After a rough year in the recruiting force, the Army is pulling out all the stops to ensure that it meets next year’s goal.
And that will include offering recruiters several hundred extra bucks a month to stay on recruiting duty, according to Training and Doctrine Command’s top enlisted soldier.
For soldiers serving a three-year recruiting tour, the Army is looking to extend assignments for a year, with an additional monthly pay. For recruiting station commanders, the Army is planning to bring back special duty assignment pay, Command Sgt. Maj. Timothy Guden told Army Times on Tuesday at the AUSA annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
“We’re going to reach into those folks, and we’re going to ask them if they want to stay on for an additional year if they have been successful," he said of recruiters selected by the Department of the Army.
It would be $500 a month for current recruiters to extend for a year, Guden told Army Times, and $375 for station commander SDAP.
“We’re going to look at making sure that that comes back,” he said.
Soldiers who have served as recruiters within the past three years could immediately PCS to a recruiting job, while those who have been out of the game longer would need to get refresher training at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
And, if they were successful in their second go-rounds, Guden said, there will be opportunities to re-class to the recruiter military occupational specialty.
Soldiers can expect to see details of the initiative in an “SMA Sends” email from Sergeant Major of the Army Dan Dailey in the next week or so, he said.
One of the many reasons the Army has pointed to for missing this year’s recruiting goal by 6,500 new soldiers is a gap of hundreds in the recruiting force. Halfway through the fiscal year, they were down 700, and that has closed to about 600 now, Guden said.
This summer, the Army tried a similar measure, seeking out retired soldiers with prior recruiting experience and asking them to come back on active duty to fill some of those spots.
There was also, for a fleeting moment, discussion about involuntarily sending former recruiters still on active duty to temporary recruiting duty.
This fiscal year, TRADOC is hoping to only need volunteers. They’d like to avoid having to “force folks,” Guden said, or take any more noncommissioned officers out of the operational force to plug the holes.
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Meanwhile, senior leaders have also been talking up the shortage of drill sergeants and various instructors in the training base, from basic training up through combat training centers.
Would TRADOC consider allowing former drill sergeants to head back to basic training, if it was a job they enjoyed?
“I would definitely do it,” Guden told Army Times, but clarified that there’s no current plan to offer that opportunity.
Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members.