Analysis and Models of Army Personnel Tempo

Since the end of the Cold War, military involvement in operations and training exercises has increased, while resources have declined. This situation can stress Service members, increasing personnel tempo, or PERSTEMPO, usually defined as "the number of days that Service members are away from their home station to perform their duties."

This research clarified definitions and measures of PERSTEMPO, summarized research linking PERSTEMPO to retention, readiness, and quality of life, and presented the results of three analyses of existing Army data to identify effects of PERSTEMPO.

Results of data analyses indicate that PERSTEMPO has a modest curvilinear relationship with retention, but an inconsistent relationship with self-assessed readiness. High levels of PERSTEMPO were also associated with measures of family strain. The analyses identified other variables regarding managing deployments that had substantial relationships with several measures of retention, readiness, and quality of life.