Marijuana and military recruitment

 Here's a proposal for a bit pf reality-based legislation that has some bipartisan support. DefenseOne has the story:

Proposed marijuana waivers acknowledge blunt recruiting truths. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle want to remove a barrier to joining the U.S. military.  by LAUREN C. WILLIAMS 

"As the military services struggle to meet recruiting goals, lawmakers in the divided House seem united on a proposed fix: relaxing the Pentagon’s policies on marijuana use.

“I do not believe we should be testing for cannabis [in] people who want to join the military,” Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., told the House Rules Committee during a hearing on Tuesday. “We should be thinking about cannabis more in terms of alcohol.”

Gaetz testified in support of his amendment that would ban drug testing for marijuana as a condition of enlistment or to become a commissioned officer. 

“We are having a recruiting crisis,” he said, noting that many “people use cannabis under the color of state law.” So far, 23 states and Washington, D.C. have legalized the recreational use of marijuana.

"The Florida lawmaker stressed that his amendment wouldn’t preclude DOD from prohibiting marijuana use for individuals actively serving in the military, but that cannabis testing is “an unnecessary gate” for recruitment. In 2021, Gaetz sought to overturn U.S. election results."

Talent management in the Marine Corps--lateral entry?

"Talent management" is making inroads in the armed forces.  One anomaly of military service is that almost all of its personnel enter the business at around age 18: there is almost no lateral entry.  But some skills, such as those related to cyber warfare, can also be cultivated in the private sector.  Think how hard it would be to run a tech company if you could only recruit your people right out of high school or college. 

Defense One has the story:

Marines See Early Successes in Retention Push—and Ways to Do Better. Meanwhile, the commandant wants to bring skilled people into the Corps at advanced ranks.

"Monday’s update highlights Berger’s dissatisfaction with the Corps’ progress toward what’s called “lateral entry”—enabling recruits with critical skills to come in at a rank that reflects their experience. The commandant wants the lateral-entry system to focus first on reservists and Marines who have left the service. This could help fill cyber jobs and others in which the Corps competes with the civilian sector, Glynn said.   

 ...

The service is still working on bringing to life its Talent Management Engagement Portal, which the update calls “a must-pay bill.” It is meant to improve career assignment selections with a transparent “marketplace” for Marines, units, and assignment managers, according to Glynn."

**********

Here's the Marine Corps' report Talent Management 2030 from November 2021

"CREATING A PATH TO LATERAL ENTRY

"Our current enlisted recruiting model is optimized for ecruiting teenagers, and for officers, those in their early twenties. (It was not always this way: During theInterwar Period, potential enlisted recruits had to be over 21 and required a character reference from an employer, teacher, coach, or religious leader). While we will always seek to attract young Americans to our ranks, we do not have an effective vehicle for finding, recruiting, and onboarding talented Americans who already possess critical skills. In other words, there is currently only one way to join the Marine Corps – at the bottom. 

...

"The rapid rise in importance of the cyber domain, for instance, has challenged us to find creative ways to quickly build critical skills at mid-career and senior levels. Unless we find a means to quickly infuse expertise into the force – at the right ranks – I am concerned that advances in artificial intelligence and robotics, among other fields where the speed of technological change is exponential, will force us into a reactive posture. We should have an open door for exceptionally talented Americans who wish to join the Marine Corps, allowing them to laterally enter at a rank appropriate to their education, experience, and ability."

And, somewhat separately

"CREATING A TALENT MARKETPLACE

"Taking advantage of the initial lessons learned by the Army, Navy, and Air Force, we are developing a web-based “talent marketplace,” where units post job information about available billets, Marines apply for those positions virtually, and monitors serve as overall managers and arbiters. While much in the way of mechanics remains to be determined, I am committed to creating a process that places increased responsibility in the hands of unit commanders and individual Marines, employs cutting edge technology, and preserves a vital role for headquarters. Initially, our talent marketplace will be for officers, and eventually senior enlisted, while we assess options for changes to the junior enlisted assignments process."

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Earlier:

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

The labor market that is the United States Marine Corps

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

The labor market that is the military: a report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine

The market for battlefield intelligence

Here's a column from the Washington Post, which (although it reads partly like an ad from Palantir) emphasizes that real time battlefield data can be acquired from a variety of commercial sources:

How the algorithm tipped the balance in Ukraine, By David Ignatius

"The “kill chain” that I saw demonstrated in Kyiv is replicated on a vast scale by Ukraine’s NATO partners from a command post outside the country. The system is built around the same software platform developed by Palantir that I saw in Kyiv, which can allow the United States and its allies to share information from diverse sources — ranging from commercial satellite imagery to the West’s most secret intelligence tools.

...

"What makes this system truly revolutionary is that it aggregates data from commercial vendors. Using a Palantir tool called MetaConstellation, Ukraine and its allies can see what commercial data is currently available about a given battle space. The available data includes a surprisingly wide array, from traditional optical pictures to synthetic aperture radar that can see through clouds, to thermal images that can detect artillery or missile fire.

"To check out the range of available data, just visit the internet. Companies selling optical and synthetic aperture radar imagery include Maxar, Airbus, ICEYE and Capella. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sells simple thermal imaging meant to detect fires but that can also register artillery explosions.

"In our Kherson example, Palantir assesses that roughly 40 commercial satellites will pass over the area in a 24-hour period. Palantir normally uses fewer than a dozen commercial satellite vendors, but it can expand that range to draw imagery from a total of 306 commercial satellites that can focus to 3.3 meters. Soldiers in battle can use handheld tablets to request more coverage if they need it. According to a British official, Western military and intelligence services work closely with Ukrainians on the ground to facilitate this sharing of information.

"A final essential link in this system is the mesh of broadband connectivity provided from overhead by Starlink’s array of roughly 2,500 satellites in low-earth orbit. The system, owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, allows Ukrainian soldiers who want to upload intelligence or download targeting information to do so quickly."

The labor market that is the United States Marine Corps

 Armed forces around the world have some unique labor force problems, since by and large they do no lateral hiring...every senior officer was once a junior officer. (Doctors and lawyers are exceptions in the U.S. services--they can enter at a high rank without having spent years learning when and whom to salute...)  As we start to think about other specialties (e.g. cyber warriors, economic warriors), lateral hiring may become more important.  

A related problem faced by armed forces is retention: if all senior personnel have to be brought up through the system, it's especially costly to lose a (therefore) hard to replace, expensively trained operator.  Intelligent matching of people to positions is important for retention, particularly as they become more senior and have no further military service obligation (i.e. as their private sector opportunities become more salient).

The US Marines are thinking about this, and here's a recent report:

Talent Management 2030 November 2021, Department of the Navy, United States Marine Corps

Here are some highlighted snippets:

"The  core  objectives  of  all  modern  personnel  management  systems  are  to  recruit  individuals  with  the  right  talents,  match  those  talents  to  organizational  needs,  and  incentivize  the  most  talented and high performing individuals to remain with the organization"

"Our modern operational concepts and organizations cannot reach their full warfighting potential without a talent management system that recruits, develops, and retains the right Marines."

"Matching talents to duties maximizes performance."

"Incentives power the system."

"In this current era of heightened global competition, the Marine Corps requires a vehicle for rapidly recruiting mature, seasoned experts. We can no longer afford the cost in time – measured in years, and sometimes decades – to train and educate all our technical leaders, particularly given the extraordinary pace of technological change."

"We should have an open door for exceptionally talented Americans who wish to join the Marine Corps, allowing them to laterally enter at a rank appropriate to their education, experience, and ability."

"For Marines, a talent marketplace will increase available information about billet openings, improve transparency, and provide individuals with far greater influence over their future assignments."

"A talent management system relies on incentives, not coercion. While the needs of the Marine Corps are always paramount, we cannot afford to push the most talented young officers out the door after investing years in their leadership development, education, and training. "

**************

Earlier (including some obstacles to implementing effective talent marketplaces):

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

The labor market that is the military: a report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine

Economic warfare: how to staff it?

 The Financial Times has a story about how the UK Ministry of Defense runs an economic warfare unit, which needs to be staffed differently than other military specialties. (The U.S. armed forces have very limited ability to recruit people with specialized skills from civilian occupations, except for doctors and lawyers.)

Secretive MoD ‘banking’ unit helps UK wage economic warfare. Taskforce set up to disrupt Isis six years ago turns its attention to new ‘grey zone’ threats such as cyber  by Helen Warrell 

"A taskforce of former bankers and financiers is helping the UK military sharpen its skills in economic warfare as a bulwark against growing threats including terrorism, cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns.

"The secretive unit — established by Britain’s Ministry of Defence six years ago to disrupt Isis’ commercial activities in Iraq and Syria — is staffed by a handful of former City professionals with expertise in commodity markets and international money flows.

...

"The taskforce, made up predominately of reservists with City experience, has worked with special forces, intelligence agencies and the army’s 77th Brigade information warfare unit to weaken adversaries by limiting their access to finance. 

...

"Bankers are able to enter the armed forces in a number of ways, from applying for a post as a military “regular” through the army’s officer selection board and undergoing training at Sandhurst, to working more flexibly in pro bono roles.

"The MoD is also considering reforms to its policies on reservists, including relaxing age and fitness requirements and bringing in a new “lateral” entry regime which would allow industry experts to transfer directly into senior military ranks rather than working their way up the hierarchy.

“We’re really not trying to throw middle-aged bankers out of the back of aircraft [on military operations],” the taskforce member explained. “It’s about using their professional skills.”

***************

See also 

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

The labor market that is the military: a report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine

Redesigning the US Army's Branching Process, by Kyle Greenberg, Parag A. Pathak & Tayfun Sönmez,

 Here's a new NBER working paper that marks a significant step forward in matching soldiers to positions.

Mechanism Design meets Priority Design: Redesigning the US Army's Branching Process by Kyle Greenberg, Parag A. Pathak & Tayfun Sönmez, NBER WORKING PAPER 28911 DOI 10.3386/w28911,  June 2021

Army cadets obtain occupations through a centralized process. Three objectives – increasing retention, aligning talent, and enhancing trust – have guided reforms to this process since 2006. West Point’s mechanism for the Class of 2020 exacerbated challenges implementing Army policy aims. We formulate these desiderata as axioms and study their implications theoretically and with administrative data. We show that the Army’s objectives not only determine an allocation mechanism, but also a specific priority policy, a uniqueness result that integrates mechanism and priority design. These results led to a re-design of the mechanism, now adopted at both West Point and ROTC.

One of the unusual features of this paper is that the first author is both an economist and an Army officer, working in West Point's Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis:

"MAJ Greenberg is an Assistant Professor of Economics in the Department of Social Sciences and is OEMA’s Director of Long-Term Research. His primary areas of research are labor economics and public finance, with a focus on veteran employment, disability compensation, and military labor markets. Currently a Major in the U.S. Army, Kyle served tours in Iraq and Germany prior to teaching at the United States Military Academy. He earned a BS in Mathematics from the United States Military Academy in 2005 and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2015."

*********

Here's a related earlier post, in which Major Greenberg discusses some of the design issues still facing the Army's assignment systems.

Monday, December 7, 2020

Officer assignment in the U.S. Army

Keeping pilots in the Air Force, in the face of renewed, post-pandemic demand from airlines

 I spent a good deal of time last year working on understanding the internal labor market of the Air Force, and how it interacts with the larger American labor market.

During the pandemic, with airlines cutting back on flights, it may have seemed as if the problem of retaining pilots had eased. But airline demand for pilots is growing,rand the Air Force will have to think creatively about retention of pilots who are at or near the end of their service obligation.

Here's a short piece in Defense One, by two Air Force officers:

The USAF’s Bad Bets on Pilot Retention Show It Needs Outside Help. Service leaders think the same old tactics can reverse a pilot shortage in a resurging economy.  By BRIAN KRUCHKOW and TOBIAS SWITZER

"Despite the pandemic, the Air Force is still short of pilots, thanks to low retention and strong airline hiring. Before COVID-19 reached the United States, the Air Force had a deficit of more than 2,000 pilots, requiring $15 billion to train replacements. The pandemic temporarily paused airline hiring to the Air Force’s relief, reducing pilot losses, but Covid-19 also hampered pilot training, leaving the overall shortage almost unchanged. Instead of using the reprieve as an opportunity to try bolder retention initiatives, the Air Force recently placed a large wager against airline recovery and renewed airline pilot hiring.

...

"Before the pandemic, the Air Force offered retention contracts as short as three years to pilots completing their initial ten-year commitments. Seizing on the collapse of airline hiring in 2020, though, the service changed the terms of its contracts. Gone are three- and four-year contracts; the shortest pilot contract is now five years, which gets you about 70 percent of the maximum retention bonus. To get the full amount authorized by Congress—$35,000 per year—the Air Force requires at least an eight-year commitment. These are hardball terms compared to past years and are a strong bet that airline pilot hiring will be weak for an extended period. 

...

"Air Force pilots are poised to leave active duty, not stay, according to our research. Despite the incredibly dire economic and health conditions in 2020, only 51 percent of the Air Force’s eligible pilots signed retention contracts, a small increase from recent years. Of those pilots who signed retention contracts last year, though, we found that 33 percent signed on for only three years. The rest stayed on active duty without service commitments and are now free agents able to depart on short notice. Air Force pilots are keeping their options open and believe airline hiring will return soon, offering better opportunities.  

*****************

Earlier:

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

The labor market that is the military: a report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine

Officer assignment in the U.S. Army

In a recent post I discussed the NAS report on the military labor force, focusing on the new Talent Marketplaces, and some of the difficulties they are facing in the Air Force, and (more briefly) in the Army.  

The Modern War Institute at West Point has a related article, published last month, on the implementation of these labor market clearinghouses in the Army, by Major Kyle Greenberg, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Crow  and Colonel Carl Wojtaszek. (They all have Ph.D.s in economics, and are associated with the Army's Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis (OEMA).)

Winning In The Marketplace: How Officers And Units Can Get The Most Out Of The Army Talent Alignment Process 

by Kyle Greenberg, Mark Crow and Carl Wojtaszek 

"Not too many years ago, if the Army had wanted you to have an opinion about your next assignment, it would have issued you one with your duffel bag. The same had been true for units, as well. Leaders at every level largely left it to the Army to fill their formations with individuals based not on talent, but on having the right rank, branch, and availability date. In 2019, this changed when the Army introduced a market into its assignment system.

...

"Officers can greatly influence their chances of receiving the jobs they prefer in the market. Most importantly, moving officers should build their resumes in AIM 2.0. If officers are the engine of the marketplace, then the information they share on their AIM 2.0 resumes is the fuel that keeps it humming along smoothly. Complete and informative resumes allow units to better identify officers with backgrounds or experiences that are a particularly good fit for a specific job or type of work. Surprisingly, though, only 60 percent of officers in last fall’s marketplace took the time to describe their talents within the AIM 2.0 resumes. Choosing not to do so is a missed opportunity as officers with resumes benefited significantly, receiving 40 percent more #1 votes from units than officers without detailed resumes.

...

"moving officers should interview with units they are interested in joining. In a survey given to all units at the end of last year’s marketplace, 35 percent said that interviews were the most important factor in determining how to rank officers in the market. Even though AIM 2.0 is online, the marketplace is designed to facilitate person-to-person interaction, albeit predominately via phone or video conference. Moving officers who reach out to unit POCs and schedule interviews early in the marketplace have better chances of finding the jobs they want than officers who wait for units to contact them.

"A third way an officer can maximize the benefit of ATAP is to submit truthful preferences to the assignment market. While this is not immediately obvious, it becomes clearer once an officer understands how they are paired to jobs after the marketplace closes. The Army uses a deferred acceptance algorithm to match officers to jobs. While that might sound complicated, it is a relatively straightforward process—but one that works best when officers and units submit truthful preferences. ... "officers cannot achieve a better outcome by misreporting their actual preferences, or “gaming the system.” In fact, officers often hurt themselves when they do this. The design is intentional and allows officers to list “reach assignments” without penalty. So, go ahead and reach for that dream job knowing your chances of success in the market will not be diminished. (You can learn more about deferred acceptance algorithms at here or here.)

"There is substantial evidence that officers did not understand this point in the 2019 market. Post-marketplace surveys revealed that 31 percent of officers admitted that they did not place their true first preference #1 in the marketplace. Furthermore, roughly 75 percent admitted that at least some of their preferences were not truthful.

...

"Just like officers benefit if they truthfully preference as many jobs as possible, units benefit by ranking as many officers as possible. Units that rank all of the officers they are interested in will do better than units that only consider officers who rank their jobs #1. 

...

"A second suggestion for units is to put your best foot forward and professionalize your hiring processes. Many officers in last year’s market found little more than boilerplate job descriptions and had difficultly contacting units and scheduling interviews.

...

"Finally, there are several changes the Army should implement to make the marketplace more effective for both officers and units. First, the Army should better educate the force on how officers pair to units. 

...

"Second, the Army should limit the number of “signals” officers can send to units to indicate their interest. During last year’s marketplace, officers adjusted their preferences multiple times to signal interest to different units at different times. This resulted in an unlimited number of signals for officers to use and generated substantial problems. It also frustrated many units who could no longer be certain which officers were genuinely interested in them and which officers were likely to change their preferences immediately after a phone call or interview.

"The Army should give every officer a specific number of “market coins” to be sent to units of their choosing independent of their preference list. This would help units learn which officers are interested in their jobs without requiring officers to repeatedly change their preferences. The method of using signals to quickly identify interested participants has a proven record of making other matching markets more efficient.

************

In an email, Major Greenberg elaborates:

"The Army determines officer assignments through the Army Talent Alignment Process, which is implemented through an online portal known as the Assignment Interactive Module, Version 2.0. Within AIM2, officers can rank jobs they are eligible for and units can rank officers who are eligible for their unit’s jobs. Units are not able to observe an officer’s exact preference for their jobs, but they are able to observe if an officer ranked one of their jobs among the officer’s top 10% of all possible choices.  Likewise, officers cannot observe the exact rankings units give them, but they are notified if a unit ranked them at all. Officers and units are free to interact and adjust their preferences at all times while the marketplace is open. The marketplace closes at a pre-announced time, at which time both officer and unit preferences “lock.” After the marketplace closes, officers are matched to jobs according to a deferred acceptance algorithm (this is still a relatively new phenomenon, as the Army just started testing the DAA last year).

"One of the problems we are noticing is that a large number of officers are not being truthful with their preferences. It appears that units will frequently press officers to rank one of their jobs as their number one choice, and will often make their ranking for officers conditional on the officer’s ranking for one of the unit’s jobs. Army officers can always respond to these requests with cheap talk, but most dislike doing this: maybe because integrity is critical to our profession, or maybe because officers feel there is a reasonable chance they will one day have to work with the unit representative who is interviewing them.  To make the marketplace more safe for officers, OEMA advocates for removing all signals that are a function of officer preferences, but replacing them with a limited number of signals that officers can send to units, completely separate from preferences."

*************

Here's my earlier post:

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

The labor market that is the military: a report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine   

"To summarize, the Talent Marketplace has to also become an information marketplace that allows position owners and Airmen to make appropriate information available to each other in order to develop informed, accurate preferences."

The labor market that is the military: a report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine

 I recently served as a member of a National Academies committee on the issues facing the Air Force in managing its human capital, i.e. its labor force.  It resulted in a long report covering many aspects of Air Force policy.  

One of the fun things about that assignment was meeting with people throughout the U.S. armed forces (and some allies).  Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the promotion ceremony for a very thoughtful Air Force officer, Tobias Switzer. Congratulations, Colonel!.*

Readers of this blog are likely to be most interested in the evolving ways that military personnel are matched to new assignments, from time to time during their careers.  A first order problem has to do with retention, since the armed services compete with the private sector for highly trained people (e.g. pilots, cyber warriors, special operators, to name a few), which is most visible at times when the person in question doesn't have any further military service obligation.  Below, I excerpt some paragraphs concerning one new aspect of this process, called the Talent Marketplaces. (The page numbers refer to sections of the report, e.g. "p2-7" refers to page 7 of section 2.)

Here's the report:

A Consensus Study Report, from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2020:

Strengthening U.S. Air Force Human Capital Management: A Flight Plan for 2020-2030. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25828

Committee on Strengthening U.S. Air Force Human Capital Management, Board on Human-Systems Integration, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education

Committee and Staff: Julie J.C.H. Ryan (Co-Chair), William J. Strickland (Co-Chair), Terry A. Ackerman, David S.C. Chu, Lt. Gen. Gina M. Grosso, Usaf (Retired), Brig. Gen. Leon A. Johnson, Usafr (Retired), Judith S. Olson, Dan J. Putka, Alvin E. Roth, Ann Marie Ryan, Stephen Stark, Cherie Chauvin, Study Director, Elizabeth T. Cady, Senior Program Officer, Daniel Talmage, Program Officer, Margaret Kelly, Sr. Program Assistant, Tina M. Latimer, Program Coordinator

Below are some snippets drawn from various sections of the report.

"since 2014, the Air Force has lost more fighter pilots annually than its annual production rate, and forecasts of the commercial airline pilot marketplace are an important variable in long-term workforce planning to develop and sustain the career field." (p2-7)

"A lack of clear data on why Airmen are leaving the force diminishes the Air Force’s ability to do such evaluations or establish an “early warning system” to identify recruits at risk of early attrition. Increased use of assignment tools like the Talent Marketplace will allow relevant longitudinal data to be collected on the extent to which Airmen’s separation decisions may be related to their preferences over the positions to which they could have been assigned as compared to the one to which they were assigned (see Appendix D)."  (p4-22)

"the recently implemented Talent Marketplace provides an innovative online means for matching Airmen with assignments based on expressed preferences of Airmen and position owners for post-accession job assignments. However, the usefulness of expressed preferences depends a good deal on how much information is available to Airmen about positions and to position owners about Airmen (through the Talent Marketplace), given that such information profoundly shapes preferences. Consequently, the most effective version of the Talent Marketplace would also serve as an information marketplace that allows position owners and Airmen to make appropriate information available to each other to form informed, accurate preferences (e.g., realistic job previews, using video and written descriptions). The key point is that matching, and the overall functioning of the USAF HCM system, may be improved by developing new methods of sharing preferences as well as new algorithms for taking preferences into account (see Appendix D)" (p4-26)

"In 2019, the Air Force began using the web-based platform, the Talent Marketplace, for making officer assignments (Lieutenant Colonel and below). The Talent Marketplace was initiated in an effort to meet a stated goal: “To the maximum extent possible, assign individuals on a voluntary basis and in the most equitable manner feasible while meeting mission and commander needs” (USAF, 2018a, p.2)." (p5-10)

"The Air Force is investigating implementing the Talent Marketplace to manage enlisted assignments, but a decision is still pending at this time."(p5-11)

"There are two officer assignment cycles per year. To support the Officer Assignment System for all assignments of Lieutenant Colonel and below (except for Judge Advocate General officers), the Air Force uses its newly developed Talent Marketplace. The web-based system provides transparency for available positions, provides visibility on an officer’s preferences to their commander, and incorporates gaining commander input as well for the first time. The technology behind it examines officer assignment solutions by incorporating specific prioritizations from both the officers who are eligible to move and the gaining unit (see Appendix D for discussion of preference informed matching). Officers on the vulnerable-to move list use the Talent Marketplace to indicate a desirability rating for assignment location preferences using a list of locations with jobs to fill, in alphabetic order. There is limited information on each position in the system: duty title, command, and location, but the officer can see how many other officers are interested in the position and make their decision accordingly.17 Any additional information the officer would like to know about the position is gathered through their own independent research. After the window closes for officers to bid for positions, the position owners access the system to see the final list of volunteers to fill their positions. The results of the matching algorithm are used as a first step in the process, which is further adjusted as needed and finalized by AFPC." (p5-11)

"As the Air Force expands its use of the Talent Marketplace for officers and develops a more modern approach to the antiquated Enlisted Quarterly Assignments List, it could benefit from considering the research conducted on and the implementation and results of similar marketplace initiatives (see for example, Malia, 2020). The U.S. Army, in particular, recently implemented its Army Officer Assignment Marketplace via Assignment Interactive Module (AIM).30 AIM is a centralized clearinghouse that requires officers and units to finalize preferences for the other side of the market at the same time, typically 6–9 months before officers are expected to move to their next assignment. The Army studies its assignment system in the Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis (OEMA), Department of Social Sciences, West Point.31 Information provided to the committee on the design and administration of AIM indicated that it is something of a hybrid model that involves a lot of hand-processing of assignments by assignment officers. However, it was reported that the “Human Resources Command received permission from the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs to test the concept of matching officers to jobs according to a deferred acceptance algorithm similar to that of the National Resident Matching Program,”32 which matches new doctors to residency programs (Roth, 1984; Roth and Peranson, 1999). 

"One aspect of the Army Cadet Branching process (used to assign new West Point graduates to branches) is that Cadets can bid for preferred assignments by offering to extend their service obligation. Although a detailed review of AIM was outside the scope of this study, the committee notes that analysis has suggested that its use of a deferred acceptance algorithm is seriously flawed in implementation (e.g. Switzer, 2011), and this may be important for the designers and administrators of the Air Force Talent Marketplace to study and understand." 

"As of May 15, 2019, the Army reports that 90,952 officers of all ranks had participated in AIM. Officers are encouraged to submit resumes, but the majority have not done so (from 7% of Colonels, up to 42% of Majors). Resume-writers are encouraged to include unique Knowledge, Skills, and Behaviors (KSBs), but almost none have done so. Units seeking to fill jobs are encouraged to submit (long) preference lists of officers for each job they are seeking to fill, and so far, participation has been spotty: “The best participation is from [the 10 percent of] units who submit preferences for many jobs, and for multiple officers on each job” (U.S. Army, 2019, p. 2). Although no explanation was provided to the committee, the Army’s overall low participation numbers suggest that the Air Force and Army could benefit from joint efforts to understand the reaction Airmen and Soldiers have had to these initiatives as well as to develop approaches to improve participation and therefore its overall utility.

"Turning back to the Air Force, the present (preliminary) use of deferred acceptance algorithms in the Talent Marketplace is not an evidence-based decision; rather it arises from a perhaps too-hasty parallel with the operation of the private-sector clearinghouse for American physicians (see discussion of preference informed matching in Appendix D). To guide Air Force research into post-accession assignment decisions to improve and expand the effectiveness and validity of the Talent Marketplace, the committee identified the following research questions:

 How do assignments affect separation decisions? 33 (Collect data on “Who stays, who leaves, where they go, would they have stayed for a better assignment?”)

 How are preference data related to family data? (Collect family data on jobs of spouses, age, and schooling of children)

 How is the new blended retirement system changing separation choices?

 How do pilot separations interact with airline hiring demands? (E.g., could new arrangements be initiated between the Air Force and commercial airlines to better meet fluctuating needs of both?34)

 Can exit interviews be combined with interventions that might prevent or delay separation by the most effective Airmen?

 How should the Talent Marketplace be organized for minimizing early separation of the most effective Airmen?

 Does the Talent Marketplace assure an appropriate distribution of talent across units?

 How does the Talent Marketplace affect individual and unit performance?" (pp5-27-28)

"Similar to the Army, the Air Force is implementing a “Talent Marketplace” that gives Airmen increased agency in decisions about their assignments, which should improve “fit” and career satisfaction. But early results suggest the Air Force could benefit from a better understanding of how Airmen view this initiative, perhaps working jointly with the Army which seems also to be encountering early implementation problems. At a minimum, any review should re-consider whether the deferred acceptance algorithm the Air Force Talent Marketplace currently employs is being deployed as effectively as possible, or whether some other preference-informed matching procedure might better fit Air Force needs. In any case, a better understanding of what information participants require to form their preferences reliably will help support the information exchange needed by any matching and assignment system that incorporates preferences." (p5-38)

Among the recommendations for the Talent Marketplace, the report includes:

"—Initiate a Talent Marketplace promotion campaign across the entire service to stimulate use and buy-in through formal training, consumer feedback, and success stories.

—Expand the use of the Talent Marketplace, or a conceptually similar technology, to modernize the approach to enlisted Airmen assignments.

—Leverage data and create processes to further enable the operational goals of the Talent Marketplace for both officers and enlisted Airmen.

 Ensure that the Talent Marketplace is also an information marketplace that gives position holders and candidates enough information about one another to form informed preferences.

 For job openings already using the Talent Marketplace, encourage position owners to post detailed job descriptions, and review many candidates (i.e., submit long preference lists), and encourage candidates to review many jobs.

 Incentivize true preference revelation for both “hiring” and “being hired” parties (i.e., make it safe to rank opportunities in their honest order of desirability.

 Use data to predict and recommend person-job match in a contextual manner, including preferences on both sides. Better leverage exit survey and other data for insights such as hidden reasons for attrition, the influence of preferences on separation decisions, and diversity concerns related to retention.

—Expand the Talent Marketplace to strategically fill hard-to-fill jobs and improve retention, especially in critical career fields.

 Analyze whether and why certain job assignments predictably cause top choices to resign rather than take the assignment.

 Consider alternative approaches and incentives to offer declined jobs to someone who would prefer the position.

 Develop flexible procedures that preserve the possibility of retaining candidates who have chosen to separate rather than accept an assignment, by exploring whether other assignments would cause them to reconsider." (pp6-16-17)

From Appendix D: Preference-Informed Matching in Job Assignment

"Many of the current Air Force assignment procedures have grown out of the historical low-tech assignment tool consisting of a whiteboard covered with colored sticky notes, a longstanding system later augmented by spreadsheets. Often assignment teams worked with very little information about job requirements and candidate preferences. Although candidates with particular preferences or special needs could sometimes have these recognized by having their current commander (i.e., the “losing commander” who would be losing them, but who knew them) advocate for them to the assignment team, there were few ways of communicating preferences in a general and easily-used way.

"In recent years the United States Air Force and other services have moved towards somewhat more market-oriented assignment procedures, such as the Talent Marketplace developed for use by the officer assignment system,1 that make it easier for candidates and also for hiring authorities to share information and express preferences. This approach is shaped by the idea that sometimes the mutual needs and preferences of the candidate and the hiring authority could be better expressed and met. But the equivalent of whiteboards and sticky-notes still plays a role, as the information needed for hiring authorities and candidates to gain information with which to form and express preferences is still limited." (pD-1)

"Benefits of Deferred Acceptance Algorithms: DA algorithms use the information contained in the preferences of both candidates and hiring authorities, and they produce what are called stable matchings, which don’t have “blocking pairs” (i.e. there is never a service member and Air Force job that would have both, mutually, preferred each other) or “justified envy” (in which a lower-priority candidate receives a job preferred by a higher priority candidate with equal qualifications). This approach also renders it safe for members of the proposing side to reveal their preferences truthfully. Deferred acceptance algorithms have been used to match new doctors to their first positions in the U.S., and in other health care labor markets, and to match children to schools in a number of American cities (see Roth 2002, 2008 and the references cited there, and Roth 2015).

"Drawbacks of Deferred Acceptance Algorithms: The blocking pairs the Air Force needs to be most concerned with for retention don’t involve Air Force positions and service members. They instead involve private-sector jobs and service members who might choose to separate from the Air Force to take a private-sector job instead of the offered Air Force assignment. Because of this, it isn’t clear that the form of stability produced by deferred acceptance algorithms is the best goal for an Air Force assignment system. Eliminating blocking pairs involving Airmen and alternative assignments within the Air Force comes at a cost, since a stable matching (i.e., one with no such blocking pairs) may not be Pareto optimal for candidates (i.e., it may be possible to give all of some groups of candidates assignments for which they are all qualified and which they all prefer, which might better facilitate retention of service members who have no further military obligation). This is worth further study, particularly if (as is now the case) deferred acceptance algorithms are being employed to generate an initial matching that is then modified by assignment teams." (ppD6-7)

"To summarize, the Talent Marketplace has to also become an information marketplace that allows position owners and Airmen to make appropriate information available to each other in order to develop informed, accurate preferences. The key point is that matching, and the overall functioning of the human capital system, may be improved by developing new methods of sharing preferences as well as new algorithms for taking preferences into account.#" (pD-10)

#"Much of the academic literature on matching assumes that institutions that allow participants to form accurate preferences already exist. One of the tasks facing the Air Force is to develop such institutions in parallel with the development of the Talent Marketplace."

**********

*In these complicated times it's good to remember that the oath that U.S. military officers take is to defend the Constitution of the United States.

Wearing military honors is a protected transaction

 

The New Yorker has an interesting story that sheds light on how we think of honorable or exceptional military service, and how claims about it are not so easy to verify and are (therefore) sometimes made falsely in public ways. (The story focuses on a Republican primary campaign for sheriff in a Texas county, in which both candidates lied about their military service.)

 How to Spot a Military Impostor--The detectives who investigate fake stories of military service use many tools, including shame.  By Rachel Monroe

"Politicians lie to get us into wars; generals lie about how well things are going; soldiers lie about what they did during their service. In 1782, when George Washington awarded ribbons and badges to valorous Revolutionary War troops, he was already worrying about pretenders. “Should any who are not entitled to these honors have the insolence to assume the badges of them they shall be severely punished,” he wrote. When Walter Washington Williams, thought to be the last surviving veteran of the Confederate Army, died, in 1959, President Eisenhower called for a national day of mourning. It turned out that Williams had fabricated his service, and that the second-longest-surviving Confederate soldier probably had, too. In fact, according to the Civil War historian William Marvel, “every one of the last dozen recognized Confederates was bogus.” But it’s only recently that lying about military service has been considered a particularly heinous form of lying, one with its own name: stolen valor.

...

"...wearing an unearned military medal was against the law, but there was no particular consideration given to lies about military service; the same chapter of the federal statute also made it illegal to proffer a fake police badge, pretend to be a member of 4-H, or misuse the likeness of Smokey Bear. That began to change in 2004, after an Arizona man was featured in a local newspaper as a highly decorated veteran who had, among other improbable exploits, assisted in the capture of Saddam Hussein. Sterner helped expose him as a liar, but he was frustrated that there was no criminal penalty. It wasn’t illegal to lie about a medal—it was only when you pinned it on your lapel that you broke the law.

...

"The Stolen Valor Act of 2005, written in part by Pam Sterner, was introduced the year that millions of filmgoers watched “Wedding Crashers,” in which Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson’s characters lie about being Purple Heart recipients. On September 7, 2006, the act, which made it a federal crime to falsely claim receipt of a military award or decoration, passed in the Senate by unanimous consent; President George W. Bush signed it into law soon afterward. But, six years later, in United States v. Alvarez, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Xavier Alvarez, a water-district official in Southern California, who had been convicted of lying about receiving the Medal of Honor. (Alvarez had also falsely claimed to be a professional ice-hockey player and to have been married to a Mexican movie star.) The Court found that the Stolen Valor Act violated the First Amendment. Congress passed an amended statute, which made it illegal to fraudulently wear medals, embellish rank, or make false claims of service in order to obtain money or some other tangible benefit, making stolen valor an issue of fraud rather than of speech. "

Job market technology is diffusing slowly through the armed forces

Here's a story from the Army Times, about trying to incorporate enlisted soldiers' preferences into their job assignments. (I hope to have something more to say about this in the future.)

Enlisted job marketplace launches this summer for select soldiers
 by Kyle Rempfer

"Armor, intelligence and some quartermaster troops will test a new assignment market system that launches this summer and is scheduled to go service-wide in January 2021, according to an Army news service release.

The Assignment Satisfaction Key-Enlisted Marketplace pilot program will launch in June, but was already tested by a smaller group of armor branch noncommissioned officers last year.

"The enlisted program matches up roughly with a similar officer marketplace already in use. The Army’s talent management initiatives began with the officer corps, because the population is much smaller and easier to run trials on than the enlisted force, according to Sgt. Maj. Wardell Jefferson, the Army G-1’s senior enlisted soldier.

...

"The pilot program could provide enlisted troops more choice in their careers than the current assignment system, which forces troops to choose six basing options — three in the United States and three overseas, Jefferson explained during a Facebook Town Hall on Monday.

The new system is expected to allow soldiers to rank order more assignment preferences. Army leaders have said that the marketplace will stabilize enlisted soldiers’ careers by weighing their preferences more in the assignment process and ensuring good soldiers are retained rather than lost to the civilian sector..

The labor force that is the Army

The Army Times has this story:

Choose your job: Army offers soldiers career agency to bolster retention
Kyle Rempfer

"Assignment Interactive Module 2.0 offers a virtual conduit through which units can advertise jobs; soldiers can attract hiring units by highlighting their life experiences, degrees and extracurricular pursuits; and the Army can gather large amounts of data on all of it.

"The marketplace has been open for the past four assignment cycles, but the latest iteration that closed this winter was the first where all positions were viewable to the entire moving population and the process was guided by the Army Talent Alignment Process rules, which more heavily weigh a soldier’s personal desires.

“This is the first time that we allowed complete transparency and also had set it up so the decisions that came out of this process were going to have the preference of the individual officer prioritized over any other consideration,” said Maj. Gen. J.P. McGee, director of the Army’s Talent Management Task Force.

"Officers participating in the first assignment cycle had roughly two months to contact the unit and ask questions, such as about the command climate and the training calendar. Officers could also speak directly to unit leadership, make a value proposition to them and learn what the unit offers in return.

"And while the Assignment Interactive Module 2.0 is currently only available for officers, an enlisted virtual marketplace is expected to deploy in January 2021.
*************

The Armed Forces News has this one:
Army Tests New Enlisted Assignment System
Published: March 12, 2020
"Spurred by the success of a similar program for officers, the Army will begin a pilot plan to implement a marketplace-style assignment system for enlisted soldiers, the Association of the U.S. Army reported. Beginning this summer, soldiers and non-commissioned officers in armor, military intelligence and quartermaster military occupational specialties (MOSs) will take part in testing of the Assignment Satisfaction Key-Enlisted Marketplace, AUSA reported, citing an Army press release. By the beginning of next year, the Army expects to have the system in place for the entire force.

"The plan calls for soldiers to be able to view a complete list of available positions from which to choose. They would then be able to rank their preference for new assignments based on personal and family needs, AUSA reported."

***********

and the WSJ has this one:

In Generational Shift, Army Uses a New System to Promote Hundreds of Officers
The Army is revamping its process and adapting private-sector techniques to choose new battalion commanders, a keystone position

"The U.S. Army has initiated the biggest shift since the Vietnam War era in how it selects a key class of officers, drawing on the hiring practices of private-sector organizations and corporations such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Google.

"The aim is to move away from techniques used for over 50 years that rely on past military jobs, physical fitness scores and the recommendations of generals to promote officers to the job of battalion commander.

"The new system includes surveys by subordinates, writing tests, psychological assessments, cognitive evaluations and a series of simulated militarylike scenarios in a wooded area on base to gauge leadership and problem-solving abilities.

"It stresses anonymity to eliminate any possible bias. As soon as candidates arrive, they are assigned a number and aren’t known by their names. At an interview, candidates are seated behind a black curtain, and a five-member selection panel is unable to see a candidate’s uniform, with its career-defining ribbons and patches."

Matching officers to branches at West Point

West Point grads get assignments through new branching system
By Brandon OConnor

"During a ceremony Nov. 13, 1,089 members of the Class of 2020 at the U.S. Military Academy received their assignments for which branch of the Army they will start their careers in upon graduation.
...
"This year marked the first time West Point has assigned branches using the Army's new Market Model Branching System, which will be rolled out to ROTC next year. The new model paired cadets with a branch by considering how they ranked the 17 branches as it has in years past, but for the first time the commandants of each branch also had a vote in which cadets received their branch.

Following branch week in September, the cadets in the Class of 2020 locked in their branch preferences for the sixth and final time. They each ranked the branches one through 17, or one through 15 for female cadets who opted out of armor and infantry. Each cadet was also ranked as most preferred, preferred or least preferred by each branch based on their branch resumes and interviews, which cadets were given the option to take part in for the first time this year.

Before locking in their preferences, cadets were given information about how each branch ranked them as well as the results from a simulation using their fifth branch preference list which showed them where they would have been placed. The cadets then had the chance to use that information to adjust their preferences before locking them in for the final time.

Sunsdahl said they saw movement within the cadets' top four preferences following the simulation as cadets moved up the branches they had a better chance of receiving based on the commandant's feedback and moved down branches where their chances were lower.

"That was the market working, which helped branches get who they wanted as well," Sunsdahl said. "We talk cadet preference a lot, but branches got more of the people they wanted this year than they have in past years. That's where that commandant vote meant something. Now when somebody goes into a branch, the cadet wants to be there, and the branch wants them. It's a win-win."

Following the application of the matching algorithm, which was adapted from the medical residency matching program, and final adjustments made by West Point's branching board, 96% of the cadets in the class were placed into one of their top three preferences.

Overall, 80% of the class was placed into a combat arms branch, a 5% increase over last year. For the first time, cyber was considered a combat arms branch along with infantry, armor, engineer, air defense, field artillery and aviation. The 40 cyber spots, up from 25 last year, accounted for almost the entirety of the increase in combat arms spots."

Medal of Honor

Some months ago I bookmarked a piece in the Wall Street Journal, about the Medal of Honor, the U.S. military's highest combat award.  It talks about life after the medal, for the recipients of this very famous award.  They find they  have some obligations to represent the armed services, the medal itself and the others who have received it, in addition to their own colleagues left behind on the battlefield.  It's a much more complicated honor than other kinds of awards for extraordinary accomplishment, which are also often done in teams, such as scientific awards (which are for happier, less desperate accomplishments that are survived by all the participants).  The article speaks about how previous medal winners support new ones with advice and encouragement on what they should expect. At the time the story was published (in May 2019) there were 70 living recipients of the Medal of Honor.

Here's the WSJ story:

‘It’s a Lifelong Burden’: The Mixed Blessing of the Medal of Honor
America’s highest award for combat valor is both a gift and a constant reminder of what’s often the worst day of recipients’ lives  By Michael M. Phillips.

"For those who earn it, the medal is a loaded gift. It’s a source of instant celebrity, and an entree into a world of opportunity and adulation. It’s also a reminder of what is often the worst day of their lives. And it is a summons to a lifetime of service from those who did something so courageous as young men—so at odds with their own chances of survival—that it was beyond what duty demands."

West Point: adopts two sided matching for cadets to military branches

From the Army Times (the links in the story are worth clicking on for related detail):

West Point has changed how cadets are assigned branches — ROTC will soon follow

"West Point’s class of 2020 will serve as the first users of a new branch assignment system this fall, which the Army hopes will help with the retention of junior officers and better assign talent.

The Army is rolling out a new “Market Model branching system" that takes input from the commandants of each branch, who rank cadets as “most preferred,” “preferred” or “least preferred,” according to an Army news posting.

The number of cadets allocated into each of the three ranks depends on the branch’s needs.

The program starts with West Point cadets receiving their branch assignments this November, but will eventually be used across the service’s Reserve Officer Training Corps detachments next year.

Cadets will be judged based on a range of factors, including test scores, physical fitness scores, transcripts, personal statements and, for the first time, interviews with the branches they’re interested in.

Rankings and preferences will decide branch assignments using a variant of the same algorithm that medical school graduates use to be assigned to residency programs across the country.

This is the first time commandants from the Army’s 17 branches will have a say in which cadets come into their branches, the service said in its announcement. Previously, cadets simply ranked the branches in order of preference and received their assignment “based almost entirely on their ranking in the Order of Merit List," the Army’s posting reads.

The Army release also notes that the process allows for cadets to take on a Branch of Choice Active Duty Service Obligation, or BRADSO. This allows for West Point graduates to serve an extra three years on top of five they’re already obligated to serve in exchange for increasing the odds that the cadet will receive the branch they most desire.

BRADSO doesn’t change how well the branch commandant ranks a cadet, but it does move cadets within their own ranking.

“If you’re cadet number 25 in that most preferred bucket, and I’m cadet number 45 and I’m willing to BRADSO and you’re not, I move above you,” Maj. Jared Sunsdahl, West Point’s accessions division chief, said in the Army posting. “Now, 45 is above 25 and then depending on how many branch allocations there are, you may not have received that branch because there were only so many allocations left.”

Therefore, it won’t take a cadet from being “preferred” by the branch commandant to being “most preferred,” but it will increase their odds against other “preferred” cadets.

West Point’s class of 2020 will lock in their final branch rankings between Sept. 23-29. Branch commandants have to lock in their rankings by Sept. 19."

**********

HT: Tobias Switzer

Cadet branch matching satisfies traditional assumptions: Ravi Jagadeesan in AEJ: Micro

Cadet-Branch Matching in a Kelso-Crawford Economy
By Ravi Jagadeesan
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 2019, 11(3): 191–224https://doi.org/10.1257/mic.20170192191


Abstract: "Sönmez (2013)  and  Sönmez  and  Switzer  (2013)  used  matching  theory  with  unilaterally  substitutable  priorities  to  propose  mechanisms  to  match  cadets  to  military  branches.  This  paper  shows  that,  alternatively,  the  Sönmez  and  Sönmez–Switzer  mechanisms  can  be  constructed  as descending  salary  adjustment  processes  in Kelso-Crawford (1982)  economies  in  which  cadets  are  (grossly) substitutable.  The  lengths  of  service  contracts  serve  as  (inverse) salaries. The underlying substitutability explains the unilateral substitutability of the priorities utilized by Sönmez and Sönmez-Switzer."

...
"This paper shows that cadet-branch matching does not formally require matching theory with weakened substitutability conditions or many-to-many matching. I restore substitutability(in the sense of Kelso and Crawford 1982 and Hatfield and Milgrom 2005) by changing priorities to systematically favor long contracts. This change  of  priorities  does  not  affect  the  deferred  acceptance  mechanism.  Defining  the “salary” corresponding to a contract to be any decreasing function of the service time, the substitutable priorities are generated by maximizing a quasi-linear utility function.4  If  cadets  prefer  short  contracts,  then  the  cadet-branch  economy  can  be  regarded  as  a  job  market  in  the  Kelso-Crawford  (1982)  model,  and  the  Sönmez  (2013) and Sönmez-Switzer (2013) mechanisms correspond to the descending salary adjustment process. Thus, the Sönmez and Sönmez-Switzer mechanisms feature cadets bidding against each other in an ascending auction in service length."
***********

This paper admirably tidies up this corner of the stable matching literature.

There is of course also a market design question lurking in the background, concerning how the armed forces should match service members to jobs. (The present paper doesn't take a position on that.)

It isn't obvious that stability, in the sense of avoiding blocking pairs between service members and military assignments, is an appropriate market design objective for military job assignments.  This is because the military has an immense amount of unified control over military assignments, and so there isn't a lot of room for such blocking pairs to form, i.e. there isn't much opportunity for one military branch to recontract with a service member to change his or her assignment once it has been made.  One of the problems that military assignment mechanisms actually do have to deal with is that service members periodically come to the end of their enlistment period, and have to be given incentives to re-enlist. So the relevant blocking pairs might be those between service members and civilian jobs. How best to address these in the contexts of military assignments is an open question.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have very recently convened a committee to study aspects of the management of human capital in the military, whose work may  begin to shed some light on this. Here's a link:
Strengthening Air Force Human Capital Management