Military Personnel: Evaluation Methods Linked to Anticipated Outcomes Needed to Inform Decisions on Army Recruitment Incentives
Highlights
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the United States has launched several military operations that have dramatically increased the operations tempo of the military services and required the large-scale mobilization of reservists. These factors have particularly affected the active Army, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard, which have shouldered the bulk of the personnel burden associated with ongoing operations in Iraq. A 2007 Congressional Research Service report notes that many observers have expressed concern that these factors might lead to lower recruiting and retention rates, thereby jeopardizing the vitality of today's all-volunteer military. Additionally, in 2004 the Army began its modular force transformation to restructure itself from a division-based force to a more agile and responsive modular brigade-based force--an undertaking it considers to be the most extensive reorganization of its force since World War II. Both ongoing military operations and transformation have prompted the Army to increase its recruitment efforts. To encourage military service, Congress, through Section 681 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, temporarily authorized the Army to provide not more than four new recruitment incentives and directed the Secretary of the Army to submit to Congress a plan for each recruitment incentive it develops under the authority provided. Section 681 states that each plan should include (1) a description of the incentive, including its purpose and the potential recruits to be addressed by the incentive; (2) a description of the provisions of the U.S. Code relevant to the military that would need to be waived in order for the Army to provide the incentive and an explanation of why these provisions would need to be waived; (3) a statement of the anticipated outcomes as a result of providing the incentive; and (4) the method to be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the incentive. The Army is also required to submit an annual report to Congress on each of the recruitment incentives developed under this authority; this report is to include a description of the incentives and an assessment of their impact on recruitment during the previous fiscal year. The Army began providing recruitment incentives under this authority in June 2006 and is currently using it to pilot three recruitment incentives. Under Section 681, the Army's authority to provide these new recruitment incentives expires on December 31, 2009. The Army may modify, expand, or take steps to make permanent some or all of these recruitment incentives, based on the data it collects during this pilot phase. For this report, we (1) identified and described the recruitment incentives the Army has developed under Section 681 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 and (2) assessed the extent to which the plans for each incentive included anticipated outcomes and a methodology for evaluating these outcomes.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of the Army | To improve management of the incentives and ensure that the required annual assessments will be of use to Army decision makers, for each recruitment incentive developed pursuant to Section 681, the Secretary of the Army should issue guidance to clearly specify anticipated outcomes for each incentive, describe the assumptions behind these anticipated outcomes, identify the evaluation method to be used to assess progress toward these outcomes, and link anticipated outcomes to the stated evaluation method. |
Closed – Not Implemented
In commenting on our draft report, DOD concurred with this recommendation, and stated that the Secretary of the Army would ensure that for each of the recruitment incentives developed pursuant to Section 681 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2006, that anticipated outcomes, underlying assumptions, evaluation methods, and linkage between the anticipated outcome and evaluation method are clearly articulated in the annual report to Congress on each recruitment incentive. As of July 20, 2012, the Army had not issued guidance on this issue.
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| Department of the Army | To improve management of the incentives and ensure that the required annual assessments will be of use to Army decision makers, for each recruitment incentive developed pursuant to Section 681, the Secretary of the Army should ensure that this guidance is specifically addressed in the required annual assessments for each recruitment incentive. |
Closed – Implemented
In commenting on our draft report, DOD concurred with this recommendation, and stated that the Secretary of the Army would ensure that for each of the recruitment incentives developed pursuant to Section 681 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2006, that anticipated outcomes, underlying assumptions, evaluation methods, and linkage between the anticipated outcome and evaluation method are specifically addressed in the annual report to Congress on each recruitment incentive and serve as the basis for continuing, modifying, or discontinuing any or all of the recruitment incentives. On Dec. 14, 2010, the Army's Director of Military Personnel Management, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, G1, submitted the reports required by Section 681 for 2008 and 2009 for the Army Advantage Fund Pilot Program, the Recruiter Incentive Pay Pilot Program, and the Officer Accession Pilot Program. He stated that these reports included the outcomes, assumptions, evaluation methods, and linkage between the anticipated outcome and evaluation method as stated in GAO's recommendations. These reports do in fact include the required elements.
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| Department of the Army | Should the Army decide--based on the results of the annual assessments of each incentive--to seek to make any of these incentives permanent, the Secretary of the Army, should, for any proposals the Army may wish to develop, include in its business case clearly specified anticipated outcomes for each incentive, a description of the assumptions behind these anticipated outcomes, an identification of the evaluation method to be used to assess progress toward these outcomes, and an explanation that links anticipated outcomes to the stated evaluation method. |
Closed – Not Implemented
In commenting on our draft report, DOD concurred with this recommendation, and stated that should the Secretary of the Army seek to make any of the recruitment incentives permanent, the Army will develop a business case that includes clearly specified anticipated outcomes, a description of the assumptions being the anticipated outcomes, an identification of the evaluation method to be used to assess progress toward these outcomes, and an explanation that links anticipated outcomes to the stated evaluation method. As of July 20, 2012, the Army had decided not to make any of these recruitment incentive programs permanent, and this recommendation did not apply.
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