Research Summaries

Back 21st Century Retention Challenges for the Navy: Generational Change, Attitudinal Effects, and Their Impact on Operations

Fiscal Year 2014
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department Naval Research Program
Investigator(s) Simons, Anna
Sponsor NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary The aim of this project is to build on research already done by the U.S. Navy and others on 21st century recruiting, retention, career mobility, and job satisfaction challenges. In addition to taking advantage of work already done, we will likewise take advantage of the student body at NPS, as well as borrow from theses written by officers from the aviation, SEAL, EOD, and other Navy communities.
By canvassing the literature and prior studies, we will identify key issues and stakeholders. In coordination with the sponsor, we will identify which operational staff to engage for our scenario planning and scenario mitigation workshops-for example, women, aviators, SEALs, and EOD. We will use shipboard interviews and observations to better understand serving Sailors' and officers' perspectives on what might keep them serving, as well as what might drive them away from the Navy. With this information and in consultation with the sponsor, we will develop a series of likely future scenarios.
These scenarios will be used to engage operational staff in a series of strategic planning workshops. The aim of these strategic planning workshops will be twofold: to identify areas of common concern and to flag otherwise latent attitudinal differences across different groups or demographics that could lead to operational effectiveness problems within the Navy. We will then use the follow-on strategic mitigation workshops to generate practical mitigation strategies and actionable recommendations. Our final deliverable will identify the issues, offer a gap analysis, and provide actionable recommendations based on the workshops and our observations. The goal is to provide insights and information that will help the Navy reduce attrition and retain its talent.
Keywords
Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal