Military Pay: Key Questions and Answers

[Excerpt] The military compensation system is complex and includes an array of cash compensation elements, non-cash compensation (benefits), deferred compensation (retirement pay and benefits), and tax advantages. This report focuses primarily on the cash compensation provided to members of the active component armed forces. Other CRS reports cover military retirement and health care. Military compensation is a critical tool for sustaining recruiting, retention and the overall quality of the force. Over the years of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly during times of major combat operations, robust compensation has been an important mechanism by which Congress helped the services, and particularly the Army, meet their recruiting and retention goals. Today, the average cost to compensate an active duty servicemember—to include cash, benefits, and contributions to retirement programs—is estimated at about $90,000-$100,000 per year, although some estimates are higher (methodologies vary). As a result, some analysts believe that the military compensation is now too high and is impeding efforts to modernize equipment and sustain readiness, particularly given the budgetary limits imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA; P.L. 112-25). Others argue that robust compensation is essential to maintaining a high-quality force that is vigorous, well-trained, experienced, and able to function effectively in austere and volatile environments. The availability of additional funding to prosecute wars in Iraq and Afghanistan mitigated the pressure to trade-off personnel and equipment costs for many years, but the current budgetary environment appears to have brought these trade-offs to the fore again

Organizational Demography and Individual Careers: Structure, Norms, and Outcomes

[Excerpt] As the terms career choices and opportunity structure suggest, demographic influences on careers operate at multiple levels of analysis: at the individual level, on individuals\u27 perceptions of work environments and career decisions, and at the organization level, on group dynamics and organizational selection processes. However, there are few theories that explicate the processes that bridge these levels. What are the dynamics by which demographic patterns influence an individual\u27s career choices? Similarly, how do individual actions shape the processes of demographic change within organizations? This chapter presents one approach to exploring such questions

FY2018 National Defense Authorization Act: Selected Military Personnel Issues

[Excerpt] Military personnel issues typically generate significant interest from many Members of Congress and their staffs. This report provides a brief synopsis of selected sections in the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2018 (H.R. 2810), as passed by the House on July 14, 2017, and the Senate on September 18, 2017. The FY2018 NDAA conference report was passed by the House on November 14, 2017, and the Senate on November 16, 2017. On December 12, President Donald J. Trump signed the bill into law (P.L. 115-91). Issues include military end-strengths, pay and benefits, and other personnel policy issues. This report focuses exclusively on the NDAA legislative process. It does not include language concerning appropriations, or tax implications of policy choices, topics that are addressed in other CRS products. Issues that have been discussed in the previous year’s defense personnel reports are designated with an asterisk in the relevant section titles of this report

Session III English, Religious Studies & Marketing Presentation 4: Unique You in a Fractured World

Taking the time to know ourselves at a deeper level, improves confidence, health, interactions with others, supports ethical and entrepreneurial decisions, and provides the capacity to learn new skills, connect with others at a deeper level, thereby supporting co-creation for the future. More young adults have recently mentioned to me that they do not feel they fit in. Everyone feels that way at certain times. There are businesses, corporate identities, and other groups that may set a framework that encourages you to “fit it.” As a unique spirit, you are not supposed to “fit it,” to conform, to give up your unique talents, qualities, experiences, and perspectives because you are the new person in the group. This presentation plants a few key seeds for consideration. Beginning with my own youth story to set the stage, I explore the importance of digging deep into your talents and developing your own brand so you are better equipped to connect with others and co-create a new future. We should not defined by our work. Algorithms in everyday life and social media collect data to determine who we are and what our interests are for consumer activities. Shouldn’t we take the time to know ourselves. A research note regarding algorithms is provided which references three identities in social media: agnostics, influenced, and evangelists (Cordasco, 2017). The world is fractured, as broken glass on the floor in shards. The world has changed dramatically and will continue to do so. Innovation and creativity help to solve new problems, if we find co-creators that can work together. The world is changing faster and the ability to transform requires new ways of thinking and comfort with change. In order to develop tools to connect and co-create with others for the future, the research in community work is provided from the Center for Communities of the Future (www.communitiesofthefuture.org) There are four stages to transformation. The time I spent studying these concepts with the Center for Communities of the Future has helped me in every endeavor and in my studies. It is a new skill set for a rapidly changing world. It goes hand in hand with understanding who you are as an individual and finding your connections for the future. The four stages of transformation are a) resistance, b) hmmm?, c) aha! and d) of course. There is no way to short-cut the process of individual, organizational and community transformation, although “master capacity builders” understand how to create parallel processes, futures projects and interlocking networks that will speed up the process. http://communitiesofthefuture.org/faq/ Stress affects health, and a study is referenced which included the results of teaching mindfulness in the work environment (Baime, 2012). Learning how to respond to others and situations reduces stress, thereby improving capacity to work with others and improve health. Personal transformation skills in practice also creates new capacities for co-creating and relationships, thereby reducing stress. We are each one drop, yet together we are an ocean

Outcome-based theory of work motivation

This paper introduces an outcome-based theory of work motivation. This theory focuses on the individual's expected consequences of his or her action. We identify four different types of expected consequences, or motives. These motives lead to four types of motivation: extrinsic, intrinsic, contributive, and relational. We categorize these outcomes using two criteria: the perceived locus of causality, which defines the origin of the motivation, and the perceived locus of consequence, which defines who receives the consequences of the action. Individuals generally act based on a combination of extrinsic, intrinsic, contributive, and relational motivations, each one having a particular weight. We use the term motivational profile to refer to the particular combination of an individual's motivations in a certain context. Individuals may experience conflict when different alternatives convey different expected consequences (or motives). Resolution of conflicts among motives results in motivational learning. Specifically, the resolution of conflicts among motives of the same type results in calculative learning. On the other hand, the resolution of conflicts among motives of different types results in evaluative learning. Evaluative learning implies a change in the individual's motivational profile.work motivation; locus causality; motivational profile; extrinsic motivation; intrinsic motivation; contributive motivation; relational motivation;

Influence of social and work exchange relationships on organizational citizenship behavior, The

Previous studies explain situational antecedents of OCB using social exchange theory. However, the effects of factors such as perceptions of job characteristics on OCB seem to require a different explanatory mechanism. We propose that these effects can be explained through a new exchange relationship that we call work exchange. We develop a theory for the situational antecedents of OCB that includes economic, work, and social exchange relationships. The theory is tested using structural equations.exchange relationship; organizational citizenship behavior; organizational commitment; perceived organizational support; job characteristics;

FY2016 National Defense Authorization Act: Selected Military Personnel Issues

[Excerpt] Military personnel issues typically generate significant interest from many Members of Congress and their staffs. Ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with the regular use of the reserve component personnel for operational missions, further heighten interest in a wide range of military personnel policies and issues. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has selected a number of the military personnel issues considered in deliberations on H.R. 1735 as passed by the House and by the Senate and the final bill, S. 1356, as enacted (P.L. 114-92). This report provides a brief synopsis of sections in each bill that pertain to selected personnel policy. These include major military retirement reforms, end strengths, compensation, health care, and sexual assault, as well as less prominent issues that nonetheless generate significant public interest

Efficacy of Virtual Models in a Production Systems Course

Wichita State University has developed an integrated set of virtual reality models of an aircraft assembly line. These models are intended to provide students an ‘artifact’ of industrial and manufacturing engineering by providing a realistic environment for initial learning and application. By utilizing a virtual model of the line, students are able to view the process and interrogate the process details, make changes and observe the effects, and gain a better understanding of the concepts and their interrelationships. This paper presents the method used to assess if virtual models (computer models of a real factory) lead to: improved perception of relevance, increased time on task, and increased student satisfaction. A production systems class was used to determine student impacts. This paper presents preliminary results

Instrumentation and robotic image processing using top-down model control

A top-down image processing scheme is described. A three-dimensional model of a robotic working environment, with robot manipulators, workpieces, cameras, and on-the-scene visual enhancements is employed to control and direct the image processing, so that rapid, robust algorithms act in an efficient manner to continually update the model. Only the model parameters are communicated, so that savings in bandwidth are achieved. This image compression by modeling is especially important for control of space telerobotics. The background for this scheme lies in an hypothesis of human vision put forward by the senior author and colleagues almost 20 years ago - the Scanpath Theory. Evidence was obtained that repetitive sequences of saccadic eye movements, the scanpath, acted as the checking phase of visual pattern recognition. Further evidence was obtained that the scanpaths were apparently generated by a cognitive model and not directly by the visual image. This top-down theory of human vision was generalized in some sense to the frame in artificial intelligence. Another source of the concept arose from bioengineering instrumentation for measuring the pupil and eye movements with infrared video cameras and special-purpose hardware

Women\u27s and Men\u27s Career Referents: How Gender Composition and Comparison Level Shape Career Expectations

This study examines how women\u27s and men\u27s career referents-the people they see as having similar careers-affect career expectations. We raise two questions. First, what is the relative effect of the gender composition and comparison level of career referents on such expectations? Second, what happens to career expectations when women and men identify career referents at the same comparison level? Current research suggests that women have lower career expectations than men because they compare themselves with women who hold lower-level positions than the career referents identified by men. Thus, if women and men identify with career referents at a similar level, their career expectations should be equal. However, this chain of reasoning has not been tested. Using data collected from a large organization, we identify both the specific individuals that women and men perceive as having similar careers and these referents\u27 career levels, defined as their hierarchical level in the firm. The results show that the level of career referents is more important than their gender composition in explaining individuals\u27 career expectations. In contrast to extant explanations, the results show that even when women identify career referents at the same levels as men do, they still exhibit significantly lower career expectations. Drawing on social comparison theory, we speculate that this occurs because men\u27s expectations are bolstered by extreme upward comparisons, whereas women\u27s expectations are dampened, perhaps because they see high-achieving others as representing a less probable goal