The Marine Corps -- unsurprisingly -- wants to keep quality Marines in the fleet. What is significant, however, is how the service is attempting to do it. And by the accounts of several Marine officials Military.com spoke to on Thursday, the budding effort is working.
On Dec. 19, the service released an update to its three-year effort to fundamentally change the way that it retains qualified and quality Marines. Dubbed "Talent Management 2030," the plan officially launched in 2021 and sought to do away with outdated retention practices "no longer suited to today's needs."
In a 25-page update to the plan Thursday, the service said that it expanded the window for Marines to reenlist up to 21 months outside of their end-of-contract date, giving them and their families more time to plan; reduced the chance that dual-military couples will be separated during moves; streamlined its lateral movement process; and established a Pacific-oriented cell to better support Marines stationed in the strategically critical region, among other changes.
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At the same time, the document and officials Military.com spoke to said the service is also exploring several pilot programs: one that would allow "spot" promotions for qualified officers; another that would offer a flexible housing allowance plan for dependents; and several that digitize the reenlistment process, including a prototype that would allow Marines to submit their packets via personal phone, for example.
"As the character of warfare continues to change, our personnel models cannot remain stagnant," Lt. Gen. Michael Borgschulte, the deputy commandant for the service's Manpower and Reserve Affairs, said in the document. "We will continue to listen to feedback from those we serve, adapt to an ever-evolving environment, and analyze the progress we've made so far."
Some decisions in the update -- which officials characterized as "pragmatic and bold" -- mark progress in a consequential move the service made three years ago aimed at keeping more Marines past their first terms.
For decades, the Marine Corps incurred a "remarkably high turnover rate" among its first-term Marines as it prioritized, and was arguably dependent on, a "recruit and replace" model, according to Talent Management 2030.
Since the mid-1980s, new Marines would come in, and then 75% of them would leave at the end of their first term -- only for a new crop of recruits to don the Eagle, Globe and Anchor and fill the still-warm boots of their predecessors. But as the world and American society changed, the service realized it could no longer afford the years, even decades, it takes to train and educate new, unseasoned teenagers at the same rate it had been, citing the "extraordinary" pace of technological change and the need for qualified experts.
Add that to a recruiting crisis that saw all the services competing for a dwindling percentage of qualified young Americans, and the clear option for the Marine Corps was to "rebalance" its efforts for a "invest and retain" model -- one that intends to keep trained, qualified and quality Marines in the fleet beyond their first-term enlistment.
Three years after that major paradigm shift, the Marine Corps is claiming significant success. In September, it announced that it had achieved 114% of its goal to reenlist first- term Marines, a "historic" achievement the service said it had not seen in more than a decade.
As of Friday, the Marine Corps said that it has already reached nearly 90% of its first-term reenlistment goal of 7,674 Marines for this fiscal year, which started less than three months ago. For what the service calls its "subsequent-term" Marines, meaning troops reenlisting for at least the second time, the Corps is just 57 Devil Dogs short of reaching its total goal for the fiscal year, which ends nine months from now.
Since 2020, the yearly goals of retaining first-term Marines have increased by 13%, according to data provided by the service. The Marine Corps missed those goals in fiscal 2020 and 2021. But since then (and the rollout of Talent Management 2030), it has consistently met them. In last year's case, it exceeded the goal by more than 1,000 reenlisted first-term Marines.
At the same time, the service said that it is retaining higher-quality Marines -- or those identified as "Tier 1." By measuring leadership evaluations, physical fitness scores, education and other metrics, Marines identified as top performers have been prioritized as key cohorts in the retention plan. Since 2021, the number of Tier 1 Marines retained by the service has increased by more than 10%, while those retained as Tier 3 dropped by nearly half.
The Marine Corps has also identified sergeants and staff sergeants as critical ranks to build what one official called a "more mature" force. Certain jobs, like cyber and signals intelligence, as Military.com previously reported, are being incentivized with bonuses, duty station preferences and career progression to achieve that, too.
"We need a more mature force, more experienced -- not just by grade, but years of experience using these new systems that are rolling out," Maj. Mark McGee, a retention planner, said during a Thursday reporter roundtable, "to ensure we have that level of leadership out there leading our junior Marines."
The Programs
The update released Thursday included more than 30 programs, plans or potential pilots at various stages of execution or consideration aimed at keeping Marines -- and civilian employees who support the service -- in the force.
For a service known for its rigidity, the initiatives appear flexible. Brig. Gen. David Everly, the director of the Manpower Plans and Policy Division, said that the service "will not fall in love with any one of these initiatives," meaning that some are meant to address "acute" problems and might fade away, while others are "evolutionary."
To date, no pilot programs introduced since the rollout of Talent Management 2030 have been canceled. But many "may seem in stark contrast to the 'business as usual' of the past," Everly said.
Some initiatives listed in the update explore incentive programs for Marine lawyers, pilots and foreign area officers. Others are continuations of efforts realized months or years ago, including a "streamlined" lateral move program, which saw more than 1,000 enlisted Marines signing up again for a job change in 2024 -- a roughly 20% increase compared to the previous year.
Two efforts stand out as novel, directly related to quality of life, or both.
In January 2024, the Marine Corps established a program called the Indo-Pacific Cell. For context, the Talent Management 2030 program is nested in the Corps' ambitious efforts to address Chinese influence in the Pacific under its Force Design plan -- and those at the physical center of those plans should be supported, according to the document.
The 75-person cell is directed at Marines and their families stationed in Hawaii, Japan, Guam and southern California and aims to "improve personnel policies and processes that best support, recruit and incentivize assignments that enhance the quality of life" for Marines and their families in such a strategically critical region, according to the update.
The Marine Corps said it identified 22 initiatives that the cell would research and develop, including considerations for expanded travel allowances to ship or store two vehicles and assignment incentive pay.
Over the last year, the cell "visited commands in Southern California, Guam, Hawaii, Okinawa, and talked to command teams to determine what are the things that they think are important that would make their Marines and families more effective," Maj. Daniel Viverette, of the Manpower and Policy Division, who described the plan as an "ongoing discussion," said Thursday.
One program that McGee described as "the key ingredient to our success" is the multi-cohort retention model. The program allows Marines to reenlist nine to 21 months prior to the end of their contract. Before, Marines were confined to reenlisting during the fiscal year, meaning that windows for Marines to consider staying in the service or figuring out other plans were briefer.
Given that short timeline, Marines were staring down the transition to civilian life before they could consider -- or the Marine Corps could pitch them -- a chance to stay in the service. Now, they have more time, and Marines who are up for reenlistment in 2027, for example, can submit their packets nearly two years earlier.
McGee said that, historically, the service retained one out of every four Marines up for initial reenlistment. That number is getting closer to one out of every three, he said, in large part because of the extra time the service is giving Marines and their families to consider reenlistment under the program.
"This affords Marines and their families more predictability regarding their future within the service," according to the update. "If Marines want to 'stay Marine' and continue our legacy, they should not be constrained to a specific fiscal year."
Digital and Human Touch
In the past, the process of reenlisting included various hurdles for Marines. The monitors who oversaw where a Marine went, when and why often seemed out of reach or at a distance. Before, young Marines might have had to consult several levels of leadership just to talk to them.
"When a Marine intends to reenlist, they are met with an administrative-heavy, time-consuming and paper-driven reenlistment process," the update said. "If Marines can apply for a mortgage by utilizing the internet and a mobile device, Marines should be able to reenlist using a modernized, digital system."
The Marine Corps, according to officials, is trying to get away from that cumbersome process by using technology as a direct bridge between potentially reenlisting Marines and those in control of their fates if they decide to do so.
"What we're striving for is to have a more intuitive interface user experience, because that's what technology allows us to do nowadays," said Lt. Col. Todd Peterson, the manpower information technology branch head, alluding to three digital platforms the service is working on.
"The whole purpose of these prototypes is to explore how can we make any of these systems more easily navigable, more intuitive -- have a better user experience, so that it doesn't feel onerous to go in and do it," he said. "Even if it is digital and not paperwork anymore, if it's an onerous digital system, it's not going to be well received."
And along with bonuses, assignment preference and other incentives, officials said that leaders are trying to listen to Marines more and that ground-level commanders need to as well if the service wants to be successful in managing talent. The service has dubbed it "agency" -- meaning it wants Marines to have more say on what happens if they choose to stay in.
Part of incorporating that agency includes technology, which is meant to allow Marines to send direct messages to their monitors, get live announcements, schedule appointments with career planners themselves, change assignment preferences "any time," and view their certifications.
But the other part of that chemistry is cultural, in that ground-level leaders need to be invested in this process in a way they may not have been before. The Marine Corps historically viewed retention as a responsibility of higher echelons to manage, Maj. Melissa Spencer, a spokesperson for the service, said at the roundtable.
"But now, with tasking commanders with retention goals and missions and things like that," she said, "it is really an all hands on deck effort, where I think it's on people's mind[s] a lot more, and we're also understanding that the environment -- both from a workplace perspective and global perspective -- is changing."
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