The Navy needs a modern, flexible, and reactive advancement system for its 21st-century enlisted force. Minor changes have been made, but attempts to overhaul the current system have failed. Drastic changes to how Sailors compete for and earn promotions are needed.
Promotion to petty officer third class through first class is based on a semi-annual advancement examination of occupational and military knowledge combined with a number of other career aspects. Sailors earn points from the test, previous passing scores not resulting in advancement, awards, advancement recommendations, time in paygrade, and time in service. Each of these uses a whole number or equation to calculate points within an established maximum. The same basic system, with some calculation differences, establishes eligibility for consideration by the selection board for advancement to chief petty officer.
This system is relatively objective and effective, but it's far from a model human resources management tool. Sailors only compete for advancement to the petty officer grades twice annually, which creates two problems. First, quotas are based on current and estimated future openings. Estimates are inexact and result in not enough, or too many, promotions that frustrate manpower management because of disparities between requirements and manning realities.
Second, results take nearly three months to be announced; a time of anticipation and anxiety and almost halfway to the next cycle. Sailors spend half their time preparing for exams and the other half worrying about the results. Furthermore, test development, maintenance, and administration is expensive and is still completed with paper and pencil.
Major changes to the system will eliminate several problems and provide the flexibility needed by today's Navy. For starters, the advancement examination should be eliminated. These tests are very general and attempt to capture military and occupational knowledge in varying ratios of 200 questions, despite wide differences in the actual needs of Sailors. This is compounded by rating mergers that expand the pool of potential questions. Rating knowledge should not suffer since it is already tested through formal courses, Personnel Qualification Standards, and other in-rate training, and it is graded on annual evaluations.
Professional military knowledge should be tested through a Web-based exam with a minimum score required once per paygrade. Technology allows a random pull of questions from existing study materials to reduce development time and cost. Sailors wishing to improve their score would have on-demand testing at minimum intervals.
Eliminating a points system is impractical, so a new means of determining scores is needed that considers all professional-development aspects important to Navy leadership and rating managers. Using the 300-point maximum for the semi-annual physical readiness test as a baseline, major requirements would be multiplied by some logical factor. For example, a rare perfect 5.00 on an annual evaluation would be multiplied by a factor of 100, earning 500 points toward advancement. All evaluations in a paygrade would be averaged to provide a single score in this area.
Other points could be assigned for warfare qualifications, Master Training Specialist designation, awards, education, and other accomplishments. These would apply to all Sailors, but rating sponsors need the ability to reward unique requirements. For example, language proficiency is important for linguists, and points should be calculated based on annual testing. Similarly, information technology specialists should earn points for relevant civilian designations, like Microsoft certification.
Properly implemented, this system allows real-time updates of points-earning accomplishments and promotion selection throughout the year. It would provide benefits to the Navy and its Sailors, who would know immediately how many advancement points they have and exactly how they can improve their standing. The Navy could avoid manning shortfalls and overages because advancements would match real-time requirements. Sailors could be selected for advancement monthly, within 30 days of actual openings caused by attrition and other changes. This would stabilize paygrade manning and provide immediate recognition to the very best Sailors. This system could be used to determine eligibility for chief petty officer but should not supplant the board process.
The Navy needs an advancement system that meets true manpower requirements while providing Sailors clear direction on how they can improve their professional development. Eliminating and changing certain features of the examination system, while providing recognition of important career achievements, will accomplish that.