Quantity for the Quality: How the Selective Retention Bonus Impacts the Retention of Talent in the Marine Corps

Abstract

In this thesis, we study how the Selective Retention Bonus (SRB) impacts the retention of talented First Term Alignment Plan (FTAP) Marines from 2015 to 2020. The Marine Corps needs data-driven analysis on how the SRB relates to talent management. We analyze how different bonus quantities affect the retention of quality Marines and how the SRB impacts the time it takes to fill military occupational specialty (MOS) boat spaces. We use data from the Total Force Data Warehouse to study the population of FTAP Marines eligible for reenlistment and data from the Total Force Retention System to study the population of FTAP Marines that reenlisted. We use regression analysis to study the impact of the SRB. We find for Marines who score in the top 10% of their primary military occupational specialty (PMOS) on the PFT and proficiency scores, every $10k that the Marine Corps offers them correlates to an 8.1 percentage point increase in the probability of reenlistment. We find that bonus eligible tier 1 Marines are associated with reenlisting 18 days earlier than bonus ineligible tier 1 Marines. Lastly, we find that the Marine Corps is 17.1 percentage points more likely to fill 95% of the boat spaces of a bonus eligible PMOS by December 31. We recommend that the Marine Corps store tier scores of Marines who do not reenlist and investigate adapting a menu of contracts approach to the SRB.