Navy sweetens incentives like child care to keep its best sailors
WASHINGTON — Navy brass, anxious to stay ahead of a potential recruiting and retention crisis, are launching a series of initiatives aimed at keeping its best young sailors, including expanded maternity leave and child care and partnerships with industry.
The initial sign of a military recruiting problem — the Army's struggle this year to meet its annual goal of new soldiers — has attracted the attention of top officials at the Pentagon. An improving economy tends to shrink the pool of candidates for military service.
"Since the inception of the all-volunteer force, a strong economy and low unemployment have always been our biggest competitors for attracting and keeping great sailors," Vice Adm. Bill Moran, the Navy's top officer for personnel, said in a statement.
The Navy's response includes: beefed-up programs for maternity leave, child care and education and mid-career internships with industry.
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The Navy's programs mirror a broader trend at the Pentagon to modernize its compensation system in order to attract and keep needed talent, said Todd Harrison, a military budget expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a non-partisan think tank.
"If you want to be retaining and recruiting the best and brightest, you've got to offer them a career model that is competitive to what they're being offered on outside," Harrison said.
The newest program starts Monday, sending three sailors to Amazon and two to FedEx as part of a Navy internship program with private industry. The internships last nine months, paid by the Navy, and allow sailors to learn business practices, techniques and technologies, said Lt. Cdr. Nate Christensen, a Navy spokesman.
Amazon, the online retailer, finds troops and veterans fit its culture, said Ashley Robinson, a company spokeswoman.
"Amazon values the leadership skills and problem-solving abilities that military members bring to our company," Robinson said. "We have found that those with military experiences, current and past, are leaders who can invent, think big, have a bias for action and deliver results on behalf of our customers."
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For Lt. Cdr. Jared Loller, 36, a Navy pilot, the work at Amazon on a team to improve customer service "from shelf to doorstep" allows him to step away from a job on a military staff.
The private-sector experience "takes him out of my comfort zone, which is flying," Loller said. He'll return to the Navy with a different take on leadership and new problem-solving skills. Already pilot buddies are asking him how they can land a similar job, he said.
"It will go a long way toward retaining high-quality officers," Loller said.
Other Navy programs aimed at finding and keeping top sailors:
• The Navy plans to expand hours at its child-care centers in 2016, opening them earlier and closing their doors later. "This will help accommodate the needs of Navy and Marine Corps families subject to high operational tempo," Christensen said.
• The Career Intermission Program allows 40 sailors a year to take a three-year break while retaining health care and base privileges. The Navy is seeking authority from Congress to expand the program 10 times to 400 sailors per year. The program will allow them to return to school or start a family.
• Maternity leave has been expanded to 18 weeks, the highest among the armed services. The Navy is also seeking to extend the leave to fathers and for adoption.
"We are modernizing policies and retention tools that will allow commanders and the institution to see the competition coming and deal with recruiting and retention challenges when the time comes," Moran said. "The sailors we have in the Navy today are the best we've ever seen. We aim to keep it that way."