, there’s no huge secret to keeping our nation’s high-performing twenty-somethings in uniform. Best of all, it doesn’t require hefty cash bonuses-just smart personnel management and concerned leadership.

The obvious: Talk to your lieutenants and captains.

Lieutenants and captains get grilled during command and staff meetings over their re-enlistment programs, and for good reason: a company’s re-enlistment program is a reflection of their command climate.

However, officer retention says just as much about a battalion or brigade’s command climate. Unfortunately, for bureaucratic reasons, we don’t track officer retention as assiduously as we do re-enlistment.

Battalion and brigade commanders: talk to your lieutenants and captains, one-on-one. We stress re-enlistment counseling, we rarely mention career counseling for commissioned officers.

Find out what their goals are, and what they plan on accomplishing in the military. Sure, it’s a mundane suggestion, but based on experience, only about half of battalion commanders have these discussions. It never ceases to amaze me when a battalion commander’s jaw drops upon receiving yet another captain’s "REFRAD" paperwork. Did they talk to their captains?

With the wars winding down, let’s settle back into a routine, and get back to doing our regular counseling sessions. Ask the tough questions, too: Are you staying in the Army? Do you want to declare a functional area, train with industry, or jump "off the track" for a few years? Doing so sends a message to your JOs that they’re valued members of the team, not just another "cog in the wheel".

Separate the wheat from the chaff: Eliminate the bottom of the officer corps.

General Dempsey and Secretary Gates have been railing against bloated promotion rates to captain and major as of late. Simply put, we have a responsibility to rid the officer corps of the miscreants. Says Gates:

One thing I have learned from decades of leading large public organizations is that it is important to really focus on the top 20 percent of your people and, though it may be politically incorrect to say so, the bottom 20 percent as well. The former to elevate and give more responsibility and opportunity, the latter to transition out, albeit with consideration and respect for the service they have rendered. Failure to do this risks frustrating, demoralizing and ultimately losing the leaders we will most need for the future.

The promotion rates have started to decrease and, as a matter of course, will decrease further as overseas deployments wind down. I’ve tried to do my small part to alleviate this situation by ordering the military to pare down the size and number of its headquarters along with reducing the number of general and admirals by nearly 100 – and twice as many civilian executives. One hoped for effect of these reforms is to reduce the number of personal staff and support positions, and in turn alleviate somewhat the demand on the military services to produce the field grade officers to fill those billets.

Nothing frustrates industrious young officers more than seeing their poor-performing peers promoted at the same rate they are.  Though we speak volumes about promoting the best and the brightest, it’s also important to concentrate our efforts on the bottom of the barrel.

Ask your captains and lieutenants: they know the type.

Some may get a letter of reprimand one month, then a congratulatory letter on their promotion to captain the next-often from the same general officer. Others may be relieved of any and all responsibility due to incompetence-either real or feigned-and spend their days playing solitaire. Diligent, virtuous workers become cynical when they see miscreants promoted right along side them.

Unfortunately, the solution to this problem isn’t easy-unlike enlisted soldiers, a commander cannot simply take a lieutenant’s rank for showing up late to formation, or for drinking and driving.

Battalion and brigade commanders: let your captains and lieutenants know that you have high expectations, and hold them to it. Give them regular written counseling-something we’ve all strayed from after nearly ten years of war.

Accept that your lieutenants will fall short here and there: they’re only human, and they’re going to make honest mistakes. But learn to identify those riding the system and eliminate them. Your soldiers deserve the best.

Give them a stake in the Army: Harness the power of ideas

The Army’s new Chief of Staff, General Dempsey, has some great ideas for the future. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen someone with his vision.

But General Dempsey’s just one person. He has over a million soldiers, each with an idea or two. There’s plenty of potential for innovation.

Why not set up an idea blog, and solicit ideas and suggestions from the field? After all, commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan hold weekly contests to solicit "best practices"-it’d be simple to take this practice Army-wide.

As it stands, JOs feel they have little at stake in the "Big Army". Let’s give them the opportunity to make a difference and have an impact. Let them know their input is valued, and that innovators are rewarded.

Get them out of their intellectual comfort zone.

A lieutenant or captain need to have a full grounding in their basic branch, that much is clear. But after their company command, they’ll soon be pinning on major’s rank. It’s at the field grade when officers are expected to be masters of combined arms operations.

Unfortunately, with an Army stretched thin, we haven’t been able to give captains and majors the good, well-rounded experience they may require to be an effective leader in the 21st Century.

But as the wars die down, and the Army cuts back on its commitments, that means there’ll be plenty of breathing room for captains and majors to get good, broadening experiences. College scholarships, training with industry, exchange programs, perhaps even temporary duty with organizations like the State Department. There’s a lot a captain or major can learn from these organizations, and even more these organizations can learn from us.

They may hate this at the time, but they’ll thank you later.