In Pursuit of Improved Officer Management
Abstract
The US Army continues to experience challenges in recruiting, retaining, and developing leaders to meet continually evolving operational and institutional requirements. This challenge predates the current All Volunteer Force approach to manning. Efforts to adjust the Army's personnel management policies and procedures to better manage the existing human capital, along with recurring manning shortfalls in some parts of the force, highlight the importance of refocusing personnel management policy toward effective talent management. In its simplest form, talent management is adjusting incentives to recruit, develop, retain, and assign personnel to duty assignments that (a) meet the operational and institutional requirements of the Army, (b) provide the right mix of experience and education to develop competent senior leaders to lead in either command or staff positions, and (c) effectively match the skills, knowledge, ability, and desires of individual leaders to duty assignments and career paths that are fulfilling to the soldier and simultaneously identify best qualified leaders for critical command and staff positions. This is no easy task under the best of conditions. This monograph focuses on the Officer Personnel Management System (OPMS) in an effort to identify shortfalls in talent management policies and procedures. Tracing the development of OPMS from its origins at the end of compulsory service through various adjustments to force structure and personnel management policy, this research acknowledges that no set of management policies will completely eliminate dissatisfaction or misalignment for all individual soldiers.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 23, 2019
- Accession Number
- AD1083276
Entities
People
- Aimee S. Dejarnette
Organizations
- United States Army Command and General Staff College