Predicting Retention Rates of U.S. Soldiers Stationed in Europe
Abstract
The high pace of military operations (usually referred to as operations tempo, OPTEMPO), poor unit work climate, lack of good leadership, and family concerns have all been cited as reasons U.S. soldiers leave the military. In this study, we assessed how well each of these factors accurately predicted the career decision of 289 soldiers who were stationed in either Germany or Italy. OPTEMPO measures included the average number of hours worked per day, days worked per week, days spent on training exercises, days on temporary duty, number of deployment and work overload. Work climate measures included job satisfaction, job recognition, task significance, work intensity, job challenge, goal acceptance, job control, and soldier pride. Measures of leadership included NCO leadership, officer leadership, horizontal cohesion, general leadership, and morale. Family issues assessed were marital status, children, family members with special needs, and work family/family work conflict. Important demographic variables included were years in the military, rank, gender, ethnicity, and age. Career decision categories included remaining in the military, leaving the military, or being undecided. The best Chi Square Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) model had an overall accuracy of 62.3% in predicting career intentions, with years in the military, deployment experience, and job satisfaction included in the model. The best multinomial logistic regression model had an overall accuracy of 75.1%, with all of the OPTEMPO, work climate, and OPTEMPO X work climate interactions included in the model. These findings demonstrate that retention models must include a wide-range of indicators for predicting soldier career decisions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 03, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA401701
Entities
People
- Ann H. Huffman
- Carl A. Castro