The recent turmoil with regard to the Navy’s announced shakeup of enlisted personnel career management took many by surprise. The reversal of rating decisions shows that careful thought must be
applied to improve the system. The Navy should take this opportunity to learn from its mistakes and look to the civilian sector for ways to create a more efficient and effective enlisted advancement and career planning system.
The first step is to accept that not all sailors are meant for, or desire, management positions. Personnel management practices must take into account that junior enlisted personnel are expected to become technical experts, while chiefs and officers are expected to master the additional managerial and tactical skills to lead people toward a common goal. This distinction requires us to abandon our Navy’s practice of disposing of value-producing technicians merely because they lack the ability, or desire, to lead. A civilian power plant spending tens of thousands of dollars training and grooming a technician would not fire that technician because he or she lack leadership skills. Competent but non-upwardly-mobile sailors should be allowed to serve full careers even if not promoted.
The Navy also should adopt a multi-directional advancement philosophy permitting sailors to move up, down, or laterally within the service. This would allow sailors to better shape their career paths to suit their personal goals and needs.
Geographical stability is important to many service members. Civilian organizations do not arbitrarily uproot employees and their families. So why does the Navy continue to do so? A fixed timing—absent operational or command needs—is not a valid reason to uproot families and pay the expenses to relocate them. When a sailor is happy with his or her job and the command is satisfied with the performance, why not leave the sailor in place?
Allowing personnel to stay where they are satisfied would increase job satisfaction, improve crew cohesion and preservation of intraorganizational knowledge, provide greater stability for dependents, and strengthen the long-term financial well-being of Navy families.
Our current assignment systems lack the direct engagement between applicant and employer seen in the civilian hiring. The Navy could develop hiring and promotion practices that parallel those of the civilian sector. Like USA Jobs or Monster.com, we need an open and transparent system where commands can solicit sailors to apply for open positions. This would empower commanders to shape their commands with personnel who best fit their missions and teams.
Our promotion system also must place more emphasis on merit than seniority. Job positions (leading petty officer, work center supervisor, etc.) should be closely tied to promotions. A sailor should not promote to chief and then wait to become a divisional chief petty officer; the sailor should be “hired” for a position and then promoted to the corresponding rank.
A command in need of a divisional chief could list the opening and interested applicants could apply for the position. Commands could then offer the job to the best candidate based on his or her resume, evaluations, and test scores. Commands could promote from within or select willing applicants from other units with concurrence of the applicant’s command.
As in the civilian world, sailors with the best performance and the most relevant experience would promote fastest. In addition, if a command was dissatisfied with the performance of a sailor, it could elect not to renew the person’s contract. If that sailor was unable to find another gaining command, the person would leave the Navy at the end of his or her enlistment. This is a more graceful way to release underperforming sailors than high-year tenure or perform-to-serve.
Of course, not all civilian practices will work well in the Navy, but the service can adapt some civilian best practices. To sustain the world’s best Navy, we must make smart, straightforward changes to the personnel system that enhance our ability to gain, grow, and retain the best talent to defend the nation.