What is the impact of using troops as free labor?

I never thought of troops as free labor. Nor did any of my commanders treat them as such.

One of my favorite commanders said we got paid by the month not the hour. If we have nothing to do, don't make shit up.

My rule of thumbs was formation at 0730. Everyone better have thier ass in formation at 0730 when I call the company to attention. If you are late there will be hell to pay. PT is part of your job as a grunt, PT during the work day.

The article hits a couple points but it misses the mark on them.

It starts strong when it talks about the value of resources, specifically labor. It's a finite resource, which can be wasted when employed on tasks which are blow that cost. In essence the Opportunity cost ideal. It doesn't make sense to use Trained Labor for Untrained Tasks, and it doesn't make sense to use Supervisors for Labor, nor Managers as Supervisors, etc.

This is something the military struggles with because of our overarching and overwhelming philosophy of "Mission Accomplishment." It is however tempered with "Troop Welfare" which acts as the flip side to that same coin.

Now it highlights two specific examples, the first is "Firewatches," and the second is the "15 minutes prior (to the 15 minutes prior)" issue. Both of those are actually rooted in pragmatism, and serve actual need. They ADD to Mission Accomplishment, and if used correctly do NOT detract from Troop Welfare.

Firewatch is the default Watchstander duty and imbues (for lack of a better word) a sense of Vigilance. EVERY Marine stands watch, from the Private (& Recruit), to the Commander. Every single one of us is entrusted with the lives of our fellow Marines, whether we are at (relative) Peace, or deployed in combat conditions. General Amos was maintaining a level of vigilance which was lost on many because it wasn't adequately explained what the purpose of this Watch was for. This is the first of our Sacred Trusts, even before we get our Rifles. It is our first General Order.

Now, the 15 minutes prior, is often horribly executed, and every organization is just bad at this. The military is no exception. Leadership has to reign it in, and good Leadership does. But in that 15 minutes, auxiliary information is shared. As 1stSgt (Join to see) said there was a formation every day at 0730. We formed up at 0715, and our Platoon passed word that was pertinent to US. It was (also) a chance to let our boss know of any issues that might affect him should the 1stSgt bring them up. Nothing worse than getting blindsided by the Co CO or 1stSgt in the morning.

The big issue however is when schedules get adjusted, "incrementally" and it creates the appearance of wasted time. That was more often the culprit than anything.

No one wanted to blindside anyone with last minute taskers at the end of the day. Everyone had family, and if anyone knew something was coming down the pipe, every effort was made to get ahead of it well before hand. Through the fog of Nostalgia, I'd say 90%+, and I'd be really surprised if we didn't get our folks out the door within 15+/- minutes 80% of their expected departure time over my 8 years.

Time tested & proven concepts are lost on some leaders. I've had 1SGs in the past that have held Soldiers in limbo until 1700 or whatever COB was that day. That, compounded with other aggravating factors (poor leadership decisions), drove morale into the ground. The current command team has rebuilt the unit on trust and respect (it goes both ways). The unit trains to standard and not time (sound familiar?). If we need to stay because the old man has something to put out, we stay. No one complains because they know that tomorrow if the work is done at 1500 and the command team doesn't need to put anything out, they will see an early release. Accountability is maintained through a healthy sense of competition (who wants to be the platoon that holds everyone up?). Additionally, if one platoon is deficient we will release the unit and hold that platoon back to correct their deficiencies.

The onus is one all leaders to not perpetuate the bad leadership that we have experienced in the past. Give your subordinates the leadership they deserve. They will rise to the level of your expectations and emulate the example you set.

In garrison, broadly speaking it was a 0730 to 1700 day. That day could be spend doing everything from police calls, to PT to painting inanimate objects in the area. It could also be spent on working on gear, inspections, MOS related activities etc. I think there should be an expectation that, in garrison, you are putting in a normal/full day, longer if necessary, shorter at Leadership discretion.

There is also guard/duty to contend with. Everyone stands it (as Sgt Kennedy pointed out) and everyone should.

When out in the field, all bets are off. You can go 18-20 hours a day, every day for long periods of time. I am not sure why the 9:00-5:00 concept is entering the mindset. I always felt I was available 24/7/365 as an active duty Marine. I don't agree with mindless crap to keep people late/past normal working hours in garrison but I also don't think there should be an expectation of getting "cut loose" every time the training schedule is light. It isn't about "free labor" it comes with the territory.

I'm assuming you are specifying this towards the Guard/Reserve side of things. I would say that there is never a time that their is no work to be done, when it comes to guard and reserve. When adding up all the hours for mandatory training, MOS training, NCOES prerequisites like SSD there is always something else that can be done. You eluded to the key, a reliable, and correct training schedule, along with all NCO's understanding how to utilize their time with their soldiers when their is "Down Time". I will bet you that there are always NCOER's, counseling statements and enlisted reviews that need updating or completing, their are SSD, and other items that need work, and their is always another MOS or CWT that can be training on or talked about. The bottom line is that the training schedule should have the basic time line of who is doing what, when, where, and what uniform they need. However outside of that NCO's need to step up, take charge or their troops and use the most valuable commodity that we have TIME and use it wisely to training, educate and mentor their soldier's. A command team can not account for 100% of every soldiers time on a training schedule.

That is one thing I strongly dislike about the military, the time-wasting. I get it, there may be times we have to stay late to work, my issue is when we are literally just waiting on the thumbs up to go home. I don't mind doing work, I've done a fair share of mowing, raking, pulling weeds, painting, waxing, performing jobs outside my MOS, etc...but when I have to sit around at the end of the day for literally hours at a time waiting, that sucks. Most of the time we're waiting because leadership was in a meeting or didn't want to release us "in case something comes up" even though our taskings for the day, and even some future tasks, were done. It sucked when I was single and more so now that I have a family with little ones having a bed time. I have known excellent soldiers refuse reelinstment with a main reason being the amount of time wasted waiting to be released.

That is one thing I keep in mind with my soldiers, I won't waste your time if I can help it. Once we are done with our tasks and taken the initiative to anticipate and prep for or complete future tasks, and possibly helped out our fellow platoons with theirs, then we're done for the day. Good-bye, see you tomorrow. Why waste anyone's time? There's no point and it just builds a negative rapport or attitude towards the service.

The issue here is respect and integrity, not economy. I could spend hours describing the way I've been screwed over and watched others get screwed over in the civilian world. Yes the military would be run differently if service members were paid by the hour. Differently; not better. The leaders who suck would still suck. The ones who are good would still be good.

I recall having a supervisor that said, "if I can't go home no one can". Now he was fair in a sense that he kind of let us do whatever we wanted (be on the phone, bring in portable electronics), just be on standby in case something happens.

I think there is a big difference between wasting troops' time and using them for non-MOS/mission tasks. Taking a trooper and having him do extra work because you either failed or had no need to plan additional training is one thing. Using troops for maintenance, construction, etc is entirely another. In garrison, using troops for maintenance and such is not as easily defensible as it is down-range. However, budget crunches can take a lot of contract labor out of the picture, leaving troops as an available manpower pool. At that point it is up to the judgement of the leadership to employ the troops. If a road is obstructed and no contract labor is available, then using troops to clear it is probably smart. If the rocks aren't painted bright enough, then it's probably an indefensible waste of manpower and drain on morale. Then again, some units take pride in how much of what they have is their doing. The breaking point for me comes when troops are engaged in non-mission tasks at the expense of mission tasks or when they are kept busy for the sake of not looking underemployed. Both scenarios are leadership failures.

Wasting time makes them dread coming to work the next day and like it has been said above, then that dread has second and third order effects when it comes to hurting morale and mission effectiveness. And low morale will just extend the time it takes to accomplish the mandatory daily tasks and risk giving you a sub par product, which could be causation to redo it and then you'll have no choice but to keep your troops around longer.

As it's been said, don't waste their time and keep them where they are not currently needed. Not only does it irk them, you also now have unnecessary personnel who could potentially get in the way of/distract the people who actually need to be there doing work, all because your troops are trying to keep busy when there is no harm in letting them move on.