Reserve Forces: DOD Actions Needed to Better Manage Relations between Reservists and Their Employers

Abstract

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Following the 1991 Gulf War, reservists and employers flooded the government with questions and complaints concerning the reemployment rights of reservists who had been away from their jobs during the war. The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 grants service members reemployment rights following military duty and addresses the rights and responsibilities of both reservists and their employers. Despite increases in operations since 1992, the average operational tempo of reserves department-wide increased only slightly between 1992 and 2001--from 43 to 46 days a year. Normal required training periods accounted for the bulk of this total. Several factors hamper Department of Defense (DOD) outreach efforts to both employers and reservists. DOD lacks complete information on who the reservists' employers are, and it has viewed the Privacy Act as a constraint that prevents it from requiring reservists to provide this information. DOD relies on volunteers in the field to carry out many of its outreach activities. However, these volunteers do not always report their contacts with reservists and employers, and, as a result, DOD does not know the full extent of problems that arise and has no assurance that its outreach activities are being implemented consistently. Although DOD has an active program in place to address problems that arise between reservists and their civilian employers, no such program is in place to deal systematically with issues that arise between students and their educational institutions. DOD has not fully analyzed existing data on reservists' operational tempo and recruiting and retention trends on an ongoing basis to determine how deployments might be affecting reservists and their employers. GAO surveys and discussions with reservists and employers further suggest that DOD's activities to enhance reserve-employer relations are not as effective as they could be."