Navy programs and policies have changed, and the Enlisted Advancement System must be updated to reward those who excel in the new environment.
The Enlisted Advancement System as we know it has been in use—unchanged—for some time now. One master chief pointed out to me that it existed in its present state when he came into the Navy 32 years ago. Perhaps it worked back then, but the Navy has moved forward, and so must our advancement concept.
Before we toss out the old, we should examine the current system. Many sailors do not understand it, and this includes officers responsible for taking care of sailors.
The Enlisted Advancement System is what I call a competitive vacancy-driven system. Several factors affect a sailor's advancement, and the first is that there must be a vacancy for that sailor to advance into. The competitive portion includes the service member's rating examination score, performance marks, time in service, time in grade, awards points, and Passed, Not Advanced (PNA) points. All this is totaled for a final multiple (Figure 1).
The personnel managers then determine how many vacancies exist in that rate and advance the best final multiples until the vacancies are filled. The final multiple score of the last person advanced becomes the minimum multiple for advancement. Personnel who take the late examinations and are computed afterward or who appeal because of incorrect examination cover sheets can and sometimes do get advanced through this "back door."
What many sailors and naval leaders do not understand is that the promotion recommendation assigned by the reporting senior decides the performance mark average (PMA) for enlisted personnel in pay grades E-3 through E-6. "Early promote" has a 4.0 PMA value, "must promote" has a 3.8, and "promotable" has a value of 3.6. This may not seem like much, but for two sailors equal in all regards, an early promote grade results in a 20-point final multiple advantage over a promotable grade at the E-5 to E-6 promotion point.
Another thing that many do not understand is that the examination score, which ranges from 20 to 80, is based on a bell curve distribution. That makes 50 the middle, and it requires a certain amount of finagling to maintain that norm as representing the same level of knowledge over time. In all cases, the 150 questions that comprise the exam test the individual as if he or she were at the next higher pay grade. In no case are they a measure of the member's current in-rate knowledge.
In with the New
Any new system must remain centered on two main elements: rating knowledge and performance. After that, we must make those things that we tell sailors will help their careers actually part of the new final multiple score.
A new scoring system could, for example, multiply the raw score of each rating examination by 3.5, to assign a heavy weight to rating knowledge. On a 150-question exam, it would be possible to score a maximum of 525 points. Should a question become obsolete, it would affect every sailor in that particular rating equally. This approach also should greatly increase the drive to study for those who want to advance ahead of their peers.
The performance system could use the current promotion recommendations from the enlisted evaluation form, with a 150-point value for early promote, 125 for must promote, 100 for promotable, 50 for progressing, and 0 for significant problems. Because advancement to E-4 and E-5 uses only the past year's evaluations, the score would be multiplied by 3; candidates to E-6 and E-7 would combine their three most recent evaluations to get the same scoring range. Under this system, a top-performing sailor could total 450 points—75 points ahead of a must-promote peer. At E-6 and E-7, using the three latest evaluations, the promotion recommendation history would remain a significant factor, as it is now. For advancement to E-7, the final score would be a useful tool for a selection board to determine the best candidate.
Warfare qualification would score 150 points and would be a permanent factor, meaning that those points would be part of a sailor's final score for every advancement opportunity. Additional warfare qualifications would not earn extra points, but they would be a factor for the reporting senior to consider when assigning promotion recommendations.
What Have You Done for Me Lately?
Awards have become somewhat controversial recently, and one factor remains a puzzle. Why should awards earned as an E-4 or E-5 affect promotion to E-7 or higher? Under the proposed system, the only awards points that would count toward advancement would be those earned in the current pay grade. This may lead to further awards proliferation, but given the current state it cannot get much worse (or better, depending on your point of view).
Determining the points for each award deserves more in-depth consideration, but an easy rule of thumb might be to use the current value multiplied by ten. That would make a Flag Letter of Commendation worth 10 points, a Navy Achievement Medal worth 20 points, and so on. One addition that should be made is the assignment of points to Letters of Commendation from the Immediate Superior in Command if that superior is not a flag officer. If later analysis determines that previous awards should count in subsequent advancement cycles, they could be assigned 50% of their original point values.
Make Physical Training Count
Currently, the evaluation and fitness report system allows a reporting senior to assign a mark of 5.0 in military bearing only if the sailor gets an excellent or an outstanding on the Physical Readiness Test (PRT). This may or may not equate to a higher promotion recommendation. Awarding 50 points for an outstanding and 25 for an excellent on the PRT would be an incentive for all to excel.
Many other services, most notably the Marine Corps, use PT scores as a part of their advancement systems. They recognize the importance of physically fit personnel and make the PT score count. It is time that we follow suit.
Career-Enhancing Billets Should Be Enhancing
Now that third-class petty officers are being assigned to recruiting billets, we should recognize the career-enhancing aspect of these positions prior to the sailor going up for chief. During the time when sailors are in designated career-enhancing billets they would have 75 points added to their final multiples. Following successful completion of the tour, they would have 25 points added to their final multiples in every future advancement cycle. For each additional career-enhancing billet, a sailor would gain another 25 points. For a sailor in a second career-enhancing billet, this would amount to 100 points, 75 for being in the billet and 25 for the first tour. This would make those billets touted as career enhancing really valuable, and sailors looking for the fast track to promotion would seek them out eagerly.
Paying Your Dues
Under the current system, points are awarded for service in pay grade, years of service, and PNA points. These points are a system of dues paying, so that as sailors gain experience they secure some advantage over their less-seasoned peers. The problem with the current system is that a sailor being advanced at the regular time can gain more points than the sailor with the required years of service in pay grade who gets advanced early (see sidebar on page 63). In addition, a sailor who does not get advanced on the first attempt sees his length-of-service points stagnate because time in active service goes up at the same rate as service in pay grade. The revised advancement system would acknowledge this dues paying by recognizing only service in pay grade and PNA attempts at promotion.
To recognize service in pay grade, the sailor would earn 1 point for every month of service above that required for promotion based on the time-in-rate date. For a sailor who becomes eligible for advancement the first time with the exact number of years of service, he or she would get 0 points. Six months later at the next exam, that sailor would have 6 points. This would continue until such time as the sailor advanced to the next higher pay grade or had ten years service in pay grade for a total of 120 points.
To recognize those sailors whose point total is short of advancement time after time, we need a new PNA point system. Performance already is recognized by the evaluation, so the only other factor to measure is how well the service member scored on the advancement examination. We should divide those who passed but did not advance into four percentile groups. The highest percentile group would get 15 PNA points, the second highest 10, the third group 5, and the final group 0. This is similar to what we do now to award 1.5, 1.0, 0.5, or 0 PNA points. We should continue to use the last five examination cycles for PNA point carryover so that we reward recent knowledge.
College Credit
At the E-7 selection board and above, education is one of those special considerations that helps a sailor get promoted. Below that, an associate's degree or bachelor's degree earns a sailor 1 and 2 points, respectively. Given the direction that the Navy is going in education for the enlisted force, this is not enough.
Under a new system we should reward every college credit a sailor earns in each pay grade up to 60 points—or 20 three-semester-hour courses. Navy courses and schools would not be included, because nearly all sailors in a rate would have most of the same schools. Rather, the system would recognize college credits earned in off-duty hours and through testing programs available through the new Navy College Program Office.
Once a sailor earns a promotion, his or her college-credit counter would reset to 0, and points would begin to accumulate again with new tests and courses completed. Those sailors who earn degrees would earn 25 permanent points—like those earned for a career-enhancing billet. A sailor who earned three degrees, associate's, bachelor's, and master's, would gain a total of 75 points. Under no circumstances would a sailor get credit for a second degree at the same level.
The Enlisted Advancement System has received many Band-Aid fixes over the years, but it is time for an overhaul. We have made changes to Navy programs and policies and now we have the opportunity to reward those who excel in the new environment. Making this change will ensure that the most dedicated and knowledgeable sailors get promoted to the leadership levels where they can most benefit the Navy and lead our next generation of sailors to even more success.
Master Chief Butler is Command Master Chief on the USS Whidbey Island (LSD-41).