The Swedish Armed Forces must double its personnel volumes with 50% within the next 15
years period. With already existing challenges to procure new personnel and to keep those
already serving in the current organizational structures this mission comes with some problems.
The numbers leaving the Armed Forces are for the moment at a higher rate than what is
recruited. This study sets out with the aim of finding what directions the Armed Forces can take
to turn this trend around. The research has, by asking already serving commissioned and
noncommissioned officers, examined what factors and motivators made them choose the
profession and what factors makes them stay in the service. Further, to examine these factors
and motivators deeper, interviews with cadets were made with the aim to find out what attracted
them to serve. The data emerging consisted of seven categories each one giving a deeper
understanding of what attracted the individual to the Armed Forces and what made them take
the step to join. These categories are responsibility, leadership, stimulation, purposefulness,
development, security and belonging. To put these factors in to a generational perspective, and
to give them a wider meaning, third grade high school students were asked to explain their
interpretation of them and how important they are. This secondary empirical gathering gave the
researchers the opportunity to compare already existing theories about generations with the
actual motivating factors of those already serving. What emerged was the combining factors of
motivation to attract individuals to the Armed Forces, purposefulness, stimulation and
belonging. This consists with the use of normative power when it comes to controlling the
personnel in the organization and how important the use of the right organizational powers is
to attract and get compliance from individuals. The Swedish Armed Forces cannot in its aim to
expand depend on general knowledge about what attracts individuals from a particular
generation. Instead a deeper more purposeful examination of what drives an individual to serve
must be developed, something this study has tried to accomplish. The result of this study
concludes that belonging to an organization with a purpose creates individual stimulation and
allows the organization to use normative powers.