Forecast the effects of an increase in the Army Enlistment Bonus on recruit job choices
In response to a difficult recruiting environment, the Army obtained legislative authority to increase the recruiting incentives Enlistment Bonus (EB) program from $20K to $40K. This financial incentive targets high quality recruits willing to enlist in high priority military occupational specialties (MOS) for relatively long enlistment terms. The increased incentives may expand the recruiting market, and they may draw applicants from other MOS into ones carrying the higher incentives. The market expansion effects of the increased incentives will depend on how effectively the new incentives are advertised and the MOS covered by the increased incentives, while the channeling or classification effects will depend on the willingness of applicants initially interested in other MOS to switch to higher priority/higher incentive MOS.
HumRRO developed a Job Choice Model (JCM) using discrete choice modeling to estimate the channeling effects of expanded alternative EB programs. Based on actual applicant choice data from the first quarter of FY 2005, the JCM jointly modelled applicants’ decisions to join or not join the Army, and their choices of MOS training and terms of service (TOS). The model describes the likelihood of an applicant choosing a particular MOS-TOS from a list of enlistment alternatives, as a function of his or her characteristics and the incentives associated with each alternative. To estimate the channeling effects of raising the bonus cap on Army accessions, we applied the JCM to simulate applicants’ MOS-TOS choices under both the $20K bonus and the $40K bonus. We then extended these simulations under different market expansion conditions, where the raised bonus cap was expected to expand the Army’s high quality applicant pool.
The results of our simulations indicated that (a) raising the bonus cap to $40K would uniformly channel applicants, particularly high quality applicants, to higher priority MOS and away from low priority ones; (b) raising the cap would attract applicants, particularly higher quality applicants, to somewhat longer TOS for higher priority MOS; and (c) the market expansion effect on the Army’s higher aptitude applicant pool has the potential to further increase high quality accessions and to mitigate the potentially harmful channeling effects associated with raising the cap.
These results provided Army personnel managers and stakeholders insights into how raising the current bonus cap (from $20K to $40K) would impact the Army’s ability to meet its personnel requirements. Operationally, the results can be used to guide future bonus policy and personnel planning. For Army personnel researchers, the estimates and results of the JCM can be used as inputs into future efforts to model the impact of bonus policy on Army applicants’ enlistment behavior.
