Marine Corps says it’s ready to come to the negotiating table to keep talented service members

It’s no secret that the military has a recruiting and retention problem. All military services told the public they were suffering on the recruiting and retention front and said end-force goals may need to be readjusted due to lack of interest in the service.

To that end, the Marine Corps says it is making talent management one of its top priorities going forward.

“What we need to do now is focus on the people and the process to keep those people,” Gen. Eric Smith, deputy commandant of the Marine Corps, said during a speech at the press conference in Defense on Thursday. “We need to keep moving as fast as we can to make sure we have the right people in the right place in the right rank with the right skills, cyber skills, communication skills, airmen, make sure we have that.”

Although the Marine Corps met its retention goals this year, it’s only the first time in a decade that it has done so.

Smith said Marine Corps leadership was looking for the best way to meet the needs of the service members it wanted to retain in the service. This means making the Marine Corps more flexible on salaries, bonuses, assignments and other benefits.

Smith likened it to a negotiation process. Often someone will say they are not interested in selling something, but if the right price comes along they can be persuaded.

“The question is, what’s the price I don’t want to sell it?” said Smith. “I’m not saying I’m going to pay. But I’ll ask you, you know how much you want for your house. $2 million? I am leaving. But if you say $100,000 and I say $700,000. OK, now we can work. What’s it going to take to keep you for another four years? I want to go to Camp Pendleton. I want to change careers. »

Smith said areas that were once hard-line issues are now bargaining chips for talent management.

Another area Smith highlighted is the dual military family. He said the Marine Corps needs to be more aware of family separation or separation.

While the Marine Corps focuses on recruitment and retention, it also tries to bring in a broader skill set.

“We’re really not changing the type of Marine, we’re changing the skills,” Smith said. “We need more Cyber ​​Marines because this is becoming a very tech-savvy battlefield.”

The service itself is changing to be more agile and focus more on creating quality Marines. The change stems from Commander General David Berger’s 2019 planning guidance, which focuses on force redesign.

“We are entering a period of transformation of forces,” Berger said in the guide. “While this transformation will take more than the next four years, as maneuvers, we are ready to make bold decisions faster than others to achieve these results, to generate momentum and create friction in decision cycles. of our competitors and adversaries… As we implement the orientations of this document, we must depart from the past in order to modernize ourselves for the future.