Strategic Human Resource Challenges in US Navy

Subject: Employee Management
Pages: 2
Words: 363
Reading time:
2 min

Human resource (HR) is defined as the assignment of the most trained military personnel to the right place at the proper time, based on their experience, skills, knowledge, and qualities. Human resource management (HRM) is provided through the personnel management system in the U.S. Navy. Such an approach is essential for the creation and maintenance of a professional navy corps. This system and its subsystems provide programs such as recruitment, management, assessment, recognition, service life extension, compensation, and retirement to provide military personnel with predictability and stability throughout their lives.

The standards for the selection of new candidates should be considered. These criteria include citizenship, educational attainment, pending lawsuits, medical and security clearance, and fitness requirements. In addition, targeted campaigns and recruitment incentives for understaffed military personnel and special incentives for more complex military positions should be analyzed. The U.S. Army faces combat readiness problems as long as the military strength is increased without the possibility of operating it with trained employees and appropriate repair, maintenance, and warfare training capabilities. The U.S. Secretary of Defense has proclaimed to increase U.S. military shipbuilding funding following a major overhaul of the U.S. naval forces’ structure. Besides, the U.S. Navy and the United States Marine Corps (USMC) already lack specialists and commanders. The number of troops and the modernization were negatively affected by reducing budget spending on defense.

Changes have been made to the training program for personnel; however, preparation for amphibious operations and large-scale collective exercises of a higher level cannot be fully implemented for several years. The recruitment method Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) can be useful in predicting a person’s ability to complete the first year in the Navy; “scores on different AFQT components currently determine eligibility for military occupations.” However, less than 30% of American citizens meet the Pentagon’s minimum requirements each year, leaving only 1,200,000 people eligible for military service. For a sufficient number of recruits, this may require the introduction of compulsory military service. Its implementation might eliminate the need to reduce the recruits’ level, but it would improve soldiers’ training due to the increase in the number of trainees.