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The Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal (NEOD) community continues to struggle to retain officers at eight to ten years of commissioned service (YCS). In an effort to incentivize more officers to stay, the Navy implemented an officer retention bonus (ORB) in 2005. Since its inception, the bonus has had a statistically significant increase in retention but has diminished in its attractiveness over time, as fewer and fewer officers take the bonus each year. The object of this project is to study the effectiveness of monetary incentives, specifically the ORB, and its ability to influence the retention decisions of Navy EOD officers at critical career points. Using demographic data from the Officer Personnel Information System (OPINS) from various Navy EOD year groups, a logistic regression analysis was run to quantify the relationship between ORB amounts and "take" decisions. Based on the regression results, ORB amounts were shown to be statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence level. These findings were then used to develop a logit model. Using this model, it was shown that in order to return to the targeted 75 percent "take" rate, the ORB amount would need to be increased and adjusted for inflation. Therefore, it is recommended that the ORB be updated, at a minimum, on a periodic basis to keep pace with inflation, if it is to remain competitive with earnings potential outside of the Navy. Lieutenant, United States Navy Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

Between 2000 and 2020, the civilian nursing labor market continued to evolve to meet the needs of society putting additional strain on the military nursing labor market. In particular, the demand for nurses has outpaced supply in specific specialties and geographical regions, resulting in the continued rising of real wages and increased incentives to attract nurses. This can have significant implications for the Navy Nurse Corps planners, as the Nurse Corps is in direct competition with the labor market. This study examines the civilian market wages of nurses between 2000 and 2018 disaggregated by census region, specialty, and years of experience and then assesses the relationship to the military nursing market. Additionally, this study analyzes how the military-civilian wage differential affects retention in the Navy Nurse Corps. The multivariate regression model indicates that while controlling for basic demographics, prior-enlisted experience, duty station census region, and nursing specialty, a $1,000 increase in the military-civilian wage differential will increase the odds of a nurse remaining on active duty by 17.2 percent at the three-year decision point and 9.2 percent at the ten-year decision point. The key findings of this study will enable the Navy Nurse Corps planners to continue to make effective and targeted decisions regarding recruiting and retention while competing in a highly competitive civilian labor market. Lieutenant, United States Navy Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

With the introduction of technologically complex aircraft such as the F-35 in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), it is increasingly important to retain RAAF members in the aviation technical workforce to capitalize on their experience, skills, and knowledge. Using quantitative regression analysis, this thesis examines whether awards predict the probability of separation and promotion of members in the RAAF aviation technical workforce. Using individual-level personnel data from 2016 to 2020, I estimate Linear Probability retention and promotion models. The results indicate that members with B or C promotion codes who receive awards perceived as less prestigious are 36% less likely to separate in the following year. By contrast, receiving an award shows no difference in the likelihood of separation for high-performing members (i.e., those with A promotion codes). Further, receiving any type of award increases a senior member’s probability of promotion by 45.8%, and each additional award increases the promotion probability by 22.9%. Awards of any type had no discernable effect on the promotion likelihood of junior members of the aviation technical workforce. These findings indicate awards might work as a retention tool for members who are performing well (those with B or C promotion codes) but are not considered competitive for promotion, providing insights into the management of rewards for the RAAF aviation technical workforce to incentivize retention and performance. Flight Lieutenant, Royal Australian Air Force Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

The Marine Corps’ current manpower system focuses on producing quantity over quality and fails to encourage those it wants and needs to keep to increase the diversity and longevity of its officer corps. A renewed emphasis has been placed on understanding what factors may affect an officer’s decision to remain serving. Literature suggests that a mentoring relationship may have a positive effect on retention. In this study, we first explore the predictive power of socio-demographic variables on retention, updating findings from previous studies. Multivariate analysis findings confirm the previous findings that married officers with dependent children are more likely to choose to retain throughout measured retention milestones. Furthermore, the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) continues to show the highest retention rates among other commissioning sources. We then focus on the officers commissioned from a Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) program to examine how a mentor’s (Marine Officer Instructor) performance and shared attributes with a mentee (midshipman) predict retention behavior for the mentee at the 5- and 7-year milestones. Our findings do not definitively indicate that a mentor’s performance or having shared attributes with a mentee are significant predictive factors for a mentee’s retention decisions, suggesting that additional work on the mentor-mentee relationship and its effect on retention is warranted. Captain, United States Marine Corps Captain, United States Marine Corps Approved for public release. distribution is unlimited

Sailors are difficult to recruit, expensive to train, and hard to retain. This is particularly true in the technical sailor community. Retention of both technical and non-technical sailors is critical to future manning continuity and capability within the Royal Australian Navy. This research employs machine learning to analyze Royal Australian Navy exit survey data collected between 1999 and 2018 to better predict the attitudes and behaviors of a sailor voluntarily separating between four and eight years of service. Furthermore, this study analyzes in particular whether technical sailors behave differently compared to non-technical sailors. In comparison to traditional modeling techniques, the analysis finds that machine learning can more accurately detect differences in the attitudes and behaviors of technical and non-technical sailors when they are deciding to voluntarily separate from service. Furthermore, the analysis can identify differences in sentiment across periods of time covering key career milestones. This analysis and its findings may now be employed to analyze specific critical target groups in both the Royal Australian Navy technical and non-technical sailor communities to understand their attitudes and behaviors, and help support current and future sailor retention policy initiatives. http://archive.org/details/usingmachinelear1094564123 Lieutenant Commander, Royal Australian Navy Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Includes supplementary material This thesis examines retention in the Navy Medicine and Surface Warfare communities using an administrative dataset from Defense Manpower Data Center and the Milestone Survey from the Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Manpower, Personnel, Training, and Education) (OPNAV N1). Through a combination of descriptive and multivariate logistic models, we find that being a female, having dependents, and being Hispanic are most correlated with separation outcomes in the administrative data. Our survey results indicate that the top reasons for leaving are impact on family, civilian job opportunities, and work-life balance. The top reasons for staying are medical and dental benefits, monetary compensation and retirement, and current job satisfaction. We find that while there is a considerable variation in the intent to leave percentage across communities in the survey, the percent of service members who actually left the Navy voluntarily in the administrative data are similar across the communities. We recommend that the Navy focus on improving the quality of life for members and their families. An additional consideration includes shifting the timeline for assignment of Navy Medicine junior officers to their first sea duty tours and deployments. Lieutenant, United States Navy Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.