Prioritizing Quality of Life Issues

<p>Quality of life has become more than simply taking care of people. Throughout the DoD retention of trained personnel has become a top concern and is compounded by the inability to recruit sufficient numbers to refill the ranks. The heart of the issue is increased missions decreased personnel insufficient equipment too much time away from family too little leisure time and not enough money to balance out these negatives. Today's active duty military force is 33% smaller and three times more deployed than it was just ten years ago: meaning more are gone for longer periods and do it more often. The strong economy only compounds the problem because alternatives to staying in the military are abundant. Despite increased emphasis from the Department of Defense's (DoD) leadership to stave the degradation of benefits and pay quality of life within the ranks continues to suffer. This paper looks at the various quality of life (QoL) surveys utilized within the DoD and the information they provide leadership. Drawing from the best of the current surveys and filling in the gaps four cross-DoD surveys are recommended to better ascertain which QoL areas most impact troop retention. The goal is to better understand the attitudes and opinions of the men and women in the field so that leadership can hone in on those issues that will most impact QoL and ultimately retention.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p><br>