Strategic Plan

This is the first integrated strategic plan for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Personnel & Readiness defining OSD (P&R)'s mission, and the major goals that directly support the P&R mission. The document clearly shows how the P&R mission and goals support the Department of Defense mission. Our mission and goals reflect our recognition that people are central to mission accomplishment .

Designing, implementing, and maintaining effective human capital strategies will be critical to achieving OSD (P&R)'s goals. Consistent, committed, and persistent OSD (P&R) leadership must implement those strategies and promote collaboration and team building across OSD (P&R) and the human resources life cycle.

This plan provides the framework for decisions related to the programming and budgeting process, and the development and implementation of supporting plans. This living document will remain flexible while promoting constancy of purpose for long-term strategic guidance and maintaining direction during personnel changes.

This plan will be reviewed within P&R annually. Comments or suggestions related to this document may be provided at any time. Please direct all comments to: Ms. Norma St. Claire, Director, Joint Requirements and Integration Office, Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Program Integration, (703) 696-8710.

The primary DoD task is to deter conflict - but should deterrence fail, to fight and win the nation's wars. The department will provide a joint force, persuasive in peace, decisive in war, preeminent in any conflict. Our nation faces a wide range of interests, opportunities, and challenges requiring a military that can both win wars and contribute to peace. The range of challenges faced by the military includes those ambiguous situations residing between peace and war, such as peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations, as well as noncombat humanitarian relief operations and support to domestic authorities. These challenges will require a Total Force composed of well-educated, motivated, and competent people who can adapt to the many demands of future joint missions. Complex contingencies such as humanitarian relief or peace operations require a rapid, flexible response to achieve national objectives in the required timeframe. The core of the joint force will continue to be individuals of exceptional dedication and ability - people of outstanding character committed to an ethic of selfless service. (excerpted from Joint Vision 2020)

THE OSD PERSONNEL AND READINESS MISSION : Ensure human resources are trained, capable, motivated, and ready to support the DoD mission.

To sustain the total force will require high quality people. The judgment, creativity, and fortitude of our people will remain the keys to future success. Leaders must recognize and enhance the value of their people. Employees must be trained and motivated to contribute to organizational success. Through our constant vigilance on behalf of each individual, the DoD will be recognized as a world-class employer of first choice, attracting and retaining our nation's finest people.

THE OSD PERSONNEL AND READINESS GOALS

To accomplish the Personnel and Readiness mission, we will promote effective policy and business practices to: Attract, retain, and motivate a high quality, diverse, and sufficiently sized force to meet mission requirements.

Recruiting and retaining high quality, diverse people will remain our central focus. The combination of carefully targeting requirements, recruiting incentives, -total compensation, and challenging opportunities must be effective in attracting the personnel needed to sustain the total force. Personnel management must be revolutionized, changing business practices, policies, and procedures to reflect our commitment to the men and women of DoD.

Integrate the active and reserve military, civilian employees, and support contractors into a diverse, cohesive total force and a rapidly tailorable force structure.

To improve our effectiveness, we must maximize our use of every person and every capability through a more seamless integration of the total force. The total force includes active and reserve components, DoD civilians and DoD contractors. We must be functionally integrated to maximize individual performance while recognizing the uniqueness, and capitalizing on the strengths of the people who comprise the total force. Organizations must be structured so they can be easily tailored in order to optimize and integrate the use of the knowledge, skills, and abilities of each individual in the accomplishment of the DoD mission. Organizations and forces must be flexible and responsive to the requirements of the Commanders in Chief (CINCs) in order to meet the challenges of twenty-first century missions.

Enhance quality of life for the total force and support military members, their families, and retirees across the full human resource life cycle.

To support the total force, our military families, and retirees, we must pursue initiatives that reflect our commitment to all of those who are serving as well as those who have served. To preserve, strengthen and advance our ideals and values, we must focus on quality of life initiatives across the full human resource life cycle from recruiting through retirement. We must provide continued, seamless support to our military personnel and their dependents as the military personnel cross from active to reserve status and back, as they deploy and redeploy, and as they leave military service to enter the private sector as veterans or retirees. We must provide this support efficiently through effective interface with the Department of Veterans Affairs and other government agencies. Our commitment to our people far exceeds that of any other employer. People must not be viewed as short-term costs to be cut but as long-term assets that are the foundation to our success.

Promote an environment that is supportive, respectful and harassment free to get the most out of each individual.

We must establish policies and business practices which promote a caring, nurturing environment that demonstrates our commitment to our people while ensuring the accomplishment of the DoD mission. We must foster an organizational culture that stresses respect, is harassment free, and results oriented, focusing on accountability, teamwork, employee involvement, and empowerment to maximize efficiency and performance.

Deliver quality health service that meets the readiness needs of the force and provides appropriate care for all beneficiaries.

We must provide high quality, responsive, and accountable health services to ensure force health protection and optimize the health of beneficiaries. We must support the war fighter by deploying ready and capable medical forces that effectively use technology to enhance force health protection. By utilizing best clinical and business practices we must better serve our beneficiaries, shifting our focus from interventional services to preventative medicine. Beneficiary needs must be the driving force for policy decisions relative to health care accessibility, quality, cost effectiveness, and positive health outcomes.

Provide appropriate education, training, and development of the total force to meet mission requirements.

We must support the education and development of the total force to provide the background and experience that will ensure that our people can perform the missions assigned today as well as in the future. Organizations must identify the skills and characteristics needed among leaders and employees to achieve success, and make the appropriate investments to train and develop people to ensure that required competencies are met and sustained.

Support the readiness of the total force for peacetime, contingency, crisis, and war fighting.

To meet the nation's time-sensitive requirements for military forces, DoD must make effective decisions regarding the readiness of our active and reserve component organizations, as well as the civilian work force and support contractors who perform mission sensitive functions. We must provide a comprehensive, integrated set of accurate and timely information on personnel, equipment, and training readiness indicators, thereby ensuring that leaders have the critical knowledge they need to communicate, evaluate, and decide on appropriate force readiness issues, to meet mission requirements and to monitor decisions.

Provide effective management of OSD (P&R) to meet mission and organizational needs.

We must manage diminishing P&R resources in the most effective and productive manner using best business practices, continually improving and refining our policies, practices, and processes and incorporate evolving technology to enhance our ability to meet mission and organizational needs. We must ensure the effective integration of activities across P&R to minimize duplication of effort and promote a unified focus on the highest priorities of P&R.

The Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness leads five areas of responsibilities, each with a senior management leader. Three offices are headed by Assistant Secretaries of Defense: Force Management Policy (FMP), Reserve Affairs (RA), and Health Affairs (HA). Two offices are headed by Deputy Under Secretaries of Defense: Readiness (R) and Program Integration (PI). Each group's individual missions are noted below. Effective accomplishment of the P&R mission and goals requires integration of the organizational missions

The Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness is responsible for providing overall leadership of the broad areas of responsibility assigned to the office, with specific responsibility to:

Health Affairs is responsible for sustaining the health of the service members and families by:

Reserve Affairs is responsible for preparing reserve forces by developing effective policy and business practices to:

Readiness is responsible for ensuring force readiness through developing effective policy and business practices to:

Program Integration is responsible for integrating crosscutting functions across P&R by developing effective policy and business practices to: