Talent Management 2030

November 2021

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT

Seven decades after its creation, the Marine Corps personnel system is overdue for a fundamental redesign. Our

organization, processes, and approach to personnel and talent management are no longer suited to today’s

needs and incompatible with the objectives of Force Design 2030. Transitioning to a talent management

focus, and system, is required. Without profound improvements made at speed, the deciencies in the current

system will result in the failure of broader service modernization efforts.

This report charts a new course for our personnel system and is informed by a decade’s worth of studies,

books, reports, and academic articles on military personnel reform, in addition to the signicant body of literature

on organizational leadership and the science of management. Like our force design effort, the redesign of our

personnel system is a work in progress. This report explains why it is necessary and details some of the initial steps

we are taking to create the information age personnel system required to continue winning the Nation’s battles.

“The Marine Corps will only be able to

practice maneuver warfare if its personnel

policies are consistent with what maneuver

warfare demands.”

- General A.M. Gray Jr.,

29th Commandant of the Marine Corps

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

positions above all other career experiences. Reinforced

by the 1980 Defense Ofﬁcer Personnel Management

Act (DOPMA), this system has remained fundamentally

unchanged to this day.

Within this 20th century context, the Marine Corps

created an industrial age manpower model, the outlines

and objectives of which have remained remarkably

consistent over time, despite profound changes in the

environment. Indeed, the very name of our personnel

headquarters – Manpower and Reserve Affairs

(M&RA) – is indicative of our industrial age approach

to personnel. A sampling of dictionary denitions for

“manpower” includes, “the total supply of persons

available and tted for service”; “the number (or supply)

of people working or available for work or service”;

and, “power in terms of people available or required

for work or military service.” In all cases, the denitional

common denominator is a view of people as supply or

available inventory – a core industrial age perspective.

While today’s manpower system would be remarkably

familiar to a Marine from the 1950s, they would be

amazed by the social, economic, nancial, cultural, and

technological changes that have transformed our country

and the world. And while that Marine would recognize

today’s global context of strategic competition, they

would be surprised by its complexity and scope, as well

as the Marine Corps’ role in new domains of competition

and warghting, such as space and cyber.

THE URGENCY OF CHANGE

Let me be clear: I have the deepest respect for the

hard-working men and women – both uniformed and

civilian – who manage our personnel system. Over

many decades, countless unsung heroes across the

M&RA enterprise have kept the machine running,

contributed to the readiness of our warghting units,

and made lasting, positive impacts on the lives of our

Marines and their families, me included. And while our

personnel model may have been appropriate in an

Our current system of personnel management – like

those of the other services – was designed in the

industrial era and predates a host of cultural and

technological developments that characterize today’s

world. Understandably, that model was built with a

different set of underlying assumptions about human

capital, many of which are no longer valid. Consider,

for example, that when our industrial model was born,

only about one-third of women were in the workforce,

compared with approximately 60% today. College, and

even high school education, was for the privileged: in

1950, just 34% of Americans graduated high school, while

6% completed college, compared with approximately

90% and 33% respectively, today. And business was

exclusively analog; our manpower model was devised

in an era before personal computers, mobile phones,

and the Internet, when Marines received paper orders

and paper paychecks.

America’s post-World War II national security priorities

shaped the development of our personnel system.

Focused on the threat posed by the former Soviet Union,

we sought a force to ght principally in large, set-piece

battles in Europe and along its maritime periphery. Our

manpower model thus aimed to create and maintain an

enlisted force predominantly composed of young troops

(and primarily conscripts in time of war), prepared for

the physical rigors of combat, but otherwise requiring

little education or training. There were exceptions, of

course, as all services prioritized technical skills among

some specialties, but the overriding paradigm reected

our combat experience in World War II, which prioritized

youth, physical tness, and discipline over education,

training, and technical skills.

For ofcers expected to command units of young

men with minimal education, leadership ability was

understandably the most important and sought-after

characteristic. This led Congress to pass the Ofﬁcer

Personnel Act of 1947, instituting an “up-or-out”

development model with rigid, time-driven promotion

schedules that prioritized command (leadership)

YESTERDAY’S INDUSTRIAL AGE MODEL

“While our service never seeks change for change’s sake, we

have always embraced it when change had the potential

to improve our lethality and effectiveness.”

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

a corps of Marines that is more intelligent, physically

t, cognitively mature, and experienced. We need a

system that can identify each Marine’s talents, help

them develop those talents into skills and aptitudes,

and assign them to billets and duties where they can

apply their strengths to best support their unit’s mission.

Without fundamental change to our personnel system,

executed at speed, we risk undermining the larger

goals of Force Design 2030. Our modern operational

concepts and organizations cannot reach their full

warﬁghting potential without a talent management

system that recruits, develops, and retains the right

Marines.

In 2019, Congress gave both Service Secretaries and

Service Chiefs new and signicant authorities to reform

their personnel systems. My intent is to use these new

authorities, exercise those we already possess, and seek

support for any additional authorities required in order

to bring our personnel system into the information age.

Our initial changes will trace four broad categories,

each of which will be described in detail in the body

of this report:

(1) Implementation of new models for recruiting talent;

(2) Establishment of an assignments process consistent

with our warghting philosophy;

(3) Introduction of new initiatives to increase career

exibility; and

(4) Adoption of modern digital tools, processes, and

analytics, consistent with industry standards.

While some changes will happen immediately, others

will require signicant adjustments to organizational

structure and responsibilities. This report provides the

conceptual foundation for our approach to talent

management and should be read as an action plan.

I expect the Marine Corps to move at speed in

developing and implementing the initiatives listed in

this document, and others identiﬁed in the coming

months, in order to achieve a full transition from the

current manpower system to a talent management

system no later than 2025.

earlier era, it is no longer suited to our service needs

or the expectations of the Americans who ll our ranks.

The time for change is now.

The core objectives of all modern personnel

management systems are to recruit individuals

with the right talents, match those talents to

organizational needs, and incentivize the most

talented and high performing individuals to remain

with the organization. Our current manpower system

is not equipped to meet any of these objectives, except

in the bluntest of ways. To use a rough analogy, our

current manpower framework treats every Marine like

a round peg and every billet like a round hole, while

a talent management system recognizes that both

Marines and billets come in different shapes and sizes.

While our service never seeks change for change’s

sake, we have always embraced it when change

had the potential to improve our lethality and

effectiveness. As the Marine Corps refocuses on

naval expeditionary warfare, we must undergo parallel

changes to our personnel system to ensure we are

able to recruit and retain the right Marines for today’s

era of renewed global competition. It is essential that

our personnel system supports the broader goals of

Force Design 2030 and enables us to maximize the

effectiveness of concepts like maneuver warfare, stand-in

forces, expeditionary advanced base operations, and

distributed operations.

Borrowing from ideas in the CJCS instruction,

Implementing Joint Force Development and Design, we

cannot create a modern talent management system by

adopting a “force development approach” to change,

seeking incremental adjustments to our manpower

organization and processes so that it can do what it

does better. Instead, we must embrace a “force design

approach,” seeking change that will empower our

personnel enterprise to do things differently to enable

the competitive advantages of the larger force.

It begins and ends with preparedness for combat. Our

ability to ght and win on future battleelds demands a

personnel system that can recruit, develop, and retain

“Our modern operational concepts and organizations

cannot reach their full warﬁghting potential without a

talent management system that recruits, develops, and

retains the right Marines.”

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

TENETS OF A TALENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

• Marines are individuals, not inventory. Whereas

a manpower management system views personnel

as inventory or a commodity to be managed, a talent

management system views personnel as individuals with

different skills, strengths, interests, and motivations.

• Talents can be identiﬁed and evaluated. Data, when

properly collected and analyzed, can provide powerful

insights about the talents and strengths of both an

individual Marine and a unit.

• Talents can be developed. While a Marine may

be born with certain talents, those talents can only

become strengths, aptitudes, and skills through focused

individual effort over an extended period, fueled by a

Marine’s desire to excel. The Marine Corps can help

cultivate an individual’s talents with the right education,

training, and experience, but ultimately the responsibility

for talent development rests with the Marine.

• Matching talents to duties maximizes performance.

A Marine Corps that matches Marines’ talents to their

duties will perform at a higher level in competition

and combat.

• Incentives power the system. While all Marines are

motivated to serve and seek a challenge, they are also

humans, and human behavior is driven by incentives.

High performing Marines should be promoted faster

and assigned to our most challenging and consequential

billets. They should be further incentivized to excel

and develop their talents with incentives tailored to

their individual needs, be it duty station preference,

prioritized school selection, nancial compensation, or

any other action within our power to affect.

• There is always a boat space for talent. High-

performing Marines are identied and actively retained,

regardless of military occupational specialty (MOS).

Talented Marines can often apply their strengths in a

wide variety of positions beyond their primary MOS.

When provided additional education, training, or

experience, they can readily satisfy talent shortfalls

elsewhere in the system.

• Data drives decision-making. Successful personnel

organizations rely on data and analytics to inform both

institutional and individual personnel decisions.

TALENT MANAGEMENT

Creating change begins with a common understanding

of the problem, as well as universally recognized

denitions. What exactly is talent, and how should

it be managed? What are the characteristics of our

industrial age model and why do they matter? Why is

change required today? What can we learn from the

other services and private sector? This report aims to

answer those questions.

The business and management literature offers a number

of useful descriptions for talent and talent management,

but there is no standard, widely accepted denition

and our sister services each dene the terms slightly

differently. As we move forward in the critical task of

reimagining talent management across the Marine

Corps, we will use the following denitions to guide

our efforts.

DEFINITIONS

Talent is an individual’s innate potential to do

something well. A Marine turns their talents into

strengths, aptitudes, and skills through dedicated study,

repetition, and hard work – a process accelerated by their

curiosity, passion, interests, and desire for excellence.

A Marine may have a talent for foreign languages,

writing, leadership, athletics, mechanics, accounting,

or any other skill, and while the right formal training

and education can help a Marine develop their talents,

it is important to note that ‘talent’ is not a synonym for

‘MOS’ or ‘training.’

Talent management is the act of aligning the talents

of individual Marines with the needs of the service

to maximize the performance of both. It describes a

system of institutional processes and policies designed

to attract, develop, retain, and incentivize the most

talented and best performing Marines.

A talent management system identies an individual

Marine’s talents, helps them develop those talents

through education, training, mentorship, and

experience, and assigns them to positions where they

can best contribute to the success of their unit and

the Corps. This system also identies and rewards the

most talented with tough assignments, accelerated

promotions, educational opportunities, additional pay,

duty station preference, and other incentives.

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION, AND TALENT

MANAGEMENT

The core ideas that underpin talent management

reinforce what we all understand instinctively about

our service: Marines make the Marine Corps. We

have never defined ourselves by our equipment,

organizational constructs, or operational concepts. Our

identity has always been – and will remain – dened by

the character, intelligence, courage, tness, and talents

of our people.

The Marine Corps draws its collective strength and

identity from all its Marines, so it is critical that

we prioritize policies that maximize the individual

strengths of every Marine, regardless of race, gender,

sexual orientation, creed, or any other marker. To

that end, we will commit to prioritizing diversity, equity,

and inclusion as part of talent management – not to

satisfy abstract notions of political correctness, but as a

very real means to recruit, develop, and retain Marines

of varied talents.

How should we understand diversity, equity, and

inclusion in the context of talent management? Beyond

their accepted deﬁnitions, what do these terms mean,

why are they important, and how will we prioritize them?

• Reinforcing diversity. Every Marine has a unique

personal background. Their upbringing and experiences

shape their outlook, patterns of thought, talents,

and strengths. The Corps benets when it attracts,

and remains attractive to, Marines from a range of

backgrounds, and thus, diverse perspectives and talents.

Research in behavioral economics illustrates that teams

with diverse perspectives and modes of thinking

solve problems faster and more creatively. In this

way, diversity provides us a competitive warghting

advantage over our adversaries, particularly those

who place a premium on uniformity of thought. To

capitalize on the talents, strengths, aptitudes, skills, and

perspectives of the whole force, our talent management

system must reinforce a culture where the contribution

of every Marine is respected and valued.

“...teams with diverse perspectives and modes of thinking

solve problems faster and more creatively. In this way, diversity

provides us a competitive warﬁghting advantage over our

adversaries...”

• Promoting equity. Together with leaders across the

force, our talent management system should create

a level playing eld, allowing all Marines an equal

opportunity to succeed and enabling our most talented

to advance. With the eld set, we ensure the game is

equitable when all players have the right equipment and

a thorough knowledge of the rules. Today, some Marines

have the leadership abilities, intelligence, and tness

to succeed, but lack the mentorship, opportunities, or

education that would enable them to take full advantage

of their talents. Fostering equity in the force is about

equal treatment, access, advancement, and opportunity

for all Marines based on their individual skills, abilities,

aptitude, performance, and merit. It also means

identifying and eliminating structural impediments

that limit our Marines from developing their talents into

strengths and reaching their full potential.

• Encouraging a culture of inclusion. We are “The

Few and the Proud,” known across the globe as an elite

force with elite standards for leadership, intelligence,

and tness. Once an individual earns the title “Marine,”

they have made the grade. There are no additional

obstacles or barriers to entry – “Once a Marine,

always a Marine.” Our talent management system will

reinforce our leaders’ focus on building inclusive teams,

where diverse perspectives and talents are valued and

respected, and where every unit, career specialty, and

echelon of leadership is open to every Marine, based

on performance. As a service, our culture will remain

compelling to all segments of society when people see

that others like them who earned the title are treated

with dignity, fairness, and respect.

To be successful in competition and conict in the 21st

century, we must take full advantage of the talents,

strengths, skills, and perspectives of every Marine. Our

talent management system will support this imperative

and our leaders in prioritizing diversity of thought,

fostering inclusivity, and implementing policies that

ensure equity across the force.

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

equal number of replacements to ll the ranks (~36,000).

The Marine Corps is unique among the services in

embracing an enlisted force model that perpetuates

this remarkably high turnover rate. Indeed, while the

other services have matured their forces over the last

few decades, the Marine Corps has remained committed

to preserving its bottom-heavy grade structure and

youthful character, maintaining the largest percentage

of teenagers among the services.

The massive annual personnel turnover that the Marine

Corps oversees is not the result of widespread disinterest

or incompatibility on behalf of Marines who might

otherwise reenlist. Instead, it is a consequence of service

decisions made more than a generation ago to adopt

a “recruit and replace” personnel model rather than an

“invest and retain” model. While those decisions may

have been appropriate in their day, the assumptions

underpinning them are no longer valid. Given the

considerable societal, economic, and technological

changes that have occurred over the past four decades,

and in the context of renewed global great power

competition, it is time that the Marine Corps take

decisive steps to mature the force.

In 2022, we will begin recalibrating our enlisted

personnel model to better balance retention and

recruiting, and in doing so, mature the force with

three primary outcomes. First, this shift will improve the

physical tness of the Marine Corps. While conventional

wisdom may hold that a young force is most t, the data

suggest the need for a more nuanced understanding.

Aerobic and anaerobic athletic performance typically

peaks in the mid-twenties, a scientic nding supported

by our own PFT and CFT data. Marines in their mid-to-

late twenties do more pull-ups, crunches, ammunition

cans lifts, and run faster than Marines aged 17-22 (those

typically in their rst enlistments).

“A Marine Corps that

matches Marines’

talents to their duties

will perform at a higher

level in competition and

combat.”

NEW MODELS FOR RECRUITING TALENT

The Corps continues to attract high quality Americans

who are inspired to serve their country as Marines

and our recruiters do an admirable job administering

a recruiting program that satises the needs of our

current manpower system. Unfortunately, our repeated

successes in recruiting large cohorts of young Americans,

year after year, has obscured three fundamental problems

with the existing paradigm.

First, we have created a personnel model that is overly

focused – and, in fact, dependent – on recruiting rather

than retention. This is a consequence of service decisions

made in the mid-1980s and reinforced by our sustained

recruiting successes over the past three decades. To

maintain both our end strength and the right talents in

our workforce, we must carefully calibrate and balance

service investments in recruiting and retention. Today

we are out of balance, placing too much emphasis on

recruiting new personnel to maintain end strength, and

too little emphasis on identifying and retaining the most

talented individuals already in our ranks.

Second, due to both our demanding recruiting goals

and the absence of appropriate tools, we are not doing

enough to screen and evaluate applicants before they

enter service. A robust screening and evaluation,

executed prior to recruit training, will allow us to better

assess each applicant’s suitability for service, while better

aligning their strengths and interests to appropriate

career elds.

Finally, our recruiting model is exclusively focused on,

and optimized for, recruiting teenagers and those in their

early twenties. In this current era of heightened global

competition, the Marine Corps requires a vehicle for

rapidly recruiting mature, seasoned experts. We can

no longer afford the cost in time – measured in years,

and sometimes decades – to train and educate all our

technical leaders, particularly given the extraordinary

pace of technological change.

REBALANCE RECRUITING AND RETENTION TO

MATURE THE FORCE

For the last 36 years, the Marine Corps has been

committed to maintaining a predominantly rst-term

enlisted force, composed of Marines on their initial

service contracts. To maintain this bottom-heavy grade

structure pyramid, we discharge approximately 75%

of rst-term Marines every year, recruiting roughly an

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

model, as it fails to include a whole range of service

savings associated with maintaining a more mature

force (e.g., fewer recruiters, instructors, lower PCS and

separations costs, lower mishap rates, etc.), not to

mention improvements in training and discipline. A

more apt question is, can we afford not to mature the

force? Success on future battleﬁelds as a distributed

stand-in force will require our Marines to be more

physically ﬁt and cognitively mature, with a higher

level of operational experience. The implications of

a more mature force are profound and far-reaching.

For instance, a more mature rie squad (the aspiration

of every Commandant since at least Commandant

Gray), composed of second-term Marine sergeants,

kept together over years, will be dramatically more

capable than squads we have produced in the past.

Recalibrating our current enlisted personnel model is

the rst step in producing this more mature force.

ENHANCING ASSESSMENT OF POTENTIAL

RECRUITS

As Commandant Dunford noted in 2015, “there is

room for improvement in our screening processes.”

First, we need to put more energy into determining an

applicant’s suitability for service. Approximately 20% of

those recruited do not complete their rst enlistments, a

strong indicator that the service can do better to screen

potential recruits. The consequence? Every year we

separate thousands of Marines before they complete

their initial contracts (“non-EAS attrition”), costing the

service hundreds of millions of dollars annually, with

signicant impacts to readiness across the Corps. While

we currently screen an applicant’s physical health and

intelligence (albeit with a rudimentary tool – the ASVAB),

our unacceptably high non-EAS attrition demonstrates

that current screening methods are insufcient.

We will begin by placing more emphasis on data

analytics across the recruiting enterprise. Employing

analytical tools and using data already collected during

Second, a slightly older force will have better cognitive

function and make better decisions in aggregate.

Advancements in neuroscience since 1985 have

signicantly expanded our understanding of the human

brain, which we now know does not fully develop until

a person reaches their early to mid-twenties. Until that

point, a person is psychologically at a decit, more

likely to make poor decisions and accept unnecessary

risk, and less able to control impulses. Marine Corps

safety data support this nding: our youngest Marines

are responsible for a disproportionate share of the total

costs to the service as a result of mishaps, both on- and

off-duty. Our youngest Marines are also responsible

for a disproportionate share of misconduct across the

force. This simple fact of biology cannot be overcome

by training, education, or leadership. Maturing the

force by retaining a greater percentage of qualiﬁed

ﬁrst-term Marines will improve decision-making,

problem solving, and risk assessment among our

junior leaders, with immediate positive effects on

our performance in competition and combat.

Third, maturing the force will increase the readiness

of our warghting units and stability across our MEFs.

For example, today we accept as natural a personnel

model that limits the ability of our infantry battalions to

maintain a consistent level of readiness. Every eighteen

months, the size and prociency of an infantry battalion

drops dramatically as it sheds Marines completing

their rst enlistments. While a battalion will always

experience peaks and valleys in readiness based on its

training schedule, our current personnel model amplies

the extremes. Moving away from a recruiting-centric

personnel model will prevent such dramatic swings in

readiness by increasing the aggregate prociency of

our units, and thus stability across our MEFs.

What about costs? After all, a rst-term lance corporal

earns a lower salary than a sergeant on their second

enlistment. Can the service afford a more mature force?

A simple salary comparison is a poor way to evaluate

the overall cost encumbrance of a new personnel

“Today we are out of balance, placing too much emphasis

on recruiting new personnel to maintain end strength, and

too little emphasis on identifying and retaining the most

talented individuals already in our ranks.”

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

the success of their units, nd career satisfaction, and

re-enlist. In 2022, we will begin experimenting with a

new process. I am condent that we can develop a

model that leverages the power of articial intelligence,

while effectively managing entry level training pipeline

restrictions and MOS-producing school requirements.

Finally, we will carefully review our waiver processes and

policies with the aim of reducing the number of waivers

granted for recruits with criminal histories of more than

a minor nature. Specically, I am instituting a blanket

prohibition on waivers for any applicant previously

convicted of sexual assault offenses or sexual related

crimes and offenses, domestic violence, or hate crimes,

effective immediately.

CREATING A PATH TO LATERAL ENTRY

Our current enlisted recruiting model is optimized for

recruiting teenagers, and for ofcers, those in their

early twenties. (It was not always this way: During the

Interwar Period, potential enlisted recruits had to be

over 21 and required a character reference from an

employer, teacher, coach, or religious leader). While

we will always seek to attract young Americans to our

ranks, we do not have an effective vehicle for nding,

recruiting, and onboarding talented Americans who

already possess critical skills. In other words, there is

currently only one way to join the Marine Corps – at

the bottom.

While this model affords us a high degree of stability and

predictability, it also incurs opportunity costs. We have

no vehicle to recruit talent unless an individual is willing

to start at the lowest paygrade and work their way up.

Because the Corps “starts from scratch,” providing every

Marine with all the education, training, and experience

they need to progress in their career, it takes time to

build critical skills and expertise. For example, it takes 10

or more years to produce a mid-career expert (gunnery

sergeant) in aviation maintenance.

the recruiting process, we have been able to identify

characteristics most indicative of non-EAS attrition. With

this data, we can now forecast, with a higher degree

of accuracy, which Marines are more likely to leave

active duty before the end of their rst enlistment. The

implications are clear and powerful: employing better

analytics can improve recruiting and conserve service

resources. The service must also do more to evaluate

each applicant’s career interests, talents, personal

and intellectual strengths, experience, motivations,

and propensity to continue in service after their rst

enlistment. While an applicant’s ASVAB results do

provide some rough insights, they are limited. In 2022,

we will adopt additional assessment tools to more

thoroughly evaluate our applicants, seeking to better

place these recruits in career elds where they will

provide the most benet to the Corps while achieving

personal and professional success, and at the same

time, identifying those who are unlikely to complete

their rst enlistments.

Second, to ensure we recruit individuals best suited

for service in our Corps, and appropriately match

their talents and strengths to requirements, we will

introduce a comprehensive psychological evaluation

for all applicants. This practice is common in other

professional elds where psychological hazards and

stresses are routine, including special operations forces,

law enforcement, re and emergency responders,

and some industry. My initial review indicates that

psychological screening can be completed affordably

and with minimal impacts to an applicant’s timeline for

enlistment.

Third, we will retool how we assign our enlisted

recruits to military occupational specialties. Today’s

process is mostly arbitrary, with MOS assignments

being driven by recruit shipping dates (i.e., recruits are

assigned career elds based on what MOS slots need

to be lled in a particular time period). We need a new,

data-driven model that assigns recruits to specialties

where they can develop their talents, best contribute to

“Success on future battleﬁelds as a distributed stand-

in force will require our Marines to be more physically

ﬁt and cognitively mature, with a higher level of

operational experience.”

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

qualied applicants in select specialties, not used as a

means to recruit en masse.

We will also develop return to service options for Marines

who have left active duty. One option will allow those

Marines no longer on active duty, but who continue to

meet our high standards, to return to their former rank.

Another option will allow those who obtained critical

career experience after leaving the service to return

at a rank commensurate with their qualications. For

example, I can envision a Marine who left active duty as

a captain or corporal rejoining our ranks as a lieutenant

colonel or gunnery sergeant, respectively, after spending

5-7 years working in a cyber or IT eld where the service

currently lacks capacity. With the right education and

experience, that same corporal might also be eligible

to return as a mid-grade or senior ofcer.

SPECIALIZED RECRUITING FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH

CRITICAL SKILLS

As we develop the mechanisms for granting career

credit to qualied civilians, we will develop – in parallel

– new ways for nding and recruiting talent. Drawing

from our experience in recruiting exceptionally talented

musicians for Marine Corps service, we will establish

an ofce within Marine Corps Recruiting Command

(MCRC) to exclusively focus on recruiting and assessing

talented Americans with the skills that the service needs

today and tomorrow. Rather than a brick-and-mortar

facility, this recruiting ofce will be exclusively online

and function much like the recruiting ofces of major,

cutting-edge U.S. companies.

As a result of the signicant lead time necessary to

build expertise, we are unable to respond quickly to

changes in the security environment that demand urgent

course corrections. The rapid rise in importance of the

cyber domain, for instance, has challenged us to nd

creative ways to quickly build critical skills at mid-career

and senior levels. Unless we nd a means to quickly

infuse expertise into the force – at the right ranks – I

am concerned that advances in articial intelligence

and robotics, among other elds where the speed of

technological change is exponential, will force us into

a reactive posture. We should have an open door for

exceptionally talented Americans who wish to join

the Marine Corps, allowing them to laterally enter

at a rank appropriate to their education, experience,

and ability.

In 2019, Congress granted the Service Secretaries

authority to award career credit to highly qualied

civilians, allowing them to enter as mid-career ofcers.

I view this authority as a powerful tool to attracting

talent – particularly in low-density, high-demand elds

– and a potent vehicle for bringing fresh, private sector

perspectives into the service. I will work personally with

the Secretary of the Navy and senior Marine Corps

leaders to create a process that takes full advantage of

this Congressional authority. Additionally, we will create

a similar model for awarding career credit to qualied

civilians interested in joining the enlisted ranks.

To be clear, not every MOS will be open to lateral

entrants. For example, it is difcult to imagine a scenario

where a civilian would be permitted lateral entry into

combat arms. The opportunity for lateral entry will

be limited and primarily reserved for recruiting highly

ASSIGNMENTS

Our service culture and warghting philosophy is highly

entrepreneurial. We trust our small unit leaders, operating

under mission-type orders, to creatively solve battleeld

problems and accept necessary risks to accomplish the

mission. Operating with a maneuverist mindset, we

decentralize command and control, push responsibility

to the lowest levels, and allow commanders closest to

the ght to make decisions with as little interference

from headquarters as possible.

Yet, when it comes to personnel management, we

ﬂip our warﬁghting philosophy and combat-tested

model on its head. Here, we centralize command and

control to the maximum extent possible, empowering

headquarters at the expense of Marines closest to

the action. Commanders (particularly at the battalion

and squadron levels) are largely excluded from the

process – they have no real say in who is assigned to

their units – and while headquarters actively seeks and

values feedback from individual Marines, ultimately the

individual has little inuence on assignment outcomes.

In a process with little transparency, Marines are told

what job they will ll and when and where they will

move their families.

Today’s assignments process is an industrial age relic

and more reminiscent of a centrally planned economy

than a cutting-edge American meritocracy. It does not

efciently and effectively match the talent of individual

Marines with available billets across our Corps. Further,

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

it hurts retention. Numerous studies indicate that the

inability of a military member to affect their assignment

more directly (when and where they will move) is a

primary driver for them leaving service. To be clear,

our hard-working monitors are not the problem – they

are operating within the constraints of an outdated

system. While the needs of the Corps will remain

paramount, there are better ways to assign Marines

that are consistent with our warﬁghting philosophy,

and more conducive to maintaining and retaining a

talented workforce.

CREATING A TALENT MARKETPLACE

Taking advantage of the initial lessons learned by

the Army, Navy, and Air Force, we are developing a

web-based “talent marketplace,” where units post

job information about available billets, Marines apply

for those positions virtually, and monitors serve as

overall managers and arbiters. While much in the way

of mechanics remains to be determined, I am committed

to creating a process that places increased responsibility

in the hands of unit commanders and individual Marines,

employs cutting edge technology, and preserves a vital

role for headquarters. Initially, our talent marketplace

will be for ofcers, and eventually senior enlisted, while

we assess options for changes to the junior enlisted

assignments process.

For commanders, who have historically had little say

in personnel assignment decisions, a digital talent

marketplace will give them a higher degree of control

over who lls their staffs, and at the battalion and

squadron levels, who serves as company commanders

or department heads. For the rst time, commanders

will have the ability to highlight and prioritize the

specic professional and educational backgrounds

they seek in their key leaders, detail billet descriptions

and expectations, and articulate their command

philosophies, family readiness priorities, and other

information that might be useful to potential applicants,

facilitating a much better match between Marine and

commander. In the future, pending the development of

suitable controls to eliminate bias, the system may even

enable commanders to interview applicants to assess

how an individual Marine’s personality and leadership

style might impact the dynamic already at play in their

units, and rank order those applying.

For Marines, a talent marketplace will increase

available information about billet openings, improve

transparency, and provide individuals with far greater

inﬂuence over their future assignments. Rather than

reviewing a simple spreadsheet with limited data about

available billets (sometimes no more than position

title, MOS, and unit), ofcers expecting reassignment

will be able to review the more detailed information

posted by individual commands. This will allow Marines

to match their talents and experience to specic billet

requirements and ask questions directly to units. For the

rst time, the individual Marine will have the opportunity

to apply for jobs based on their career goals, interests,

and family situation, giving them far more agency in

the assignments process.

Today, monitors are in the unenviable position of

trying to match the professional experience and

personal desires of their populations (often hundreds

of Marines), with the stafng requirements of dozens of

units across the Corps. That task would be herculean

under any circumstances, but today’s monitors do it

with only limited information – almost no input from

units (we discourage it!) and only a questionnaire and

miscellaneous correspondence from each Marine mover

(we discourage excessive communications here as well!).

Further, our monitors have few digital tools for assessing

the past experiences and talents of Marines across their

populations or prioritizing and balancing the needs and

desires of units and individuals. Limited to email, their

own spreadsheets, the Ofcial Military Personnel Files

(OMPFs) of their populations, internal orders writing

systems, and outdated analytic models, the work of

today’s monitors looks too much like it did two or three

decades ago. A digital talent marketplace will free

monitors from the manual task of matching Marines to

units, and instead enable them to manage the system,

“...a talent marketplace

will increase available

information about billet

openings, improve

transparency, and

provide individuals with

far greater inﬂuence

over their future

assignments.”

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

serve as arbiters (e.g., when multiple Marines are equally

qualied for the same position), and spend more energy

identifying the most highly talented individuals in our

Corps, ensuring they receive the most career enhancing

billets.

REDUCE PCS FREQUENCY

While Marines are accustomed to the predictable

frequency of Permanent Change of Station (PCS) moves,

this pattern is not replicated among high performing

civilian organizations, or even among some of our closest

military allies and partners. Why? Does the annual PCS

reassignment of approximately 25,000 Marines improve

our lethality as a force? Does it enhance our ability to

train or improve the skills of our leaders? If the answer

is not unequivocally “yes,” then it is time for a change.

The assignments process should build unit

cohesion and create conditions that best enable

our commanders to lead, train, and employ their

forces for competition and conﬂict. Unfortunately,

the scale of the annual PCS cycle serves to degrade,

rather than enhance those conditions. Units are left with

gaps in key leadership positions; stability is disrupted

as leaders are in a perpetual state of “turnover”; and

training quality is diminished when Marines, in transit

or preparing to move their families, cannot participate

or are otherwise distracted.

These dynamics have challenged the institution for

decades and contributed to Commandant Gray’s

1990 assessment on the importance of building unit

cohesion: “In combat, the most critical element of a unit’s

combat power is its cohesion. Cohesive units are built

by stabilizing personnel assignments so that Marines

can work and train together over a relatively long period

of time. Units whose Marines are in a constant state of

ux and turnover will perform poorly in combat because

they will not be cohesive combat teams.”

The frequency of PCS moves also puts enormous strain

on our families, who already sacrice considerably to

support their Marines. In particular, moves are highly

disruptive to spousal employment (spouses experience

high unemployment and underemployment), as well

as the educational stability of dependents. Further, it

hurts retention: the frequency of PCS moves is regularly

cited as a signicant factor contributing to Marines

leaving service.

Beginning in 2022, monitors will seek to keep Marines

and their families in the same geographic duty station

as long as opportunities for career growth exist. In

other words, monitors will make more regular use of

Permanent Change of Assignment (PCA) orders, rather

than PCS orders. The PCS move will continue to be

a normal feature of Marine Corps life, and Marines

should expect to move as part of their normal career

progression. However, the institution will no longer

view “homesteading” as a negative practice to

avoid, but rather a vehicle for improving training,

increasing unit stability, and reducing the stresses

we place on our families.

360-DEGREE FEEDBACK

Selection boards seek to identify the best and most

fully qualied candidates and base their decisions

exclusively on the information contained in a Marine’s

OMPF, with tness reports (FITREPs) being the primary

reference. Fitness reports, however, provide critically

important but limited insights into a Marine’s strengths

and weaknesses. At present, the FITREP captures only

the positive views of two supervisors who, in some

cases, are not co-located with the Marine reported on

or only had limited observation of them. 360-degree

feedback, by contrast, includes the perspectives of a

larger number of seniors, peers, and juniors and can

include unattering feedback that is prohibited from

inclusion in a Marine’s FITREP.

This feedback is thus an important vehicle for expanding

our understanding of a Marine’s strengths and

weaknesses, which are critically important as boards

and service leaders select, form, and assign leadership

teams across the Corps. Further, 360-degree feedback

– already employed by various organizations within the

“The assignments process should build unit cohesion and

create conditions that best enable our commanders to

lead, train, and employ their forces for competition and

conﬂict.”

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

DoD – are a proven means for identifying traits of toxic

leadership and can help reduce the incidence of toxic

leaders advancing to senior levels within the service.

Beginning in 2022, we will institute 360-degree

feedback for leaders, on a pilot basis. This feedback

will be made available to the Marine and their Reporting

Senior, with the aim of encouraging leadership growth.

No later than 2024, we will incorporate 360-degree

feedback into the selection board and assignments

processes to ensure that this important input is properly

considered by those selecting and assigning our future

leaders.

SUBSTANTIATED ALLEGATIONS IMPACT

ASSIGNMENTS

Convictions for sexual related offenses, and convictions

or substantiated allegations of sexual harassment

or discrimination will be prominently noted in a

Marine’s record and impact the assignments process.

Effective immediately, monitors will be required to

communicate directly with a gaining unit’s commanding

ofcer when they assign a Marine with a conviction

or substantiated allegation. Further, Marines with a

substantiated allegation of harassment or discrimination

are disqualied from command selection or assignment

as a unit’s sergeant major or senior enlisted advisor.

INCREASING CAREER FLEXIBILITY

Rigid career paths are a natural consequence of our

industrial age system, which places a premium on

building common experience and producing Marines

of similar, predictable quality. While this may be most

evident in our ofcer ranks, it impacts enlisted Marines

as well, with three primary consequences.

First, the lack of career ﬂexibility reduces the diversity

of experience and education among our senior

leaders, evident in the remarkably similar careers of

our general ofcers. To be promoted to the highest

ranks, ofcers must strictly follow well-worn career

paths on a set-timeline. Any deviation to pursue a non-

standard educational, joint/interagency, or other career

experience, including through the Career Intermission

Program, is shunned, as it comes with tremendous

risk to an individual Marine’s career path and could

result in a missed career milestone, derailing an ofcer’s

future promotion potential. The result is an unhealthy

uniformity in experience among our senior leaders.

Second, our current system places all ofcers on the

“command track,” which is profoundly wasteful of

human capital. Some ofcers have the skills, interest,

and disposition to serve in command leadership billets,

while other ofcers are predisposed to serve in staff

leadership roles. The success of our warﬁghting units

depends on good leadership in both command and

staff positions, but our industrial age model only

prioritizes the former, resulting in the inefﬁcient

allocation of talent and suboptimal performance

of units.

Third, the rigidity of the personnel system limits our

ability to accommodate the changing career interests

and family situations of our Marines – ofcers and

enlisted – resulting in lost retention opportunities.

Retaining talent requires meeting Marines where they

are, not penalizing them for changing interests. As a

service, we must keep doors open for talented Marines

who desire to continue serving. There is always a “boat

space” for talent.

PROMOTION OPT-OUT

Our current promotion model incentivizes ofcers to

pursue conventional career paths that enable them

to complete milestone billets and education on an

established, rigid schedule. Officers are, in turn,

disincentivized from pursuing unconventional career

experiences or education that may yield long-term

benets, but which takes them off track for key billets.

Even a small deviation in the timing of assignments

can have signicant consequences (e.g., an extra

6-12 months in school might mean a major misses the

opportunity for a key eet billet before their lieutenant

colonel promotion board).

While the service will continue to value both key billets

and professional military education, we must also create

paths that increase the diversity of experience in our

Marine Corps leaders. Encouraging diversity among

our leaders is both a vehicle for improving service-

level problem solving and a way to gain a competitive

warghting advantage over our adversaries.

In 2022, we will begin developing policy options and

initiatives to encourage leaders to pursue career-

expanding opportunities. At a minimum, we will increase

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

visibility of the Career Intermission Program, adjust

promotion board precepts, and introduce a penalty-free,

promotion board “opt-out” option. Much like an ofcer’s

ability to remove their name by request (RBR) from a

command or other selection board, this opt-out option

would enable Marines to pursue opportunities otherwise

deemed too “risky,” including extended educational

programs. The Army and Air Force have instituted similar

policies based on Congressional changes to the law in

2019, and we will seek to benet from their experience.

We will also explore opportunities to implement a similar

system for enlisted Marines.

CREATING A PATH FOR TALENTED STAFF

OFFICERS

For ofcers in our industrial age personnel system, all

roads lead to command. By emphasizing, screening

for, and promoting to command leadership skills and

experiences, we necessarily deemphasize and deprioritize

the leadership skills and experiences required of good

staff ofcers, which are frequently more technical in

nature. Making all ofﬁcers conform to ﬁt industrial

age notions of leadership inefﬁciently matches

the talent of our ofﬁcers with appropriate billets,

impacting the effectiveness of our commanders

and their staffs. It also results in the early separation

of talented ofcers who seek staff leadership roles but

see no opportunities for upward mobility.

Our personnel system and service culture must

recognize that superior performance and prociency

are not exclusive characteristics of commanders or

ofcers seeking command. Marine Corps units and

staffs will be most effective when led by ofcers with

the appropriate skills and experience, and who derive

personal satisfaction from their work. To that end, we will

begin exploring new ways to better value our diverse

human capital.

Possible changes may include: (1) adjustments to

tness reports for ofcers, to allow Marines to indicate

a preference for command or staff roles; (2) adjustments

to tness reports for majors and lieutenant colonels,

with reporting seniors and reviewing ofcers indicating

whether a Marine is better suited to serve in command

or staff leadership roles; (3) selection of some primary

staff ofcers (G1, G2, G3, etc.) and technically specialized

staff positions in conjunction with O5 and O6 command

selection boards; and (4) creation of a board-selected

professional staff ofcer track, modeled after the

acquisition ofcer pipeline. We will investigate these

and other options, study the experiences of the other

military services, and adopt a new model no later than

2023. The endstate is the creation of a career path for

talented ofcers who do not seek command.

LATERAL MOVE RETENTION INCENTIVE

Exit surveys suggest that some top performing Marines

leave service due to the lack of perceived opportunities

in uniform. Unable to pursue a new and different career

focus in the Marine Corps, they seek alternatives in the

private sector or through advanced education. We should

never fault a Marine for seeking new opportunities, but

rather encourage them to nd the most challenging

and enriching opportunities available – in uniform or

out. In my view, there are few vocations, if any, more

challenging, enriching, and meaningful than service as

a Marine, and I suspect that many Marines choosing to

leave the Corps hold similar opinions.

For the truly exceptional Marine who wants to continue

serving but who seeks a new career eld, we will begin

offering the option of a lateral move into another primary

MOS as a retention incentive, regardless of the health

of the Marine’s current MOS. Moreover, as long as the

Marine meets eligibility criteria, we will place few, if

any, restrictions on which MOS assignment they seek.

RETAINING HIGH PERFORMING OFFICERS

At present, company grade ofcers and majors are

automatically screened for resident professional military

education (PME), and at the rank of major, for recruiting

station commanding ofcer (RSCO). Ofcers selected

for PME or RSCO are among our best and their selection

indicative of their future potential to the Marine Corps.

Yet, if an ofcer chooses to decline the opportunity

because the timing is bad for their family, or because

they had alternate career goals, we require them to

resign. In other words, we have a zero tolerance policy

for our best young ofcers who decline this key career

opportunity.

A talent management system relies on incentives,

not coercion. While the needs of the Marine Corps

are always paramount, we cannot afford to push

the most talented young ofﬁcers out the door after

investing years in their leadership development,

education, and training. We can do better. In 2022,

we will give our company grade ofcers and majors

the ability to remove their names from consideration

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

by the Commandant’s Career Level Education Board

(CCLEB), Commandant’s Professional Intermediate-Level

Education Board (CPIB), and the RSCO Board. In doing

so, we will extend to these ofcers the same opportunity

afforded to lieutenant colonels and colonels, who are

able to RBR from consideration by command and Top

Level School (TLS) boards without penalty.

ENHANCING PARENTAL LEAVE

The life of a Marine is demanding, and the stresses

it places on our Marine parents and their families is

considerable. Unfortunately, too many Marines starting

families – especially female Marines – decide to leave

service, fearing that parenthood will be incompatible

with their careers. The choice of a new parent to leave

the workforce is not unique to the Marine Corps, and

organizations across the private, public, and non-prot

sectors have taken years to develop smart policies that

both improve family outcomes and increase retention

of talented employees. Learning from the experience

of other high-performing organizations, beginning

in 2022, the Marine Corps will begin making several

key updates to our parental leave program.

First, we will seek to secure the necessary departmental

and statutory authorities to increase the duration of

parental leave for both primary and secondary caregivers.

For the primary caregiver, we will seek an expansion

of leave for up to one year in length. While I believe

such an extension would benet our Marine families, I

am also familiar with recent studies suggesting that a

shorter period of leave – 6 to 9 months – may be more

optimal for the primary caregiver and sufcient to meet

the wellbeing needs of infants. We will study the matter

further over the coming months to determine the ideal

length of leave, but remain committed to extending

its overall duration. For the secondary caregiver, we

will seek an expansion of up to 12 weeks of leave, in

keeping with the duration of leave currently afforded

other non-military federal employees.

Second, until those authorities are obtained, we will

authorize primary and secondary caregivers to take

additional parental leave when they agree to extend

their service contracts. For instance, suppose a Marine

mother who is also a primary caregiver elects to take

the maximum amount of parental leave – one year, or

52 weeks. She is currently afforded 6 weeks of caregiver

leave and 6 weeks of convalescent leave. So to take

the additional 40 weeks, she would agree to extend

her service obligation by 40 weeks.

For the secondary caregiver, we will expand caregiver

leave from 2 weeks to 3 weeks, in keeping with the

practices of the Army and Air Force. If the secondary

caregiver elects to take an extended leave period of

up to 12 weeks, he or she can do so by extending their

service obligation by the requisite number of weeks. As

a service, we will encourage Marine fathers and other

secondary caregivers to take leave to bond with their

newborns, a practice that research indicates results in

more stable marriages, better health outcomes for new

mothers, and improved educational attainment and

emotional stability for children.

Third, we will implement a phased return program for

the primary caregiver, allowing the caregiver to return

to work gradually. We will initiate a pilot program in

2022, whereby primary caregivers will have virtual or

in-person check-in days during their last two to three

weeks of parental leave. When their leave is complete,

they will return to work gradually over a four-week

period, ramping up from two-days per week to four-

days per week before returning to work full time in the

fth week. Based on the outcome of the pilot, we will

determine how to optimize the program for Corps-wide

adoption in 2023.

Finally, and most importantly, we won’t stop

learning. We will carefully study the best practices of

top performing American companies and institutions,

always with an eye to enhancing our service parental

leave programs as new research becomes available.

“Making all ofﬁcers conform to ﬁt industrial age notions of

leadership inefﬁciently matches the talent of our ofﬁcers

with appropriate billets, impacting the effectiveness of our

commanders and their staffs.”

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

The emergence of big data, coupled with recent

advances in A.I. and machine learning, has changed

the analytical landscape. We can interrogate data

more easily and gain insights from it more readily than

ever before, enhancing our ability to make impactful

personnel and talent management decisions – both at

the institutional service level and the individual Marine

level.

Our personnel enterprise should be at the vanguard of

service efforts to operationalize artiﬁcial intelligence.

Further, enabling the change we seek will require

shedding or upgrading antiquated human resource

(HR) data systems and investing in information age tools

and processes consistent with industry standards. At

the same time, we must rene standard administrative

processes with the aim of simplifying and digitizing,

empowering the digital natives who make up the vast

majority of our Corps.

PRIORITIZING DATA AND EMPLOYING BETTER

ANALYTICS

Modern, successful organizations in the private and

public sectors prioritize data – both its collection and

analysis – to inform decision-making. The Marine Corps

is awash in personnel data, yet does very little to analyze

the data we do collect in meaningful ways. When it

comes to data analytics, we have barely scratched

the surface of the possible.

The potential for better analytics to improve institutional

decision-making cannot be overstated, and I am condent

it can be employed to improve any number of personnel

related functions. To maximize the vast potential of

artiﬁcial intelligence, we need both more data and

better data, structured in a format appropriate for

analysis. To that end, the Deputy Commandant for

Information (the service A.I. lead), working with the

USMC Chief Data Ofcer, M&RA, MCRC, Training and

Education Command (TECOM), and the Marine Corps

Directorate of Analysis and Performance Optimization

(MCDAPO), will develop a talent management data

strategy, which will formalize standards for the collection

and maintenance of personnel-related data, while

exploring new sources of information that could be

useful to talent managers and other analysts. Whereas

we have often purged “useless” data in the past,

we will now preserve data to the maximum extent

possible. For example, information from promotion

and selection boards (currently expunged at the board’s

conclusion) could provide invaluable insights on how a

Marine’s performance, physical tness, duty stations,

demographic information, or any other factor, affect

career outcomes. Further, while I am condent that overt,

conscious bias does not currently distort our promotion

and selection board processes, I am concerned about

the effects of unconscious biases - stereotypes and

beliefs that operate in the background, affecting our

decision-making without our awareness. An increased

emphasis on data analytics will help us identify, and root

out, potential biases in the promotion and selection

board processes, unconscious or otherwise.

DIGITIZATION OF THE REENLISTMENT PROCESS

Under our current system, when a Marine intends

to re-enlist, they are met with a burdensome, time

consuming, paper-driven process. Initiated by the

Marine in conjunction with the career planner, it begins

with Marines trekking from one program manager to

the next to acquire physical signatures – a process

required to overcome the deciencies of a web of

digital systems that do not share information. Once

complete, the Marine must route a paper copy of their

reenlistment package through their chain of command,

with each level of leadership providing hand-written

recommendations. The package is then routed back to

the career planner for manual entry into a digital system.

The Marine Corps gains nothing by adhering to a

cumbersome process that makes reenlistment difcult.

It is time to streamline and digitize to reduce

obstacles to reenlistment and save leaders’ time.

No later than 2023, we will adopt digital mechanisms

and tools to enhance the reenlistment process. At the

same time, we will explore options to increase rates

of reenlistment by reducing impediments to it (e.g.,

through automatic reenlistment for eligible Marines,

who would only be required to act if they sought an

EAS in lieu of reenlistment).

ADOPTING MODERN DIGITAL TOOLS, ANALYTICS, AND

PROCESSES

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

DECISION SUPPORT TOOLS FOR PROMOTION

AND SELECTION BOARDS

While today’s board members/”briefers” benet from

a digital boardroom, there are still too many aspects of

the board process that are analog, human dependent,

and prone to error – all challenges that can be mitigated

with technology. For example, during a staff sergeant

promotion board, a briefer might review the OMPFs

of 250 Marines, dedicating approximately 60 minutes

to each Marine’s record. Will a briefer reviewing their

250th OMFP see things in a Marine’s record that they

didn’t notice when reviewing their ﬁrst OMFP? Might

a briefer reviewing a Marine’s record at the end of

the day miss something they would have seen in the

early morning? Would two briefers looking at the same

Marine’s record come to different conclusions based

on their different personal experiences?

Further, while board members have digital access to the

complete records of the Marines they are brieng, they

have limited ability to query available data on those

Marines and lack the decision support tools that could

empower them to make more complete assessments.

Today, a briefer cannot get answers to simple questions

like, “How does a Marine’s PFT score rank in comparison

to their peers?” or, “How does this Marine’s relative

value compare to others in their MOS?” Instead of

utilizing analytical tools that are ubiquitous today, we

put the onus almost entirely on the briefer to conduct

their own analysis.

Given the time constraints of the board process, the

result is that little data-driven analysis is conducted

during our boards.

While we will always value the judgment and experience

of our briefers, today’s process is too much ‘art’ and not

enough ‘science.’ It is time to equip our boardrooms with

decision support tools to aid briefers in the critical task

of choosing our future leaders. Powered by A.I., these

tools will offer a wide range of options for interrogating,

analyzing, and visualizing the tremendous data at our

ngertips. In addition to saving a briefer time, these tools

should enable board members to ask more sophisticated

questions than we have in the past, and receive answers

supported by data. Eventually, A.I.-enabled decision

support tools might even recommend which Marines

should be promoted, a useful baseline for a board

president to reference during deliberations.

EXPANSION OF VIRTUAL BOARDS

The rapid expansion and improvement of platforms for

virtual meetings, coupled with our recent experience

during the COVID-19 pandemic, portends new

possibilities for virtual promotion and selection

boards. The effectiveness of new communications

platforms should encourage us to ask fundamental

questions about our board processes. Must all boards

be executed in person over short periods (i.e., a few

weeks), or could a virtual board convene over a period

of months? Can we execute a hybrid board in which

some members participate remotely? Can the expansion

of virtual boards increase the diversity of participant

perspectives in the boardroom (e.g., distant MEF and

MARFOR leaders who are often unable to travel to

Quantico for extended periods due to operational and

ﬁscal constraints)?

In 2022, we will publish ndings on the potential

advantages and disadvantages – including a cost

analysis – of using virtual platforms to execute some

or all service promotion and selection boards.

“If Americans can apply for home loans and sign legal

contracts using their smartphones, we can streamline our

administrative requirements, use the types of standardized

digital forms that are ubiquitous today, and simplify our

Marines’ lives...”

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

Consider the example of a Marine applying for a special

program – the Marine Corps Enlisted Commissioning

Education Program (MECEP) for instance. Like they

would have 20 years ago, today’s Marine will type their

application, using the proper memorandum format,

combine it with various attachments, including hard

copies of records that are digitally available, and

route it for approval and endorsement, in hard copy.

With approximately 65 individual pieces of paper,

the opportunity for error and subsequent delays to

processing is considerable. When the package is nally

endorsed, by multiple levels of command, it is scanned

and sent for analog processing at headquarters. While

the MECEP application process is rightfully one of our

most comprehensive, the fact that it requires 61 pages

of instructions and templates highlights a problem in

the system – one we can x.

If Americans can apply for home loans and sign legal

contracts using their smartphones, we can streamline

our administrative requirements, use the types of

standardized digital forms that are ubiquitous today,

and simplify our Marines’ lives, allowing them to focus on

what matters most – preparing mentally and physically

for the rigors of combat.

UPGRADING HR SYSTEMS

Our uniformed and civilian human resource professionals

– those at headquarters, IPACs, and S1 shops across

the Corps – are managing the personnel enterprise

with outdated HR data systems. At the same time, our

individual Marines lack effective digital HR tools to access

and update critical career information, communicate

within their commands and to headquarters, and

manage their nances. At a time when most of us

manage our personal business on our smartphones,

the service is stuck using antiquated tools optimized

for desktop use and rarely updated. For example,

systems like MarineOnline, which may have been on

par with other digital HR platforms when released in

2001, has basically retained the same functionality since

its inception, with no mobile version, falling far behind

market standards.

Sophisticated, cloud-based, mobile-device accessible

HR software is the norm in the private sector. With

focused study and investments, the same will be true in

the Marine Corps. In 2022, we will commission a study

to better understand how to develop and implement

a modern HR data architecture, closely examining the

experience of our sister services, as well as the private

sector. We must be prepared to ask hard questions,

including whether the Marine Corps Total Force System

(MCTFS) – whose origins date to the 1960s and 1970s

– remains the best t for the current era.

REDUCING ONEROUS, PAPERWORK-HEAVY

ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESSES

Many of our standard administrative processes are stuck

in the analog industrial era, when paper was the key

vehicle for processing information. As a consequence,

Marines spend far too much time on administrative

actions and processing paperwork – time better spent

leading others and preparing for combat.

“A talent management system identiﬁes an individual Marine’s

talents, helps them develop those talents through education,

training, mentorship, and experience, and assigns them to

positions where they can best contribute to the success of

their unit and the Corps.”

TALENT MANAGEMENT 2030

CONCLUSION

The operating environment has changed dramatically since the Marine Corps personnel system received its

last meaningful update in the 1980s, not just on the battleeld, but in the battle for talent. The Marine Corps

must recruit more talented individuals, trim end-strength in favor of quality, increase standards at every rank,

and develop more modern tools to compete in today’s economy. Our doctrine of maneuver warfare places a

premium on individual judgment and action, which also means we recognize all Marines of a given grade and

occupational specialty are not interchangeable. To compete at peak effectiveness, we must bring into the service

the right people with the right skill sets, measure their talents, and then match their skills to the duties they desire

and are suited to perform. Once we invest in these individuals, we need to incentivize the retention of the right

numbers of the most capable among them so they can continue to add value to our organization in ways that

are necessary to achieve the requirements of the future force. We must do so in a sufciently exible manner

that accommodates changing career aspirations over time. Organizations that do this well for a sustained period

gain a competitive advantage.

Our historical and legislatively mandated role as the Nation’s force-in-readiness remains a central requirement

in the design of our future force. The most important element of this requirement is the individual Marine.

Transitioning to a talent management system will enable us to better harness and develop the unique skills and

strengths of our Marines, improve the performance of our units in competition and combat, and ensure that we

remain “most ready when the Nation is least ready,” today and into the future.

Semper Fidelis,

David H. Berger

General, U.S. Marine Corps

Commandant of the Marine Corps