The last several years have seen significant improvement in the areas of reenlistment and lowering of attrition rates. Those successes are principally the result of increased CNO (and therefore command-level) interest in manpower-related issues coupled with an unprecedented outpouring of benefits on the military by Congress. These unique factors plus an upsurge in patriotism after 9/11, have obscured our need for a major change in the way human resources-related work is performed in our ships, squadrons, submarines, and Seabee battalions.
Despite much understandable hoopla surrounding the littoral combat ship (LCS), the next generation destroyer, (DD(X)), and the new carrier for the 21st century (CVN-21), the fact remains that for the foreseeable future the ships, squadrons, battalions, and submarines that we have in place will continue to carry the operations load. As we wait for the new platforms to populate the fleet, what do we do to make our human resources programs better? A new human resources community is needed, one crafted and organized to carry out the Navy's emerging human capital aspirations.
In the same way that years ago the old radioman (RM) rating morphed into the information technology (IT) specialist rating and the officer information professional (IP) emerged to meet the reality of modern communications, more than minor tinkering is needed regarding human resources services at sea. What's needed is an integrated, modernized, top-down human resource community that extends, unbroken, from the upper reaches of the Navy down to the deckplates. This does not now exist. What we have are HR officers garrisoned ashore while sailors in three under-resourced and under-supported enlisted ratings labor in an obsolete framework to accomplish the work of the 21st century Navy for hundreds of thousands of sailors and officers. Without reform, the Navy's human capital aspirations cannot be accomplished.
New wine demands new skin. The new wine is Sea Power 21, the Sea Power 21 sailor, Sea Warrior, and the emerging human capital strategy of the new century; the new wine skin is an entirely new human resources community, and with it, a new approach to how HR-related work is performed at sea. Granted, emerging technologies and new work processes will help and should certainly be used, but these are not the only missing puzzle pieces of improved human resources functions at sea.
What's needed is realignment of the disconnected and scattered human resource workers-a stale soup of limited duty officers (LDOs)/chief warrant officers for administration, recruiters, career counselors, personnel specialists, and sailors serving in a dozen or more collateral duties-utterly apart from the shore-focused human resources officer community. A totally new shipboard HR/training/personnel organizational structure is a necessity.
Among other things, this new, integrated, human resources community should consist of HR officers, command master chiefs, fleet Navy counselors (NC), personnel specialists (PS) and the disparate HR-type jobs such as command financial specialist (CFS), equal opportunity program specialist/equal opportunity advisors (EOPS/EOA), education services officer (ESO), test control officer (TCO), and others. The recent merger of personnel man (PN) and dispersing clerk (DK) ratings into a new personnel specialist (PS) rating is a half-solution. Rather, a broader, more comprehensive examination of the human resources function is needed. As the Navy evolves even more changes can occur, but the type of bridge articulated here is the link between the world in which real sailors and officers live everyday, and whatever better Navy may emerge in the future.
Properly reconstituted, this new community could execute the Navy's human capital strategy ashore and afloat, just as in practice a small handful of enlisted ratings now do the Navy's true HR work for hundreds of thousands of sailors, including all of the human resources duties of the operational forces. HR officers, presently garrisoned ashore and segregated from the operating forces, should be sent to sea. This change, together with new technologies and improved processes, is the only way to actually deliver to the deckplates the brave new human capital initiatives envisioned by the Navy's leadership.
The new HR community should also focus on organizational development. For example, on large deck ships human resources officers could displace administrative LDOs and CWOs and serve as the personnel officers and education services officers, in addition to functioning as training officers. HR officers could also serve as administration officers on cruisers and destroyers. Such a reorganization would reveal an understanding that in the modern Navy the work of personnel officers, education services officers and the like are no longer principally administrative, but rather developmental. Again, for the purposes of professional development and gaining necessary perspective, HR officers without sea time should be assigned to ships or solve the sea-going dilemma as many other communities have, by creating LDO/CWO designators and an enlisted HR rating. This is a possible solution to the top-to-bottom alignment problem. Then, return these experienced limited duty officers, warrants, and sailors to sea.
Newly constituted, this community of officers and sailors will then be properly aligned, able for. the first time to render both service delivery and developmental work as members of the operating forces. As sea-goers, skilled trainers, mentors, sailor-developers, and team builders, unified but serving on many fronts and integrated across many functions, this reformed, inclusive human resources community will then be able to implement the Navy's human capital strategy in the operating forces with new vigor and success.
Master Chief Pierce is a former Force Career Counselor for Naval Surface Forces, U.S. Atlantic Fleet and CVN Command Career Counselor.