Cpl. Athen Michael Garrido, 962nd Quartermaster (Mortuary Affairs) Company (Mortuary Affairs), 9th Mission Support Command, holds the plank as his squadmates cheer him on during the Army Fitness Test portion of the 9th MSC & 311th Signal Command (Theater) Joint Best Squad Competition at Fort Shafter Flats in Honolulu, March 2, 2026. (Teresa Cantero/U.S. Army)
The Army will kick off its new retention bonus system next month, using physical fitness scores, technical expertise and commander evaluations to determine a soldier’s payout to reenlist.
“We were hearing a lot from our exit surveys that individuals want to be recognized for the excellence they bring to the table, and this is one of those ways that we plan on doing that,” Col. Angela Chipman, chief of military personnel accessions and retention division, said during a call with reporters last week.
While still driven by the Army’s need to best incentivize certain in-demand specialties, the new Quality Tiered Incentive Program will also consider a soldier’s job and fitness performance in a way the service had not done prior.
“If they show up and perform better on the physical fitness test, and they volunteer to do some of the harder jobs and go to the harder schools, and they’re the ones that are consistently showing up as members of a team, they can expect to be recognized and given a monetary value as a result when it comes to their incentive to be retained,” Chipman said.
The bonus overhaul is part of the Army’s ongoing transformation to improve and modernize its human resources programs. Those efforts range from transferring certain tasks from physical paper forms to online personnel systems to finding ways to get civilians working in high-demand tech industries into a direct officer commission faster.
“It’s really linked to the rapidly changing operational environment that you see in the world,” Brig. Gen. Gregory S. Johnson, director of military personnel management, said last week. “It’s really rooted in technological change, and the Army’s continuous transformation is nested there. From the HR perspective, that, that means we have to be agile and responsive as well.”
Under the new retention bonus system, a commander will rank soldiers by military occupational specialty and rank. Then the soldier’s physical fitness score and technical proficiency score will add in to determine where each stands in the final ranking for bonuses.
Those soldiers with “the most merit” will likely see a bump, Johnson said. However, the amount spent on retention bonuses within the Army will not change.
The Army will track the program’s progress through monthly reports, according to a memo on the program’s implementation.
