Toward a "Dashboard" Indicator of Retention in U.S. Navy Personnel

In light of the advantages of retaining experienced personnel and the high costs of recruiting and training new personnel, retention is a top priority for the U.S. Navy. Our understanding of factors influencing retention of Navy personnel, however, is limited. We evaluated predictors of job satisfaction and career intentions proxies of retention of 798 Navy men and women. Multivariate regression models accounted for 48 percent of variance in job satisfaction and 55 percent of variance in career intentions, respectively. Robust predictors of job satisfaction were affective organizational commitment, depressive symptoms, unit cohesion, and perceived stress while the primary predictors of career intentions included affective organizational commitment, years of military service, marital status, and race. The identified factors in this study hold great promise as key elements of a dashboard indicator of retention in U.S. Navy personnel. That is, Servicemembers could be periodically profiled on key predictors, thus reliably estimating the likelihood of an individual to remain in the military long-term.