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The clean, purposeful lines of the cruiser Horne (opposite) seem to have attracted the appreciative thoughts of a solitary young man. Or perhaps he is feeling grateful that he need riot ever again be in one of those big gray things.
Whatever, the Navy never seems quite able to attract all the young men it needs to man the 450 ships it has, nor to keep enough of its slightly older men to make those ships as efficient as they ought to be.
The problem is that “by its very nature, the Navy is a difficult place in which to live and work.” Many people find the efforts they must make to overcome the difficulties, or even just to live with them in the spirit of detente, are not justified by the rewards available. That is particidarly so now, when some people in high authority seem to value the Navy’s things more than its people.
In view of these conditions, “the proper question perhaps is not, why do so many people leave the Navy at midcareer, but, rather, why do so many stay?”
Over the past few years, the public press has presented a running catalogue of Navy manpower and personnel problems. Headlines have regularly announced recruiting shortfalls, record-high desertion rates, and declining levels of literacy among incoming recruits, alternating with reports of continuing internal arguments over the size, shape, and mission of the U. S. Navy.
The image thus planted in the mind of the reader is that the Navy must be falling apart; that discipline is in shambles and no one cares; that only illiterates want to join the Navy at the bottom while, at the top, a bunch of squabbling admirals is too occupied with territorial imperatives to worry about the needs of the common sailor.
In truth, the Navy is faced with some serious personnel problems but—in truth—the Navy seems aware of those problems, has developed a number of significant new policies and important new programs to deal with those problems and—in spite of those problems—stands ready to carry out any assigned mission.
And on the other side of the matter, the side not usually treated to headlines, there are very positive aspects. For example, the applicants for officer programs today bring the highest average test scores on record; 75 percent of today’s recruits test above the 50th percentile and more than 75 percent are high-school graduates; the number of people re-enlisting for a second hitch is at record high levels.
In other words, the personnel picture is dynamic, with bright spots and dark shadows. The following pages might be regarded as a “health and welfare” report on Navy manpower and personnel, with a bit of history, some current events, and a look to the future.
By Way of Background
Before World War II, our Armed Forces were for the most part volunteer in peacetime and conscripted in wartime. Peacetime service provided a trained cadre to be fleshed out with reserves and draftees for any major emergency. The total size of U.S. Armed Forces at the end of 1940, when the World War II draft began, was smaller than that of the Navy alone today. In the years since the war, national priorities, international commitments, and the nature and intensity of the military threat have dictated an armed force of about 2 million men and women—the highest peacetime level ever maintained. The Navy’s share of that force is roughly 460,000 enlisted men and women and 63,000 officers, and re-
quires approximately 100,000 recruits each year. Give or take a few thousand, those levels have been relatively constant over the past few years and are similarly programmed for the near future.
For twenty-five years following the War, it was assumed that such a force could be maintained only by a draft and should be maintained only with a draft, to spread responsibility for service among the youth of the nation and to avoid a narrow, Prussian-style military elite. The draft did indeed provide the necessary manpower, directly for the Army, indirectly for the Navy with “draft motivated” volunteers who viewed service in the Navy as choice, not chance.
But when it came to spreading responsibility, the draft was ineffective and manifestly unfair. Too many loopholes, too many options for those who were clever enough to see them or wealthy enough to buy them, and the draft became a national disgrace. Under increasing public pressure to end the draft, the President appointed a special commission in 1969, headed by former Secretary of Defense Thomas S. Gates, to study the matter and make recommendations.
The Gates Commission determined that elimination of the draft would not imperil the national defense; that about one-half of all enlistees already were true volunteers; that with a volunteer motivation, more people would stay in the service and move into the career force (past the first enlistment), with a corresponding reduction in overall recruiting requirements. The Commission estimated that the services would have to attract only 20 percent more volunteers than under the draft, and that attracting those volunteers should not be very hard if the nation was prepared to pay a decent amount to its service men and women.
The matter of pay was important but was not necessarily linked to termination of the draft. Most people in the Armed Forces, and especially those in the junior enlisted ranks which were filled by the draft, were woefully underpaid. The freedom and honor of the richest nation in the world was protected by an Army of indentured servants. The Congress came to recognize the inequity and in 1971
Proceedings / Naval Review 1979 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ch;
a^ged goals takes time and will not produce im- hsh late resu*ts' Requirements must first be estab- a .e<^’ justified and approved. The individuals to be gned must be identified, screened, given orders, ■ e tlrne, some leave and special training. It might
Pe
ni*ed doi
until the new recruiter knocks on his first front
°°sted pay scales as much as 161 percent to make J™*itary pay roughly comparable to that in civilian 1 e- In so doing, the Congress specifically noted that * ls boost was not connected with the end of the raIt, but was fully justified on the merits.
Recruiting
The nation entered the “all-volunteer era’’ in 197 1 mixed hope and trepidation. The Armed Forces a to learn a whole new range of skills in market- salesmanship, and advertising. They found that ere are in truth many young men and women who are lnterested in service, who are interested in train- n8> in travel, such things as may be obtained better n the Armed Forces than anywhere else.
The Armed Forces also learned that in looking for °se volunteers, they had to operate at near-100 Percent efficiency. The national manpower pool of !?en 'n the 17-21 year age group is about 10.5 mil- tt- Of that total, more than half are not qualified )r available for military service because of physical, njlental, or behavioral problems, or because they are ^ ready serving. The pool of recruitable men is about ! trillion, of whom the statisticians tell us at any h‘Ven time, perhaps, 8 percent are interested in military service. That produces a number which is just °ut equal to the annual recruiting goals of the combined Armed Forces. In other words, there are apparently enough qualified and interested potential unteers, but individual recruiters must transform Statistical theory into individual recruits. To meet eir goals, they must identify, contact, and enlist rnost every one of those qualified potential volun- rs while sifting through a large number of invested, but unqualified, hopefuls.
Kecruiting, thus, is a one-on-one endeavor and the ^umber °f recruiters in the field must be propor- nal t0 the recruiting goals. The basic goals and the l C c^c recruiting force vary from year to year and are essentially set a year or two in advance as the annual budget determination. Adding rectuiters to offset shortfalls or to accommodate
Slx Months from the time a requirement is recog-
or.
R • •
k C'Cuiting for the volunteer Navy is hard work, ir is working. An absolute success? No—the
Navy has fallen short of its annual goal by about 5 percent for the past two years and is not doing even that well this year. A crisis? Not necessarily, as there are some improvements in the range and texture of today’s recruit, which should reduce the number of people who drop out before completing an enlistment, in part offsetting the recruiting shortfall.
The quality of recruits is high—higher than under the draft. The Navy has vowed not to adopt the expedient of reducing standards just to meet goal. The quality of applicants for officer programs such as the NROTC and the Naval Academy, in part, as measured by SAT scores, is at the highest level ever.
The level of black recruiting is worthy of special note: it now runs about proportional to the population, about 12 percent. This is a definite improvement over past years when many blacks were turned off and turned away by an image of the Navy as the most socially conservative and inhospitable of the services. Through honest and sensible effort, the Navy has brought about many changes, with the result that not only do blacks freely volunteer to join, they freely volunteer to stay and have built a solid record of performance and promotion throughout all rates and ratings. The one-time polarization of black sailors into “service” ratings has disappeared; the racial disharmony and insensitivity which provoked virtual riot at some commands a few years back have been largely eliminated. There have been no “major” racial problems since 1974, and only scattered “incidents” usually involving two or three individuals. The Navy has not solved all of its problems in human relations—but it has come a long way, and the validity of the effort has been recognized in the black community at large.
Two new programs will strengthen Navy recruiting. One involves a better use of technology; the other involves a better use of experience.
Technology comes to play in the ongoing design of a system to provide computer-assisted matching of an applicant’s skill and interest with Navy opportunities. At present, the matching is done by a “classification specialist” who arrives at a decision after analyzing the applicant’s achievement scores and stated interests, the current (and changing) needs of the Navy, and the availability of an opening in the classroom for skill training after boot camp. The system works reasonably well, as far as it goes, but it is handicapped by the size of the window through which the classifier can study the Navy’s requirements and is truncated by the limitations of the human mind.
The computer system, called PRIDE (they have to call it something; this stands for Personalized Recruiting for Immediate and Delayed Entry), will juggle a wide range of variables and be able to look several years into the future. The benefits should include a better match of recruit to assignment, greater job satisfaction and less turnover, and more efficient use of Navy-wide training opportunities.
Better use of experience will come from the institution of a new Navy specialty, the Career Recruiter. To be eligible for designation and assignment as a Career Recruiter, an individual must have demonstrated exceptional skill and success in recruiting, must be a volunteer, and must meet certain minimum requirements of completed sea duty as established for each basic rating. Thus, a man would not be selected to be a Career Recruiter if his apparent motivation was to escape a forthcoming normal tour of sea duty. He must already have served his share of time at sea, but for the balance of his Navy career—much of which would be beyond the point at which he could volunteer for retirement—he could expect to remain in recruiting duty. Career Recruiters—all of whom are senior petty officers— are put in key supervisory and management assignments throughout the Recruiting Command.
Attrition
The eventual success of the All Volunteer Force (AVF)—indeed, the continued ability of the Navy to carry out all assigned missions—will not be measured by recruiting but by the ability of the Navy to keep people once they have been recruited. And it is in the area of attrition (people who drop out before completion of enlistment) and retention (people who reenlist) that we see an anomaly in the predictions of the Gates Commission. As forecast, true volunteers do reenlist and enter the career force in higher numbers than did draft-motivated “volunteers.” However, since 1970 the attrition rate within the first enlistment has almost doubled.
Some attrition must be expected—for personal reasons such as family emergencies or injury, and for organizational reasons to remove people who cannot adapt, people who become a burden to the command. But a new group of dropouts has appeared, an apparent by-product of the AVF. They might best be described by the phrase, “I volunteered in, I can volunteer out.” Unhappy, disillusioned, or bored, these people force the system to discharge them and they seem totally unconcerned with the nature or character of the discharge they receive.
More than one-third of all the people who join the Navy do not make it to the end of their enlistments.
That high number of dropouts a year poses an unacceptable burden on management, brings unnecessarily high training and administrative costs, and pushes recruiting goals to almost impossible high levels.
To be fair, the attrition rate for the Navy should not be viewed in isolation. The other Armed Forces share the problem and have similar rates. For example, using the FY 1974 group of enlistees, by FY 1978 the Army had lost 38 percent, Navy, 38 percent, Marine Corps 37 percent, and Air Force, 31 percent. The comparable job turnover rates in civilian industry are even higher: according to the Bureau of Fabor Statistics, two-thirds of all men in the 19 to 24 age group change jobs at least once during their First three years of work; 35 to 40 percent of all men in the 19 to 21 age group change jobs each year- However—having said that, we have to try to understand and deal with the problem as it applies to the Navy.
A special “Attrition Task Force” was established in 1977 to study any and all aspects of the problem ranging from the psychology of the dropout to the contributing errors of the Navy. The effort generated increased command attention throughout the Navy, prompted more stringent discharge policies, and produced a firm resolve to hold the line on enlistment quality, that included setting a firm requirement that 76 percent of all recruits be high school graduates. The task force verified that non-graduates dropped out at twice the rate of the diploma holders; a poor student who stayed the course and graduated was a better risk than a possibly brighter school dropout. The graduate has demonstrated a willingness to stick with a commitment. The school dropout has demonstrated an unwillingness even to try.
While the Attrition Task Force is still working on a number of programs, its effort to date has brought a significant payoff. Almost 11,000 fewer people dropped out of the Navy in FY 78 compared with FV 77—an improvement of more than 25 percent.
Desertion
One aspect of attrition merits special comment: in FY 77, the Navy desertion rate reached the highest point in modern history, 31.6 incidents of desertion for each 1,000 people in the Navy. To the general public, “desertion” implies a crime approaching treason, running away in the face of the enemy. Actually, in today’s peacetime environment, desertion is merely an administrative classification for someone who has been an unauthorized absentee for more than
0 days. Since most such “deserters” voluntarily re- furn to Navy custody, they cannot be convicted of C e ^eSal offense of desertion, only of extended unauthorized absence.
The typical deserter is male, a high-school drop- °ut, in his second year of service, non-rated, and not Qualified for advanced training. He probably held several jobs before joining the Navy, and quite pos- 'y c°tnes from a broken home-—in other words, a young man with a head-start at failure.
Efforts directed at improving attrition will have s°rne effect on desertion rates, and a strengthened policy for the disposition of deserters has already r°ught some improvement. Under the previous pol- ‘cy. a man was automatically transferred after 30 ays absence from his unit: a man who deserted from a ship in Norfolk could turn himself in at San Diego a°d know that he, would likely be reassigned to a Urut on the West Coast, or given a discharge. It was s° common knowledge that the quality of treat- ^ent and the nature of the discharge tended to vary fn one place to another, and some deserters liter- a y shopped around for the best deal.
0° 1 December 1977, a new “deserter return” P°licy went into effect. Thenceforth, personnel ^uuld not be transferred in absentia until 180 days passed, and would be sent back to the unit from lch they deserted if returned to Navy custody Wlthin that period. In addition, the individual now
must hear the cost of return travel, at commercial rates.
Literacy
The requirement for high quality recruits is not driven only by the attrition levels of non-graduates; it is driven by a need for large numbers of people who can absorb appropriate training and handle the operation and maintenance of exceptionally sophisticated equipment. We so often hear about “high requirements imposed by exploding technology” that the phrase may tend to loose meaning. Technology has always been exploding. New equipment, new systems, new concepts seem to revitalize or revolutionize the art and science of warfare about every ten years.
The technical manual for the World War II F6F Navy fighter ran about 950 pages and a good mechanic with a circuit tester and a set of wrenches could just about keep up with the problems. By contrast, the technical manual for today’s F-14 has 300,000 pages and calls more for special skills in electronics and data processing than basic electricity and mechanics. Many people who want to join the Navy today could not begin to deal with such complexity and must be turned away. There are simply not enough simple jobs to accommodate every motivated but marginally qualified applicant.
Unfortunately, many people who are recruited, people who have made passing scores on the recruiting evaluation tests, cannot read well enough to understand even the average training manual, let alone the more advanced texts. The average reading level of Navy training and maintenance written materials is 12.5; the basic Bluejacket’s Manual is written at the 11.5 grade level. However, in a three-year sample of reading skills among new recruits, the average level was measured to be 10.5. Almost one-third of the high school graduates in the sample could not reach that level; some high school graduates could not even read to the fourth grade level. For simple personal safety, the Navy requires sixth grade reading
The galley of an aircraft carrier. Here, far from the excitement of bridge and flight deck and equally far from the mysteries of CIC and the reactor spaces, men must toil to feed several thousands of their fellows three times a day and more. The influence of these men upon the quality of life of everyone else in the ship is enormous. In the nature of things, however, they are more likely to hear about their failures than their successes.
skills—the level at which a sailor can read, and understand, such things as high voltage warning signs. The multiple choice, machine scored exams used in Armed Forces recruiting measure many things, but reading skill level apparently is not one of them.
The Navy operates a small remedial reading program at each boot camp to help the most seriously handicapped recruits. Also, for several years, the Navy has been evaluating and reworking written materials to reduce overall reading difficulty. For example, the written materials used by Aviation Storekeepers check out at a mind-boggling 15.5, the highest in the Navy and obviously out of line with the requirements of an essentially administrative and non-technical rating. Materials such as those can certainly be rewritten, but there is a point beyond which highly technical subjects cannot be simplified.
One encouraging new program is just getting under way under the joint sponsorship of the Navy and the U. S. Office of Education, in an effort to help that group of recruits whose skills are above the survival level but who do not quite qualify for advanced training. Called JOBS (Job Oriented Basic Skills), this program will help build reading and math skills through the use of materials which are specifically related to the advanced training the individual hopes to receive.
Retention
In the early years of the All Volunteer Force, a great deal of attention was focused on first-term retention. Many programs and policies were established to make life more enjoyable for the young sailor on his first enlistment, to induce him to ship over and enter the career force. Special bonus money, training and assignment guarantees, and the personal touch provided by the new Career Counselor rating all had a positive effect and the first-term reenlistment rate is today at the highest level in modern times: approximately 40 percent of those eligible to reenlist do, in fact, ship over.
However, using percentages to describe first-term retention can be misleading since they do not take into account those large numbers of people who do not make it to the end of initial enlistment—people who have made their decision a bit on the early side. A better measure is to compare actual numbers of enlistees with reenlistees: in 1967 for every 100 men who joined the Navy, about 15 entered the career force. Today that figure is almost 23 out of 100.
The critical retention problem today is not with the first-term sailor, but with people at the midcareer point where their service is of great value to the Navy—and also of great value in the civilian job market. Second-term retention, which takes in people at the 8 to 12 year point, has fallen short of goal by several thousand people in each of the past few years and is bumping along in the 40 to 50 percent range instead of the customary 80 to 90 percent. The resultant shortage of petty officers is in part offset by increased recruiting, which may compensate for the numerical shortfall but cannot make up for the loss of experience.
The reason most frequently cited for this loss is “uncertainty over the future of benefits,” a consequence of the Administration’s running effort to reduce defense personnel costs by revising the retirement system. This effort has received a great deal of attention particularly from the troops themselves. In spite of repeated assurances that changes would not apply to “people with substantial service,” the average American sailor is a professional skeptic.
But lack of faith in political leadership is not the only reason for midcareer drop out and may only
serve as a socially-acceptable catalyst. In point of act> the male sailor finishing his second full term aces some difficult choices. He most likely has a family: 77 percent of the er>listed career force (and 70 percent of the officers) are married. He may be about to finish a welcome t0ur °f shore duty and, if he reenlists, faces a tour at Sea- He is possibly working at a second job, at least Part-time, his wife is probably working and their c°tnbined paychecks give them an exceptional standard of living which will be radically altered if he is transferred. Most importantly, he is just at that P0lnt in life where his combined training and experi- !,nce make him a valuable commodity in any market. | sion. Some—like the Habitability Conference hosted by ComNavAirPac and the Family Awareness Conference co-hosted by the Bureau of Naval Personnel and the Navy League of the United States—generated a great deal of enthusiasm and provoked a number of innovative programs which are still being developed but which will have positive impact. Other efforts have already resulted in major new programs and policies. These include new leadership training, improved personnel support offices, a revised sea pay program, and several initiatives designed to enhance the feeling of worth and dignity of each individual. They follow in brief. |
e Navy cannot compete with available civilian paries in many specialties, and the demands of avy life simply run counter to the direct personal 'nterests of most individuals. In a recent Harris Survey, most Americans re- Pnrted that the two most important things in their es were family life and good health—two areas ere the Navy comes up very short when compared Wlth other major employers. k impact of “family separation” on morale has een widely acknowledged, and overseas deployments add an unique dimension to Navy family life. ut even on a day-to-day basis, the Navy family is neyer independent. Family schedules are always submated to Navy schedules: Important holidays and anniversaries often cannot be celebrated when due °nly when permitted by the Quarterly Fleet cheduling Conference and the Watch Bill, j Hlealth care is in theory available, and excellent. n ‘act, availability is spotty, and routine care leaves rriUch to be desired. In an emergency, Navy medical Care is not exceeded, but frustrations over such non- cr>tical but important matters as Pap smears and hdren’s physical exams drives many people to local Clvilian clinics—at a cost—and helps tip the balance lr* many decisions to leave the Navy. When the em- P °yees of many civilian firms enjoy fully-paid and feely available health and dental care, for all family j^embers, the version of health care offered to mem- ers °f the Armed Forces is, simply, inadequate. Add the frustrations induced by poor working c°nditions and long working hours, the spotty qual- ry °f government housing (when available) and the eemingly constant sniping at traditional benefits, and the proper question perhaps is not, why do so rr'any people leave the Navy at midcareer, but, ather, why do so many stay? ^ Some important moves to improve the quality of avy life and the conditions of service have been Undertaken in just the past year and merit discus- | Leadership Training There are more than 150 Navy programs or courses of instruction which carry, at least in part, a title of “leadership.” They were established over the years in a well-meant effort to improve the quality of leadership in the Navy, but in spite of the range and longevity of that effort, data collected by Human Resource Management Teams points to “poor leadership” as a prime ingredient in job dissatisfaction and as a major impediment to improved retention. The usual approach to leadership training has concentrated on theory and slighted application. The courses tend to be broad and general rather than focused and specific and as a result, most are largely ineffective. A commanding officer faces leadership problems which are different from those of a work- center supervisor in a machine shop; a division officer deals with leadership situations which are unrelated to those handled by a mess specialist in the galley. In recognition of those differences and after a two-year period of development, a major new program is now being implemented under the title, Leadership and Management Education and Training (LMET). The course design began with a survey of real leaders in the real world to determine what they did, how they did it—and with what degree of success. It soon became apparent that, like Tolstoi’s happy families, all good leaders share common characteristics: in this case, the manner in which they plan, organize, guide, encourage, and reward assigned personnel. While most good leaders have grown up that way, there is no genetic magic. Leadership skills, once identified and understood, can be taught to almost anyone. In LMET, those basic techniques of successful leadership have been incorporated into a series of two- week courses, each tailored to the particular needs of a particular group of students—commanding officers, leading petty officers, division officers— perhaps a dozen separate courses once LMET is fully |
^Ow Will | 70 |
developed. The courses will be scheduled as en-route training, to help prepare each student for the leadership requirements of the next duty assignment. In the course of a career, as an individual moves up the leadership ladder, he or she would logically be sent through three or four LMET courses.
Sea Pay
Since World War II, every sailor serving in a ship has received special “sea pay” ranging from $9 a month for a seaman to $25 a month for a chief petty officer. While intended to serve as recognition of the unique aspects of sea duty, sea pay was not adjusted for inflation and as a result became a relatively meaningless token. To restore some significance, a restructured program was devised which would use the same total allocation (about $30 million a year) distributed with higher payments to fewer but more deserving crew members: those who have spent the most time at sea.
Under the new plan, eligibility for sea pay does not begin until a sailor has become a petty officer and has spent a total of three years in qualifying shipboard assignments—that is, in ships the missions of which are primarily accomplished under way. Assignment to units such as tenders and repair ships is creditable only for those periods when the unit is
away from home port for more than 30 days.
A grandfather clause protects the sea pay of currently serving shipboard sailors who would otherwise lose eligibility, and the new rates will be phased in over several years. When fully effective, the new rates will range from $25 a month at the time of qualification to $100 a month after 12 years of qualifying duty.
Improved Personnel Support
Traditionally, each command has maintained the personal record and pay account of each assigned member, with a personnel office responsible for the one and a disbursing office responsible for the other. Working methods have been little advanced since the 19th century, with the possible exception of the replacement of the quill pen with the typewriter—an improvement with mixed blessings. The pace of the work increased, but so did the error rate. The simple transposition of two digits in a service number can foul up the records not only at the unit level but also in the master record in Arlington, the computer in New Orleans, and the Finance Center in Cleveland. Through fiscal year 1978, more than 300 people in those three key locations were fully employed just in tracking down and correcting such errors.
But there is hope, in the formulation of the Pay and Personnel Support System (PASS)—the consolidation of pay, personnel, and transportation services offices into local or regional centers. The immediate goal is to improve the level of service and to drastically reduce the error rate, in large part by reducing the number of times that information must be recorded, transcribed, copied, filed, and re-filed.
The first step in system development has been the establishment of PASS offices in Norfolk (with 100 offices merged into 8), and in Washington, D.C., and San Diego (with similar reductions). The validity
-w Changes
Other recent changes have included a shift back to
unit
commanding officers; creation of an enlisted
0 the concept has been certified and eventually some >000 separate pay and personnel offices will be transformed into approximately 150 PASS offices. The transition, however, is not without some growing Pains. Some people find the service to be less, not |nore> convenient, especially if the office has moved 0rn across the street to across the base. Some commanding officers have been reluctant to surrender bil- ets to an organization over which they will have no control.
Valid objections of inconvenience and decreased responsiveness could block the future development of
pA Co •p _ _
c,s> it PASS was merely a co-location and combina- ^*°n of service. However, with the next step in the evelopment of PASS—on-line linkage of all offices computers in Arlington, New Orleans, and cceland—the overwhelming advantage of PASS will c°rne to pass. Changes in personal information— SUch as a change in dependency status or a Promotion—will then be instantly and accurately re- C°rded throughout the system, eliminating not only err°rs, but hundreds of thousands of pieces of flat PaPer which are now shuttled back and forth every
month.
Further downstream is a possibility that PASS can ^crve as a point of access to the detailers at the Naval 1 itary Personnel Command, by way of a computer terminal and a telephone. The individual, the command career counselor, and the detailers could hold a conference to discuss future assignments with the gical possibilities displayed on the terminal for all th SeC a linkage with the next duty station,
e 'ndividual could even be assigned a watch section and a set of quarters while still at the PASS office.
Eventually, other personal services such as educa- k°n offices, Navy Relief, and housing referral, may e c°-located with PASS offices—when and as funds jmd space permit. A long-range goal, in areas of °eavy Navy concentration, would be the establish- ,Tlem of true one-stop centers for personal and per- s°nnel matters to serve active, reserve, and retired Personnel and their dependents.
th
fo& trac^tmnal jumper-style (“bell-bottom”) uniform . men in the first four pay grades; granting discre- tlQnary authority for some promotions and awards to lJrface Warfare breast insignia, with qualification ^tandards similar to those for aircrew and submarine es*gnation; and the extension of “frocking”—long ^uthorized for officers —to enlisted personnel when mdividual has already been selected for the next higher rank, and is serving in a billet which calls for higher rank. The individual thus qualified for frocking may wear the insignia and exercise the authority of the rank to which he is being promoted but may not receive the new rank’s pay or other benefits until a vacancy actually occurs.
Reorganization
Over the years, Navy manpower planning has been fragmented and not well coordinated. For example, active duty force levels were determined by one office (Op-01), reserve force levels by two other offices (Pers-R and Op-605) and civilian force levels by yet another (the Office of Civilian Personnel). Additionally, responsibility for co-ordination of training requirements within OpNav was under the same individual who ran the training command; this carried a bit of the flavor, “here is what we can provide” rather than “here is what the Navy needs.”
The system tended to isolate the functions each from the others, emphasizing differences rather than encouraging cooperation. The system prompted frequent criticism from the Congress and hardly conformed to the Department of Defense concept of “Total Force”—a proper coordination and integration of active duty, reserve, and civilian manpower resources.
Accordingly, a study was undertaken in 1976 (under the direction of retired Vice Admiral Robert G. Salzer) to review Navy manpower planning. In consonance with the primary recommendation of that study, on 1 November 1978, the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Manpower) became the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Manpower, Personnel and Training).
Explaining a “reorganization” can be tedious work and make for even more tedious reading. Therefore, on the assumption that few people are truly interested in the details, here’s a quick and simple summary of the significant changes:
► Planning and policy functions have been stripped from the Bureau of Naval Personnel and merged with those already under the purview of the Deputy CNO for Manpower (Op-01).
► Determination of manpower and training requirements for active duty forces, reserve forces, and civilians has been centered in Op-01.
► The Bureau of Naval Personnel has been redesignated the Naval Military Personnel Command (NMPC) and assigned those functions most directly associated with personnel support.
► A new organization, similar in scope and function to the NMPC, has been created for civilian employees: The Naval Civilian Personnel Center (NCPC).
► Both the NMPC and the NCPC report to the CNO and receive policy guidance from the Deputy CNO for Manpower, Personnel, and Training. Policy considerations for civilian employees remain the responsibility of the Secretary of the Navy through a newly created Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Civilian Personnel.
► The management of the Naval Reserve remains unchanged, and the Chief of Naval Reserve will continue to report directly to the CNO.
► The title, Chief of Naval Personnel, is rooted in law and common sense and will continue as an additional duty assignment for the Deputy CNO (Manpower, Personnel, and Training).
Compared to what we have been used to, the end product of the reorganization should be planning which more closely parallels budget determination, improved coordination of Total Force components, and increased credibility with the Congress.
Women in the Navy
The first women officially “in” the Navy were members of the Nurse Corps, established in 1908; they were soon joined by some 12,000 women who were enlisted for World ar I service as Yeoman (F) (although popularly called the “yeomanettes”). In July 1942, the Navy established the World War II version of a women’s auxiliary force, the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) which reached a wartime peak of 90,000 officer and enlisted women largely assigned to clerical and administrative duties. The WAVES were not totally disbanded at the end of the war, although the size fell off to a base level of about 6,000 enlisted and 750 officers. In 1973, separate administration of women was eliminated and the official designation, WAVE, was retired. However, the phrase persists as an unof-
More and more, the Navy has come to depend on women to help fill its ranks, at first ashore, and now in a tentative fashion, afloat. They have proved themselves to be good, dependable workers. Interestingly, they have sought out the same kinds of work in the Navy as they might have had they stayed civilians, and so they are to he found chiefly in such ratings as yeoman, personnelman, and disbursing clerk or, as in this photo, hospital corpsman.
ficial method of differentiating male from female personnel.
In 1972, in response to a growing interest in providing wider career opportunities for women and in recognition of a future decline in the numbers of men available for service, plans were made to expand the numbers of women in the Navy and to expand also the number of ratings for which they were eligible. As a result, the number of enlisted women reached 20,000 by 1976. Unfortunately, the rapid expansion was in some ways uncoordinated, and a few problems surfaced. There were not enough experienced female petty officers to provide a base of leadership, and over-zealous or, in any event, unfortunate assignment policies put some women into jobs for which they were not well suited—for example, several harbor tugs were given all-female deck crews, leaving no one who could readily handle the heavier cables and hawsers. The leadership problem has been resolved with time; the assignment problem was resolved by some simple controls. To help set guidelines for assignments in the future, studies are under way to determine the physiological requirements of various Navy jobs by strength and size, not sex, and to measure strength differences of men and women as they apply to certain types of work.
Some apparent problems reflect the attitudes of Navy men who do not necessarily welcome women as full partners in the defense of the Western world. There is widespread resentment based on the assumption that women spend too much time away from the workplace because of “female” conditions such as
P^gnancy, shifting a greater share of the burden to male co-workers, and a widespread suspicion that '■v°men take shore jobs away from men, forcing °nger tours of sea duty. Attitudes are hard to change, but in these two areas we may see some improvement as the facts eventually catch up with the myths. A recent study compared time lost on the job by avy men and women in two sample groups: the lrst group included 1,000 men and 1,000 women W 0 entered the Navy in a given period; the second mcluded all men and women assigned to selected av'ation squadrons ashore. Thus, the study evaluated random sample of men and women irrespective of assignment and also a sample of men and women 'v°rking in the same area and under roughly the sarne conditions. The results: men,were absent from the job almost tXVlce as much as women, 703 days a year per 100 ^en compared with 422 days a year per 100 women. ()rnen did in fact account for 100 percent of the ^|rne lost for pregnanCy; men accounted for most of time lost by drug and alcohol abuse and unau- . knze<a absence. When a woman was away from the ^ > her absence was usually anticipated and au- °rized. The men, on the other hand, just didn’t s °w up for work. However, a caveat: the figures cited are averages a particular situation—such as absence for f*regnancy—may well cause a problem in certain Un*ts. For example, a senior level staff of carefully Creened personnel will have few male disciplinary Pr°t>lerns, and time lost for pregnancy could be disproportionate. But overall, the data indicates that ttiale ’ factors are less a problem than many men Seem willing to admit. the subject of displacement of shore jobs— ^ach rating in the Navy was examined to determine . e ttiaximum number of women who could be as- s'8ned without disturbing the male sea/shore rota- ob"1 *^e ^m*ts t^lus established have been carefully served, even to turning away highly qualified ap- lcants for a given rating when the limits were eached. To illustrate: There is a total of 6,490 e°fle in the PN rating, of which 2,733 are ashore, an^ °f these 892 are women; in the more sea- ntensive (non-traditional) IC rating, 5,661 are as- ’’Sned, with 867 ashore, and of these only 19 are ^men. Actually, the major problem in balancing the Ring and assignment of women is unrelated to the n>ng and assignment of men. It is, quite simply, attract women into the so-called “non-traditional” ngs such as machinist’s mate, electronics techni- | cian, and pattern maker. Society at large tends to nudge women into jobs as secretaries, receptionists, and file clerks; young women in high school are expected to take typing class and are discouraged from auto shop. Of roughly 100 ratings and specialties in the Navy, only 11 are closed to women—ratings which are largely or specifically combat-related and which would therefore offer limited career opportunities to women. However, in spite of a wide open door, the vast majority of women seeking to join the Navy want only to enter those few ratings associated with office skills and the healing arts: yeoman, per- sonnelman, disbursing clerk, radioman, hospital- man, dental technician. Overall, experience to date indicates that Navy women can do jobs for which they are trained and to which they are assigned. Accordingly, more and more women will be taken into the Navy, particularly as the pool of recruit-age men declines, and the size of the female enlisted force should double to 40,000 by 1983. A nationwide survey taken a year ago indicated that sufficient numbers of young women are interested in military service to make that goal feasible. The most significant new program for women involves the assignment of women to permanent duty aboard almost 10 percent of the ships of the Navy, with additional opportunities for temporary duty aboard any ship during any period when combat is unlikely. This is not the first time that women have gone to sea with the Navy—many nurses have served in hospital ships in wartime, some women officers have served in the administration offices of transport ships, and a group of women, officers and enlisted, were assigned to ship’s company in the hospital ship Sanctuary from September 1972 until that ship was decommissioned in March 1975. Women served on hospital ships and transports because the law permitted such seagoing service— but no other types of ships. Title 10 USC 6015 stated: “Women may not be assigned to duty in aircraft that are engaged in combat missions nor may they be assigned to duty on vessels of the Navy other than hospital ships and transports.” That law applied only to women of the Navy and left shipboard assignment open to female civilian scientists and women of the Army and Air Force. Such assignments may have occurred on occasion, but history in that area is a bit murky. Under the law, as it was interpreted by the Navy, a Navy female helicopter pilot could not land aboard an aircraft carrier to deliver the mail, and a Navy woman could not even ride a Navy ship during a daylight family cruise for the wives and children of |
Will ______ _ | Q2 |
the crew members unless she was on leave and in civilian clothes. It was patently silly, but it was the law.
Beginning in 1976, the Navy developed a legislative proposal for modification of the law, and developed a corollary plan for the assignment of women to selected ships. Secretary of the Navy Claytor, as one of his first official acts in 1977, sent this proposal on toward the Congress.
The proposal did not envision a radical change to the law, but merely the insertion of a few words to give the Secretary of the Navy the authority to assign women not only to hospital ships and transports, but to “vessels of a similar classification” not expected to be assigned combat missions. In addition, the law was broadened slightly to permit temporary duty assignment to any ship not engaged in a combat mission.
In the meantime, several Navy women had filed suit in Federal Court challenging the extant law. On 27 July 1978, Judge John J. Sirica held the law to be unconstitutional and suggested that future assignments of women should be the province of the Secretary of the Navy, and not arbitrarily determined by the Congress.
While Judge Sirica was considering the suit, Congress had agreed to include the proposed modification of the law in the FY 1979 Authorization Bill. However, because of a disagreement with the Congress over the inclusion of a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, President Carter vetoed that bill and it was not until 20 October that the final version was signed into law.
Because the law was not actually changed until after the Judge’s ruling, some media reported that the Navy’s plans for shipboard assignment of women had been made only in response to the lawsuit. Since history is so often shaped by newspaper files, that misinterpretation likely will persist forever.
While important, the women-in-ships program has a relatively modest beginning. In the first year, 55 women officers will be assigned to 21 ships with 375 enlisted women assigned to five of those ships. Each will be filling or be in training for a valid billet and, in general, each will be replacing a male sailor. The number of ships will increase to perhaps 50 by 1983 with 2 10 officers and more than 5,000 enlisted women then on sea duty.
In the initial phase, most of the women have been volunteers, but subsequent assignment procedures will be the same for women as they are for men. Since March 1978, all female recruits have been required to acknowledge the possibility of future sea duty.
When the first call for volunteers was sent out, response from the officers was well beyond requirements, that from the enlisted women below requirements overall although very heavy in those ratings with large numbers of women. For the first ship to receive enlisted women—the repair ship USS Vulcan—56 of 61 were volunteers.
Inordinate public attention has been focused on the social aspects of women serving aboard ship, as if the environment in a tender alongside a pier through most of the year—many of whose people Uve ashore—was radically different from that in the office building across the street. Undoubtedly some problems will arise. These will be monitored and if serious ones should develop, appropriate policies will be formulated. At present, the Navy has not established a set of inflexible rules and regulations to govern “behavior,” but simply calls upon all hands to conduct themselves in a mature and responsible manner.
Changes in living spaces aboard ship have been kept to a minimum, only as necessary for privacy- The one significant difference between the male and female berthing compartments has been the installation of extra electrical outlets to accommodate hair dryers for the women. (Men in civilian life may regularly use hair dryers but at last glance, most Navy men did not have much need for those appliances and need not feel unfairly disadvantaged.) The Navy seeks to ensure equality of treatment on the one hand while expecting equality of performance on the other.
Manning
Specific manning requirements for ships, aviation squadrons, and shore units are now established and validated by standardized methodology. The Ship5 Manpower Requirements Program (SMD—“D” f°r “Document”) was initiated in 1966; the Squadron Manpower Requirements Program (SQMD) was begun in 1967; the shoreside equivalent, Shore Require' ments, Standards and Manpower Planning (SHORSTAMPS), is currently in the final stages of development.
These programs identify that manning level f°r each operational unit which will provide a given level of capability, including combat but not necessarily at wartime tempo. At the same time, corollary requirements for Naval Reserve augmentation are identified, as are continuing requirements for routine support from an Intermediate Maintenance Activity-
The SMD and SQMD examine such primary factors
Effo
ear] rnore accurately manpower requirements in the bARt) Sta^es °E hardware development: The MAN study for new construction and equip-
Hlent* rh 1 *
§ram' tne MODMAN study for modernization pro-
Valic[S- a result, manpower requirements are now
su ratC^ standing, maintenance, and training and tiv atlCillary ^actors as time alloted to administra- matters ranging from morning muster to mail Wh ^°r S^°re stations, SHORSTAMPS first determines li h' an<^ ^°W mucd wofk *s required and then estab- es appropriate civilian and military staffing
standards.
the^eVe^°^>rnent methodolo§y *s complex and
th af,Pdcat*on t0 each unit >s time consuming. By s e end °f FY 78, about 90 percent of ships and ^ 3 rons were covered by a validated manning ocument; SHORSTAMPS should cover 80 percent of 0re billets by June 1981.
de - °rtS to reduce manpower requirements, through
JSn improvements and automation, have received mixed n ■ ■ . .
notices. Highly sophisticated equipment may
pre Ufe ^ewer °Perators than less advanced gear, but
enc Eposes the presence of highly trained, experi-
tjo Personnel. Unfortunately, planning coordina-
has not always been effective and the require-
not^ ^°r tra*ned and experienced personnel often has
surfaced until the equipment is about to be
year u ln service. Since it may only take three or four
an t0 ^es*&n and procure a new piece of gear but
the ere ^rom 8 to 12 years to grow a sailor with
anjneeded level of training and experience to operate
c°or^rriaintam the equipment, the earliest possible
mation between the hardware people and the
^P°wer people is essential.
Ca 0 sPecial studies have been undertaken to fore- ^ad3te<^ wed before procurement decisions are
Aboard most warships, those who regularly do seaman's work are a minority. But in all ships there are some such men. In its essence, the work hasn’t changed from what it was long ago. It consists of handling a wkward, heavy equipment, frequently under dangerous circumstances, often in cramped conditions, and almost always outside where the weather has a good chance of being too hot, too cold, too wet, or too dark. The hard hats and life jackets tell their own story.
With the overall personnel strength of the Navy running about 1.5 percent short of authorized end- strength and with the actual shortage varying from month to month, assignments are controlled to give manning priority to operational units. However, through 1975, the usual practice was to give shore units the manning edge over afloat units when possible in a well-meant but misguided effort to provide “better” duty for as many sailors as possible. The true result, was to increase disproportionately and unnecessarily the workload on the ships. Beginning in February 1976, the Fleet Readiness Improvement Program reversed manning priorities and established full manning as the general goal for operational units. That goal has been met, and afloat manning oscillates around 100 percent while shore manning now runs about 94 percent. Incidentally, in spite of reductions in the numbers of ships in the fleet, the Navy remains a seagoing outfit: 62 percent of all enlisted billets, and 46 percent of officer billets, are classified as sea duty; in the aggregate approximately 38 percent of all naval personnel are assigned aboard ship at any given time; 80 percent of all “A” school graduates are assigned to operational units, as are 90 percent of non-“A” school recruits. The remainder serve in support units ashore, such as supply, medical, intelligence, and communications.
It must be noted that the manning levels cited above are quantitative, not qualitative. A ship may have the number of people called for in the Manning Document but, because of Navy-wide shortages, be short of experienced petty officers. In some ratings, those shortages are severe—example, BT is only at 75 percent of requirements. Other ratings are quite healthy. Judicious use of bonus money helps keep people in the more critical ratings, but it is obvious that the working conditions for some ratings are sufficiently unpleasant and unrewarding that the extra money, by itself, is not enough. The Attrition Task Force is working to identify and improve such conditions.
Quo Vadimus?
As noted, the Navy is faced with general shortfalls in recruiting, high levels of first term attrition, and serious shortages of mid-career petty officers. A return to the draft might ease the recruiting problem but it would not improve the quality of recruits—it would not magically produce recruits who can read any better than today’s recruits, nor would the draft improve the motivation and work-ethic of this essentially unsettled age group. A return to the draft would reopen social wounds which have now healed; would not save money unless pay scales were to be drastically reduced, which is an unlikely possibility; and would reduce much of the incentive leaders now have to improve the conditions of military service.
The problems of attrition and retention are being given a great deal of attention and—as already noted—a number of significant programs have been developed in a truly enlightened effort to resolve these problems. These programs do have some effect and progress is evident in some areas, but the brutal truth is that the Navy has about run out of gimmicks and guarantees. If we are to have progress, it must come from changes of a different and fundamental nature.
The core of the problem is easily defined: Life at sea in the peacetime Navy is little different from sea duty in wartime. The tempo of operations is much the same—the need for constant training, excercises, sorties. In a 20-year career, the average enlisted man must expect to spend at least 12 years on sea duty. The normal work week at sea is 72 hours, and people who go to sea accept that workload—it goes with the territory. Problems begin to mount, however, when the in-port work load begins to equal the underway workload; when many crew members must stay aboard into the evening to do work which can’t be done at sea and which must be done before the next scheduled underway period; when the crew is subject to a never-ending round of inspections and “assist visits” which not only impose additional burdens but also carry the not-so-subtle message that superiors in command don’t fully trust their subordinates.
That Navy life in general and sea duty in particular are quite different from the normal garrison life of the Army and Air Force has in some degree been acknowledged by the Congress and the Department of Defense. The Congress, by approval of the new Sea Pay plan; the DOD, by allocation of more than 60 percent of available bonus money to the Navy, providing $145 million to be divided among some 11,000 sailors a year.
However, the analytical approach to decision making in the Department of Defense seriously limits the efforts which could be taken to improve the quality of life in the Navy; indeed, in all of the armed services. The DOD—and the Office of Management and Budget, and the General Accounting Office—must reduce reliance on “cost-benefit analysis” to guide every decision and, instead, apply common sense.
Cost-benefit analysis may work very well with weapons and the combat capabilities of ships and aircraft but, because the emphasis is usually on the “cost” rather than the “benefit,” the method is not very useful when dealing with nonquantifiable matters such as the human spirit. The morale and retention benefits of a decent mess hall, or a child care center which is open in the evening, or adequate family recreation facilities, or of an extra week of orientation during boot camp, or of a hundred other possible moves are, simply, intangible and the technocratic approach is, simply, useless. Megabuck allocations for a given weapon system can be validated because the trade-offs are easily determined: Range vs. payload vs. maintenance cost vs. overall readiness vs. whatever. But overall readiness is also dependent upon the skill and experience of people- The money needed for their development and support and personal growth is not part of the computation and, although often discussed, rarely makes it through to the appropriations bill in any significant amount.
Of all DOD money spent on research and development, only one-half of one percent is devoted to personnel research. The political and military leadership of the Armed Forces share a continuing lack of understanding on personnel issues and a strange insensitivity to the problems of the single most important element in national defense: the people who must make it work.
One example: three years ago the hottest topic of discussion throughout the Armed Forces was “erosion of benefits.” The issue arose from a growing perception that many traditional benefits were being taken away or reduced in random efforts to save money and that service people and their families, serving at the pleasure—or the mercy—of the President were being used. The perception of constant erosion was not entirely accurate, as new or improved benefits had in many instances been brought on-line in partial compensation for those which had been reduced, but there was enough truth behind the perception to provoke serious discussion of unionization of the Armed Forces. If the leadership would not stand up for the troops, then the troops might have to stand up for themselves.
me- ^rrny ar*d Air Force are higher, which does not an that the Navy is more efficient, only that the -S more capital intensive.
lar lrernent costs, which have come under particu- t ^crutiny of late, are not the result of some uncon- rec e<a spiral of military greed; they are simply a di- th C r^e force levels mandated since
in ^or^d War II and are proportional to the
n ased numbers of military personnel who have •pg served long enough to qualify for retirement.
i Costs have little if anything to do with either the •pg 1 tne draft or giveaway retirement programs.
3e made
Ser^ t0 provide some form of vesting for people who ch e ^SS t^lan a full career, but any significant sifiv'^eS rnust made with great caution and sen- rnu "^le 80a* °f a°y military retirement system cient ^ t0 t^e serv'ces attract and retain suffi- and nurnf>ers of people and sufficient levels of skill Sin exPer‘ence to provide for the common defense.
'nce the
present system is marginally successful, any
„r ^en> at the height of this controversy and in his lrst extended interview since Carter chose him to lUn t^le Pentagon,” Secretary-designate Harold rown generated this Los Angeles Times headline: g. ^)Wn Says He May Cut Military Fringe Benefits.” er Dr. Brown had not been reading the newspa-
!ed^' °r ^*e WaS n0t we^"^r'e^e<^’ or the interviewer e ^l'rn astray—it doesn’t make much difference th *C^' ^ecause Dr. Brown has done little to salvage r eflation he thus established with the majority ° ^‘s subordinates.
■^Iso, citing the fact that “military personnel costs gUn 55 percent of the total defense budget,” Dr.
r°wn asserted that the whole pay and retirement t-cture needed to be studied. He clearly implied personnel costs were out of line, but did not e^ne any “acceptable” standards.
truth, there may not be any acceptable standards In t^lan t^lose determined by political expediency.
ancient times, direct personnel costs probably exin l ^ Percent of any military budget and today, nel rn°St any industry you can name, direct person- j eosts account for far more than half of the operat- udget, running as high, in some industries, as CenP,ercent. So, of what significance is the “55 pert figure? Personnel costs for the Navy, by the deluding the annual share of retirement s 'Consume 44 percent of the budget; those for be tfe *S no question that some improvements could Wlyla<^e *n C^e Present retirement system, particu- th 1^Catlons should logically improve, not reduce, ^system of benefits.
are °Wever> personnel costs and retirement policies u°t matters fully under the control of the Department of Defense. They are valid topics for full and informed discussion and the DOD point of view certainly merits examination, but realistically, any proposals for change must be brought before the Congress. And, in spite of transient anomalies, the Congress has traditionally accepted responsibility for the condition of our national defense and has demonstrated a reasonable concern for the welfare of the members of the Armed Forces.
Which brings us, perhaps, to the major summary point of this review: in searching for solutions to the Navy’s personnel problems, avoid the temptation to search out villains. It is easy to find someone or something to indict, and the villains are many and popular: the vagaries of public approval of military service; shifts in the economy; the reduced birthrate of the ’60s; demagoguery in the Congress or expediency in the Executive.
The “villains” are many—but the indictments are largely irrelevant. By its very nature, the Navy is a difficult place in which to live and work, and the long-term solutions to the Navy’s personnel problems must continue to come from within the Navy itself: in an enlightened reordering of priorities; in a more realistic matching of commitments to resources, particularly in an acknowledgement that a 450-ship Navy is not the same as a 600-ship or a 900-ship Navy; in an official de-emphasis of “can do” as a way of life and rewarding instead the commanding officer who is not afraid to say “can’t do” until the schedule is realistically adjusted; and in openly and honestly recognizing that years and years of doing more with less in the guise of improved efficiency has long passed the point of efficient operation and has produced, instead, a potentially and dangerously fragile manpower base.
The changes which have taken place in the past few years, many of which are discussed in some detail in the preceding pages, are important; but the changes which must come over the next few years, and which are at this moment being studied by the Chief of Naval Operations and the Secretary of the Navy, are vital. The U.S. Navy is today still the best in the world, and so it must remain.