Oversees Rotation agreement is undertaken by the department of the Army (DA) is making the process of oversees deployment easy. Rotation agreement policy is dealt with Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Army assigned to the responsibility limiting civilian employment in foreign areas to five years except for cases of specific positions. The policy of five-year limitation allows for the continuous assessment of civilian workforce requirements and also works effortlessly to promote the efficiency of worldwide operations. Extensions that are availed to civilians for the period of more than the stipulated five years, is designed to provide management flexibility to meet the defined mission requirement that not adequately be met within the DOD criteria. DA work together with DOD to recognize the USAREUR mission and to provide flexibility in availing employees as circumstances warrant. The U.S does not provide adequate education to its employees recruited in foreign countries in terms of risks involved in carrying out their duties, especially Middle East countries such as Iraq. What is does is provide hefty allowances to employees. Do military employees get to enjoy the allowances allocated to them in risky environments? (Civilian Personnel Directorate online) (Tafoya, p. 3).
Department of Defense provisions and defense apply to the office of the Secretary of defense, Defense Agencies (DOD, Army, Navy, Air force and Marine Corps) and the Military departments. The policy provides that
- Each Military Services commander shall employ a civilian manpower mix-U.S citizens and local nationals-that blend financial prudence when Using Civilian staffing support in overseas areas that conformance with host country agreements or treaties, availability of qualified local national personnel, and the desired low-key presence of the U.S Government abroad” (Armor 19).
- When a Military service commander is employing civilian employees in overseas areas, they should do so by recruiting the U.S and non-U.S citizens available locally. It can only recruit people outside the U.S by treaties and agreements availed to them that give preferential treatment to local nationals, unless so, preference should be given to military and local civilian personnel as provided by DOD instructions. Any kind of transfer of personnel recruited in the U.S should only be availed to key personnel, those people that important for security reasons or those that posses skills that the locals can not provide (Armor 19).
- It’s under the obligation of DOD policy to support its employees in the Continental United States to accept positions availed to them in the overseas as part of their career employment. The policy allows a deployment period of up to 5 years for the reason of promoting efficiency of world wide operations. Any employ wanting to return to the position in the Continental United States, shall be given a priority if they are in the DOD career and career conditional positions that accept assignments overseas within DOD (Armor 19).
- Military service commander should consider the number and types of U.S employees for the overseas allocation is adequately plan for housing, medical commissary, exchange, laundry, transportation, subsistence and other essential services and facilities crucial for employees. All these preparations should be adequately planned except for the cases of emergency. When this happens, the overseas commander shall not recruit employees from United States but rather from locals unless the commander accepts to provide the above facilities to meet the health and decency standards.
- In the overseas areas where DOD employees are deployment and cannot have access to the facilities of civilian community without restriction or the adequate facilities are not even available, the commander may authorize importation of the facilities under the commander’s jurisdiction according to the standard of eligibility that provides equitable treatment to both parties; the military and civilian personnel that are recruited in the United States (Armor 19).
- DOD civilians employees recruited overseas have got a representing in the United States. DOD is asked to exercise effective selection technique to ensure that it recruit people who posse’s qualification that suit for overseas employments positions. They should make sure that the people recruited provide full and accurate information of their identification. DOD will also avail full and accurate information to its employees concerning the facilities made available to them, nature of work they will be engaged in, conditions of their employment and their responsibilities in the force, to the military Command and to the United States as the nation they represent. But DOD has not been abiding by these policies. People who are deployed in Iraq do not get to know what it is like in Iraq until they get there (Armor 20).
- U.S civilians selected for overseas assignments shall be given equal opportunities solely depending on merit factors without basing on discriminatory factors such as race, color, sex, nation of origin, physical handicap, religion, marital status or even age. Any exclusive policies applied to a country in each an employ is assigned will not affect selection process. In selection process, U.S laws will always apply in filling jobs but this does not apply to foreign nations (Armor 19).
- DOD policy provides that it would obtain and retain services of DOD civilian employees of a certain category in its overseas areas; the allowance categories will not match that of employees in the home country. It will pay differentials and allowances over and above the set up base salary within the applicable laws and regulations of DOD instructions. These allowances will be allocated to their places of employment and the nature of employment conditions. U.S has done well in providing high allowances to civilians deployed to risky areas such as the Middle East, but it should also provide a short period of deployment since they are unable to enjoy their benefits in a highly risky place. How would any military employee enjoy his allowances with his family? (Armor 20).
- Military and civilians personnel that are recruited in supervisory positions in overseas are provided extra training techniques of supervisions aimed at maximizing production, building high moral of employees, methods of safe production and development of a military-civilian team dedicated to provide effective and economical accomplishment of the mission in the overseas activities.
- DOD incorporates its pattern of employment conditions after an agreement is laid down by the U.S and the host country treaty, U.S laws and the management in consideration to locally hire non-U.S citizens employee’s after the customs and practices of the area. Such employees will be paid in accordance to the prevailing rates in that local area. The U.S should not try to take advantage of local citizen’s labor; it should pay them according to the standard allowances of its employees excluding the other benefits since they are in their own country. For instance, in developing countries, what they get per month cannot even last the through the month as many of them leave on a dollar a day. These recruited local employees undergo further training to equip them skills that would make them more productive, able to perform their duties and advance their knowledge (Armor, p. 20).
The U.S forces should take appropriate measures to provide security to its employees. DOD under its regulations will carry investigations required before it deploys a civilian to a foreign nation. It limits access to classified defense information. Security measures provided may not adequately safeguard classified information. We have seen cases where soldiers are abducted and tortured to provide military confident information. The military commander’s should come up with a way to provide more security to its classified information. The policy also provides that no person will be employed by the U.S Forces if his recruitment poses a threat to national security. This policy limits the chances of ex-convicts in applying for military positions. They might have served their term and became changed people in the society, willing to make a decent earning but this policy limits them. And also since discharge of foreign nationals on the security grounds may cause serious grievances and labor unrest, the commander’s may also use this position to discriminate against certain people (Armor, p. 26).
DeCA ‘s policy that offers returning rights encourages qualified employees to accept overseas assignments so as to enhance their career developments. Returns rights will only granted to an employ as stated in the DeCa directive that states that an employee serving Alaska will not be granted return rights upon acceptance of DeCA position in foreign overseas area. A return also is denied to DeCA employee in Hawaii and to DeCA employee who accepts another DOD component in Panama, Finland, Israel, Kuwait, Bahrain Island, Malaysia, Russia, United Arab Emirates, South America, Johnston Island, or Saudi Arabia. This policy does not adequately cover for employees who may want to return home due to medical conditions, will they keep serving the military regardless their health conditions? (Ralph 6) (DSSR
Works Cited
- Armor, David. J. “Overseas Employment. To be files with basic FPM chapter 301, 301 (2006) : 1-43.
- Civilian Personnel Directorate. 2006. “Oversees tours & Rotation”.
- Department of State Standardizes Regulation (DSSR). “Overseas Allowances and Benefits”. GS-1640-13 (2007): 1-6.
- Ralph, Tate. “DeCA Overseas Employment Program”. Department of Defense Headquarters Defense Commissary Agency Fort Lee, Virginia, DeCA Directive 50-17 (1995): 1-16.
- Tafoya, Joseph, D. “Department of Defense Dependents Schools Office of the Director , Europe”. Department of Defense Education Activity Policy Memorandum, (2004):1-6