Posted on Oct 18, 2015
What kind of Guard retention efforts have you had success with in your State?
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Specifically for Guard units (Army or Air), what kind of Retention efforts have you had success with within in your State?
Retention
Recruiting
Army National Guard
Air National Guard
Benefits
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 9
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Schools, deployments, and training opportunities work well for us. I have Soldiers choosing to ETS because we're not deploying in the near future. Likewise schools like Air Assault, Pathfinder, and Ranger go a long ways in keeping young 11Bs motivated.
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MAJ (Join to see)
Hey CPT, thats awesome. As it happens I'm staffing a project to study the effects of ARNG units offering schools for reenlistment. What State are you from and how do you wrangle the State into giving you seats and provide funding for such a thing? ...guessing you may be in a well funded infantry BN.
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MAJ (Join to see)
MAJ (Join to see) I'm from Arkansas and a member of the 39th Infantry Brigade. I wouldn't call us "well funded" but we do get a fair amount of school opportunities. A few months ago I sent a Soldier to Pathfinder. We also have the ARNG Sniper school in Little Rock, so there's a number of opportunities there as well. To be clear, I don't promise schools in exchange for reenlistment. However, I do believe they're a retention tool. Even the possibility has a positive effect on retention. Young men don't enlist as 11B's to sit in an Armory once a month.
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MAJ (Join to see)
MAJ (Join to see) - Thats great, I bet that Sniper School is Guard funded and operated. At Camp Robinson right?
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Being in the Guard for about 10 years I will say it really depends on the units. Leadership is a big deal. I have seen awesome soldiers get out due to poor leadership. The best thing you can do is develop a system to create good unit morale. If you don't have that then you are going to see numbers drop.
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The offer of ING allows for a soldier to take a break from the grind of all the sacrifice and still make a choice while retaining time in grade (just not retirement). It's a good option for most, especially if they are doing IRR time. Then you save them from ridiculously being called back up to fill some slot for a couple months in some other part of the country that needs numbers.
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CPL(P) (Join to see)
Anytime Sergeant. I pay attention and genuinely want to help improve our organization, as you clearly do.
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