Business - Incentive Plans - Term Paper Example

Indeed, the distinctive challenges faced by the U.S. Army in terms of human resource management have drawn academic attention to how it manages its own incentive programs in sometimes very risky environments. In addition, how an organization structures its incentives is very informative of how that organization expects its employees to respond to rewards and punishments in carrying out the group’s objectives. In the case of the U.S. Army, the group’s objectives are to provide prompt national defense and sustaining land dominance across a spectrum of conflicts (U.S. Army, 2005).

Incentive programs in the U.S. Army must then mobilize and encourage soldiers to take part in armed conflicts when necessary as a matter of maintaining the national defense. Because of the nature of employment in the U.S. Army, incentive programs must be based on which geopolitical areas are desirable and which are undesirable to employees. One particularly interesting incentive program that the U.S. Army employs is the Targeted Selective Reenlistment Program. Under this program, soldiers with a low cost of serving in an undesirable location accept a bonus and are sent to an undesirable location; on the other side, soldiers with a high cost of serving in an undesirable location reenlist but decline the bonus. . equires a significantly large workforce concentrated into small geographic areas, relatively low-skilled employees are ultimately necessary for maintaining organizational infrastructure in achieving desired outcomes.

Although the TSRB program does not affect high-demand skill employees, lower-level Army employees receive a direct benefit and, from a personnel management perspective, it is these areas in the organizational hierarchy that the Army has the most difficult with in terms of employee turnover. The U.S. Army also faces a unique human resources management challenge insofar as the Army incentivizes referrals to join the organization. Even though there might be a challenge recruiting qualified talent, most for-profit and nonprofit organizations, facing labor surpluses, do not need to incentivize referrals.

In 2009, the U.S. Army discontinued an incentive program that gave $2,000 to any soldier who referred new recruits into enlistment (ArmyTimes, 2009). Facing budget cuts, the Army was unable to continue the program, along with many other incentive structures that were slashed in the face of growing criticism of defense spending. Based on the suspension of the referral program, one can say that the U.S. Army no longer offers a viable incentive structure for soldiers to pull other qualified individuals into service.

Given the organizational objectives the Army aims to achieve, and the large workforce that it requires to achieve those objectives, it is a weakness not being able to attract more talented individuals to its ranks through referrals. According to Crispin and Mehler (2011), 27.5% of hires in organizations are attributable to referrals. It is not clear how much of this potential the U.S. Army is losing by not having a stable employee referral program that