Pretty smart

After years of “right-sizing” – and all the unintended attitudes that can go with it – Navy is again waking up to the realization that highly trained and motivated people are our most precious resource. Young “millenials” today are not motivated by the same sorts of things that brought their predecessors to the recruiter’s office – many join the Navy for educational benefits, for example. While we are meeting recruiting and attrition goals, the combination of high operating tempo, career uncertainty and – especially here in San Diego – a high cost of living is exerting pressure on retention numbers.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, much of our national income growth in the last generation has come through a transition of spouses who in years past might have stayed at home to the professional, full-time workforce. We lead vastly richer lives (in a material sense, anyway) than did our parent’s generation, but much of that has come at the expense of traditional household roles and relationships.

“Ownership” can seem very important to millenials and that fact is that many young military families can face unique disadvantages in that seeming competion: Deploying spouses make full-time employment for those left behind stressful even as frequent moves make career-building a challenge. Which is why this is such a dazzlingly brilliant idea:

In its latest bid to recruit and retain service members by focusing on their families’ needs, the Pentagon yesterday announced a program to help military spouses train for high-growth, portable careers.

Almost every base in San Diego is included in the first round of the project, which will start next month. Seventeen other military installations in eight states were chosen.

The Pentagon, with help from the U.S. Department of Labor, will pay up to $6,000 over two years to help each participant pursue career-oriented education and training. Targeted fields include teaching, health care, information technology, financial services and construction.

Navy has stated that it wants to be an “employer of preferrence.” This could be a significant step in realizing that vision, and if it helps retain our expensively trained “best and brightest,” cheap at twice the price.