Shaping senior leader officer talent: how personnel management decisions and attrition impact the flow of Army Officer talent throughout the Officer Career Model

Army Officers play a critical role in our nation's security strategy. Throughout a career of service, officers develop talents through a unique and rare set of experiences, education, and formal training. The demand by corporations for these talents, coupled with a distinct feature of the Officer Career Model, limited lateral entry, create significant retention challenges for the U.S. Army. Understanding how personnel policies, resources, and organizational decisions affect the flow of officer talent through the Officer Career Model is a first step in addressing these retention challenges. This analysis employs discrete event simulation to quantify the probable impacts of attrition on the distribution of talent available for service across the Army's officer ranks.