THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY AUGUST 2024 43 MB: I urge all our colleagues, active duty and retired: Don’t stop talking about us. Go to your own organizations, volunteer to talk at other organizations and in our schools to explain what it is that we do and how we do it. AFSA: What is being done to retain Foreign Service members? MB: Historically, the State Department has had very low attrition rates. Currently, we have the third-lowest attrition rates in the U.S. government. Our Foreign Service attrition rate is only about 3 percent, which is almost attrition for retirement. But when Secretary Antony Blinken came to office, he asked about who’s leaving and why, which was the exact right question. Because of his question, we set up a retention unit. We were able to track that our attrition rates were almost identical for men and women until about the 10-year mark, when the attrition rate would significantly increase for women. And to be honest, among women, the highest attrition rates are among women of color. Many of our employees are being sandwiched between taking care of or preparing to put children through college while also beginning to take care of parents who are starting to age or becoming frail. And some of our employees from historically underrepresented groups may also come from families where there is less accumulated wealth, so they were also being sandwiched by siblings or other relatives who needed support. The Googles and the Microsofts of the world come along and offer much higher salaries. We have found that a number of people who went off to those private sector jobs are having buyer’s remorse, and so we’ve stepped up our program that allows people to come back into the Foreign Service and be reappointed, because even though the salary was a lot greater [elsewhere], they believe that what they do [at State] contributes in a meaningful way. AFSA: What is your best advice to students who are looking toward a future in the U.S. Foreign Service? MB: I promise that whatever field of study you’re interested in, we can use the skills you’re going to gain from that field of study. Figure out again what excites you. Pursue that and then come to us. n
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