Army personnel leaders are pushing hard to modernize how the service manages its people

“We need to have systems that are agile and adaptive and could be more up-to-date in the times, in the 21st century,” said Lt. Gen. Brian Eifler

Transcript of The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton

Guest: Lt. Gen. Brian Eifler and Sgt. Maj. Smoke Stevens

Title: Army G1

Summary: From digitizing pay and HR processes to professionalizing recruiters and accelerating policy change, Army personnel leaders are pushing hard to modernize how the service manages its people.

Interview transcript

Terry Gerton The theme of AUSA is Agile, Adaptive, and Lethal. So how does that translate into what you all are working on in terms of the Army personnel strategy?

Brian Eifler Well, we always have to remember — and the chief just mentioned it, and the secretary did yesterday — everything we do is for the warfighter. Everything has to be from the soldier’s perspective. We could come up with some great plans, some great processes, some great things, but if they don’t help the warfighter and they just help those that are trying to help the warfighters, that’s not good enough. We need to have systems that are agile and adaptive and could be more up-to-date in the times, in the 21st century. We still do a lot of things, processes-wise, in the Pentagon, outside the Pentagon that have a lot bureaucratic processes; some systems that are just old. I know Smoke talked about it earlier today, [we have] some of the processes that we use with paper and that we don’t really need, but we just keep doing it. Or we’ll take something, for example, a paper, and we’ll digitize it, put it in a computer and say, hey, we’re modern. That’s not what we need to be doing. We need to do something that takes away all the extra time, extra resources from a soldier and gives it back to them. Everything from coming into the Army — you come in, you input all your data, and you shouldn’t have to input it again. Every time we go to a meeting or go to doctor or something, we are filling out forms again. We shouldn’t be doing that. There’s no need. It’s in the system. One of the big systems, [Integrated Personnel Pay System – Army (IPPS-A)] — everything feeds into that. It feeds into everything. So we’re trying to use the technology that’s available, that we have, to make it better instead of continuing to do things the old way. Transformation takes a lot of time and effort for a huge organization… It takes a little bit more time, and so I get a little impatient with it, as the chief and the secretary [said]. So, as you heard in the last 24 hours, we’re trying to push that and make it go faster. And it’s really expensive. And it shouldn’t be. And we’ve got to cut that stuff out. We need to work with companies and contractors that are willing to do the right thing here and not just try to build the army for a capability. And then we need be able to fix it. Whether it’s rewriting code or fixing a piece of equipment, it shouldn’t be the right [of] the contractor to withhold that. We should be able to do that. And that’s the agility part. We’re never gonna be satisfied with our administrative system, IPPS-A. We’re not gonna finish it and say, okay, we’re done; nothing more to do. We’re always changing policies. We’re always changing something. So we’ve got to be able to adjust and tweak it to [modernize] and stay with the program, instead of staying [with] something that was — hey, it was good in 2017, and we’re still using it in the same way and not adjusting because we can’t. So that’s a little bit of what it means to me. And a lot of the paperwork, a lot the processes for boards, how we do boards. you mentioned AI — putting AI into that to not replace people’s decisions, but to quell down the masses of files that they’re looking at, that AI can easily [be used] to deduce, here’s the population you really need to be looking at. So that’s just a little bit. I don’t want to take up all the time because I know Sgt. Maj. Stevens has got a couple of comments on that.

Smoke Stevens So, ma’am, you asked specifically [about] the strategy, and we just heard the chief talk about soldier touch points, and what does that mean when we talk about new equipment or kit? Specifically in our space, the people space, [it’s about] ensuring that our teammates, whether it’s from, the Human Resources Command or from the IPPS-A team, they’re getting out to organizations, they are seeing what’s working best when it comes to our personnel and pay system. And then the same for us — we’ve gone to Poland, we’re going to Korea. We want to see what’s actually working, what’s not working, come back here to Crystal City, sit down with the IPPS-A team, with the contractors, and say, hey, make these tweaks, because we’ve seen troopers on the ground provide something that can make something better for the Army.

Terry Gerton So you all are dealing with soldiers in their whole life cycle, from recruitment to retirement. What is happening along that process? I mean, the Army’s doing pretty well with recruiting and retention right now. What’s Driving your success and how are you going to sustain it?

Brian Eifler Well, there are multiple reasons, and you almost have to ask each of the trainees that are coming in why, because everybody has their own personal story, like a fingerprint, and I can’t put it down as one thing. But, [there are] a lot of good reasons to serve today, and we’re making it very appealing with the options that they can serve. Really, the [Future Soldier Prep Course (FSPC)] has been a boon of success. Those folks that maybe have been a little out of shape or didn’t test well in the academe — getting a second chance; these people have heart and grit. I equivocate it to walk-ons in football. So we get our Division 1-A scholarship players, they come in, but FSPC gives us the walk-on. These are the Rudies out there that just need a shot. And they’re probably better than Rudies because they just do more than one play, but they keep going and they have a heart and a grit that we are tapping into. And they are doing just as well as the people that didn’t go through that. So things like that are giving more opportunities to do things, and then once they get in, other opportunities to move from one specialty to another — both on the officer side and the enlisted — to do the reclass. That’s something that we’re really opening up earlier on. So you get in the Army like, hey, I didn’t really like this MOS, but I like that one. And there’s room, we can facilitate that. So those are some of the things along the way that we are doing.

Smoke Stevens Specifically with recruiting, one thing that we did identify that we got right was changing our recruiting workforce, focusing on talent acquisition, up-skilling the skill set that they had, the training they went through, sending them out to industry and making them better. That has paid dividends [tenfold]. And I will say part of the retention standpoint, I think it really goes back to leadership too. We have phenomenal leaders in our organizations that really understand the importance of, you got to get to know your service members, you got to make sure they’re going through challenging, tough, realistic training to show that, hey, this is what I came in the Army to do and I’m a part of something bigger than myself.

Terry Gerton So the professionalization of the recruiting force has been more than just a pilot. Now it’s gonna be institutionalized and really paying benefits.

Smoke Stevens Yes ma’am, absolutely. Both on the enlisted and the warrant officer side, we’re seeing the benefits of what talent acquisition is doing for us.

Terry Gerton That’s great to hear. Sir, you also mentioned at the beginning, you talked about all the [components] — active, guard and reserve. When you think about the total force, how would you assess the readiness of the total force these days?

Brian Eifler Well, I think we’re ready. And I think we never can say that we’re ready enough. I think, we always are on a journey of readiness. We always got to get better. And it’s not just becoming a trained expert in your craft, but as a collective element. So whether it’s a squad, a platoon, company, battalion, brigade, division, corps, theater, army, all of us have to continue. We can’t train enough. And that’s a challenge. It’s an expensive way to look at things, but it’s not as expensive as not doing it and going to war and paying for it in lives and the blood and treasure of the United States. So I think we always have to continue training. I’m very proud of the units I’ve been in and how we train and how pursue doing hard, crucible-like, difficult, challenging training because that’s what combat’s going to bring. We have to continue to do that, and we have to keep pushing ourselves. It’s very dangerous, it’s very hard, but I don’t think we can ever be satisfied — to quote Ralph Puckett — where we are. We always have to keep getting better. And what we’re talking about really this week is the technology. We can’t just rest on the laurels. [The] M1 tank is a great tank, but it’s not good enough, not in the future. We have to make the changes that they’re talking about with some automation, some AI, and some of those things. So I think we’re really good. I still think we’re the best in the world. But I don’t think we can sit there and brag about it. I think we need to continue to measure up to that every day.

Terry Gerton Well the Army Transformation Initiative is changing equipment, it’s changing force structure. And equipment is changing so fast — the Army’s TRADOC, Training and Doctrine Command, Futures Command, now you have the Transformation Command — how is all of that playing into what a service member can expect to be able to do in the Army from the time they come in?

Smoke Stevens I think [it’s important to understand] the direction that the Army is going and knowing that, A — and both our secretary and our chief and our SMA always says this — the soldier and everything that we’re supposed to provide for the soldier is the focal point. As soon as you hear that, you should know right up front, I’m coming into an organization that cares about me and the things that I need to have in order to fight and win. So I think, understand the predictability of what we’re going to do for the servicemember is number one. The combination of headquarters realigning and saying, hey, we’re putting these specific resources to ensure that we’re finding efficiencies in our 30-plus years of serving — we have never seen anything like that where, again, the Department of the Army has said, this is what we need in order to give back to the soldiers.

Brian Eifler Yeah, I think it’s choose your own adventure, right? There are so many MOSs and specialties that you could do, what you can qualify for, and there’s always a journey that you can adjust from, if you don’t like something. But I think a lot of what we bring of retaining good talent is our leadership. People want to be valued, people want to led by leaders that they want to emulate. The more people we have like that, the more people are going to want to stay in a unit or in a location or in the Army as a team because they feel like they’re valued, they’re making a difference, they’re being fulfilled, and their leaders are servant leaders. They’re caring for them and taking care of them, making sure they have the resources and the training to make them ready for war or combat or whatever happens.

Terry Gerton Well, you mentioned AI earlier and deploying AI into HR processes, but are you also bringing AI to bear in terms of continuous learning? It can’t just be, go into the basic course, go into advanced course, right? Things are changing so quickly. How are you bringing those kinds of modern tools into lifecycle management?

Brian Eifler Yeah, I think it’s, it’s a challenge, right? Cause it’s not something we’re used to. But as the chief just mentioned, there are two types of companies in the future, those that are powered by AI and those that are out of business. So we have to start incorporating it. We’re doing it a little bit slowly and measured because a lot of people are concerned about using too much AI, but I think we’re using it in chunks and steps forward. Like I implied with some of our promotion boards, what you could do, instead of spending several weeks on thousands of files and going through every file, You can probably use with much success artificial intelligence machine learning to get down to a manageable file level so that you can really invest your time as a board member to not get tired, to not get jaded or lazy in your file assessments, but really focus on what you really need to do. And I think things like that are a great example of what we can do now. We should be doing that. And so we’re helping also by bringing in folks, direct commissioning folks that have data scientist backgrounds — coders and stuff like that — because we need to have some in the Army … And we have that in IPPS-A for example, we have some of those that just came in and they love doing this. They love fixing and solving Army problems that affect the entire Army. So we need, not only just, like you said, to teach it, but we need to breed it into how we do things and expectations and develop people to come in with that skill set that can help us get to the next level.

Smoke Stevens If I can add, on the enlisted side with [professional Military Education (PME)], we started this journey a few years ago, with Digital Job Book, ensuring that — how much time does an actual human being in instructing need in order to deliver a method of training? So again, we found efficiencies and will continue to lean on, you known, academia and the things that are happening out in the college world to bring into our professional military education.

Brian Eifler Yeah, at the scope and scale, we need external help. I mean, we can’t do it all ourselves.

Terry Gerton Well, you’ve talked about a lot of things that you have on your plate. A lot of initiatives, a lot changes. What’s at the top of your Army G1 wish list?

Brian Eifler Do you want to go first?

Smoke Stevens At the top, the speed that we can make policy changes. There are a lot of things that — and I’ll use an example, Gen. Eifler will go to a very senior sync, a whiteboard session, and it’s like, okay, this makes sense, let’s make this change. There are layers of things that we have to go through to make those changes. That’s tough when we know we want to deliver something to the field immediately. Obviously we don’t want to get ahead of anything that has to go through some type of review. But again, at the top of the list is how do we make policy changes to the speed that we need it to happen.

Brian Eifler Yeah, and how do we limit to, like, who really needs to see it? A lot of people like to have their hands on the steering wheel, but we only need one driver. And so when, like he implied, we’ll get something and everybody wants to do it. But then everybody will start to touch it, and we don’t need everybody to touch. We just need to coordinate it. And I think that needs to be overhauled inside the Pentagon. And that’s what we’re trying to do. I think that’s good. I think one of my challenges, like the Secretary spoke yesterday, is making sure we’re holding accountable our industry partners with things — delivering, for example, IPPS-A and getting it to the next level, faster and less expensive, quite honestly. That is what keeps me up at night. This is for soldiers. We have the capability and technology, but it’s taken a little bit too long. We’re going to incorporate pay into IPPS-A. We got to get moving on that and we’ve got to change all the other systems that feed into IPPS-A as well as those that… it feeds into at the same pace, and make sure it’s all connecting. So that’s one of my big wish list [items]. And then also, if I have two wishes, the civilian workforce overhaul. I mean that’s something that we’ve been looking for, whether it’s pay scales, development. The hiring process is archaic. It’s not how we should be doing things. It’s got to be updated. [That’s] really above us, but those are the two wishes that I would probably wish for.
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SOURCE: Federal News Network, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/army/2025/11/army-personnel-leaders-are-pushing-hard-to-modernize-how-the-service-manages-its-people/

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