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The army and military cannot be compared with any business, although this is a business in a way. The army renders services for the country. It protects citizens who pay taxes and higher army to perform such functions. Historically, organization structure, methods and approaches to personnel as well as requirements and goals of the army look fairly different as compared to other business areas. There are no “buts” in the army. Working conditions are surely tougher than in other activities, even police or the National Guard.
Perhaps, it is possible to say that human resource management is the most important aspect in the army. Why? Because all those equipment and arms will not work and shoot without people. What is army? Army is the soldiers and military command. Efficient human resource management in army results and cost savings and improving efficiency of military units.
In order to evaluate HR efficiency in military it is possible to use balanced scorecard which is known as one of the best systems that measures performance and links operational and strategic management. If commercial businesses have financial goals, the military aims at rendering high quality services of protecting the nation and efficient use of taxpayers’ money.
As known, balanced scorecard system works through evaluation of key performance indicators which must be carefully chosen before initial steps in BSC implementation. If we’re talking about military the following KPIs should be given a special attention:
- Average number of sick days per employee. This is the very effective KPI which signals about different problems and issues in the army. First and foremost, the army cannot afford having a large number of sick soldiers because it will be very vulnerable to attacks. If the office clerk can substitute his sick employee a soldier cannot drive 2 Hummers or shoot three guns (only maybe in Hollywood movies). At the same time this indicator shows efficiency of Medical Service as well as state of living conditions in the army. Low value of this indicator signals that soldiers manage to stay healthy and thus ready to perform their duties. It is recommended to regularly measure this indicator in order to find root of the problem, learn about most common illnesses and health problems soldiers and officers experience. In such a way it will be possible to take counter measures.
- Average time to recruit. As known, the military profession cannot be called the most popular one. There are many factors which explain this fact: tough conditions, physical and moral pressure and even danger to life. That’s why, very often the military it requires much time to recruit soldiers-to-be. Of course, the sooner assaulted is recruited the less money the army requires to educate him. For this reason, military human resource department should undertake every effort to shorten average time to recruit to fill in vacant positions as soon as possible. Recruitment process consists of several stages from education and advertising to medical examination, physical and psychological tests etc. Of course all this requires money.