In 2020, then-Vice Admiral Daryl Caudle, Commander, Submarine Forces, noted, “During the past five years [the submarine community has] struggled to meet [junior officer] retention goals, reducing flexibility in department head manning and shrinking the pool of officers available for command.”1 He then went on to describe ways to change course. Not mentioned, Vice Admiral Caudle’s manning concerns came at a time when the force was shrinking from a 2016, 90-crew manning peak. A diminishing crew count was able to lessen the negative impact of retention issues, but submarine force strength will begin to grow again in 2027. What happens then? Improving junior officer retention alone will not permit the Navy to staff a growing number of submarines. Talent management strategies that maximize officer quantity and quality at all levels are needed.
Why the Focus on Junior Officer Retention?
Junior officers (JOs) are often the focus of retention discussions because, as the fiscal year (FY) 2024 submarine community values briefing states, “All BOARD SELECTED XO officers are vital to Submarine Community Health” (emphasis in original).2 Said another way, between department head and executive officer (XO), some number of mid-career submarine officers will become nonvital and expendable.
The submarine community’s position is not without merit. Historically, just 60 percent of department heads are selected as executive officers, and only 60 percent of XOs will go on to fill commanding officer (CO) billets.3 Community vitality depends on O-5 selection being restricted to those who remain on the community career path. However, as evidenced by a FY23 O-4 inventory of just 81 percent of maximum manning, by enabling career progression for just 60 percent of its department heads, the submarine community is reducing the size of its overall officer pool.4 With XO billets being filled first, more than one in five O-4 billets ashore are unmanned. No less essential, these support billets will continue to be hollowed out as crew count increases.
To man a growing fleet, the historic vital versus expendable retention paradigm must be changed—without reducing community performance.
Vital Versus Expendable
The submarine community’s nominal career path (Figure 1) hides a high degree of variability. Looking at just ship class, billet, and squadron, there are almost 100 unique department head combinations. To account for this variability, department heads are evaluated for XO based on past fitness reports, current squadron ranking, and command qualification status. Of the three criteria, squadron ranking is the most important differentiator because department head fitness reports are rarely competitive and command qualification requires a minimum of two years on board.
The only objective measure of performance is command qualification. As a result, luck and chance play an outsized role in an individual’s career progression and, as a recent study suggests, are integral to professional success.5 For example, squadron rankings, the semiannual, cross-hull ranking of all squadron department heads, adds a political element to career progression by making officers accountable to both their commanding officer and a squadron outside their immediate chain of command. Add to this reality the common practice of maintaining an officer’s squadron ranking until he or she transfers and officers can become disadvantaged for numerous circumstances that are largely outside their control.6
These inputs are then used in an XO selection process of questionable effectiveness because of its progressive difficulty. Instead of selecting XOs as needed from a multi–year group pool, the community selects 30 percent of an individual year group’s need during that year group’s first board, 50 percent in its second, and the remaining 20 percent in its final board. Those selected in the first or second board may have a very small body of work and likely are not command qualified. Those selected in the final look need superior fitness reports, a high squadron ranking, and command qualification to be competitive.
XO selection is good for promotion boards but does not guarantee that the officers selected are any more capable than those who were not. The submarine community likely could maintain a larger pool of vital officers without reducing the quality of its corps.
A Complex Process
Officer manning is a complex system with processes that cannot be viewed in isolation. Growing force strength will require improving both JO and department head retention, but efforts to improve one can harm the other, and vice versa. Following are two examples of well-intended community practices that can incentivize officer attrition.
Department head selectivity can affect JO retention. The submarine community includes officers who, in the strictest sense, did not volunteer. Midshipmen must rank their community preferences, but because nuclear positions are difficult to fill, some are “nuke drafted” into submarining.7 Anecdotally, a significant minority of submarine JOs fall into this category.
The good news: Drafted JOs have the same blank slate and drive to succeed as every other JO. The bad news: Department head selection is not very selective. Nine out of ten submarine JOs are “selected.”8 Although the community’s high entry standards help explain this, low selectivity means many JOs will become department heads regardless of their demonstrated leadership abilities. If these department heads are not strong mentors, their JOs could conclude the submarine community is full of poor leaders and decide to forgo a second tour—which reinforces the need to select more JOs as department heads.
Bonuses can affect department head retention. The submarine community’s greatest retention tool is the financial incentive tied to the 1120 nuclear designator. Department heads receive more than $50,000/year in nuclear and submarine bonuses, but they immediately lose their designator and corresponding pay incentives if they fail to screen for XO. Officers who do not screen but decide to stay in are paid less to do the same shore jobs as their peers, will never meet O-5 Selection Board community values, and unless selected for continuation to retirement, will be forced out of the Navy after their second failure to screen for O-5.
To continue to advance, these officers would have to lateral transfer—after having completed ten or more years of commissioned service—and quickly set themselves apart in their new communities before O-5 boards begin at service year 13.
When staying requires a significant salary loss and the choice between a dead-end job and an uphill battle, many simply resign their commissions.9
Recommendations
Figure 2 offers a submarine officer career path that would maximize the quantity and quality of all officers across the community while maintaining a higher promotion potential for those on the command track.9 Implementing this career path would require several enabling changes:10
• O-5 Board community values should define all command-qualified officers as vital.
• The prioritized list of O-5 promotion billets should include second-tour department heads.
• The link between submarine pay and the 1120 designator should be removed.
• The two-year time requirement for submarine command qualification should be reduced.
• A lateral transfer board should be established to assist with community management.
• XO selection boards should select from a multi–year group pool.
Department head pool size would be increased by reusing served department heads not selected for XO. These officers would maintain their incentive pays and continue to compete for XO in a multi–year group pool. Beyond reducing the need for JO retention, this would permit greater department head selectivity, which would produce a positive mentorship feedback loop, strengthening the community. Those officers who were “drafted” into the submarine community also would benefit from earlier lateral transfer opportunities.10
Reusing department heads is not without issues. Midcareer officers would continue to receive a bonus despite not progressing on the command track. The updated career path would address this by:
• Removing the $45,000/year nuclear officer incentive pay if an individual failed to return to sea. But to help with retention, it would lessen the financial blow by maintaining submarine pay.
• Permitting second-tour department heads to become board-selected XOs and continue on to command.
Most important, the negative effects of luck and chance are mitigated when the incentives submariners gain through hard work are only lost through neglect. Instead of being rigid, the updated career path is flexible, promotes individual agency, values individual contribution, and should improve officer retention and community culture as a result.
The submarine community’s current officer career progression and retention practices are preventing growth. Changes to the career path in concert with additional reforms could ensure the community grows in both size and strength.
1. VADM Daryl Caudle, USN, “Sustaining the Submarine Force’s Competitive Edge,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 146, no. 10 (October 2020).
2. MyNavyHR, FY-24 Active Duty Line Community Briefs, “Submarine Warfare Officer Community Values,” 53.
3. The historical and recent determination is based on review of the past ten years of community briefs.
4. Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, “Officer Inventory/Authorization,” February 2023. This document is used to monitor community manning health.
5. Allesandro Pluchino, Alessio E. Biondo, and Andrea Rapisarda, “Talent Versus Luck: The Role of Randomness in Success or Failure,” Advances in Complex Systems 21, no. 3 (2018).
6. Officers who are assigned to large squadrons, are members of a squadron with poor rotation management, have personalities that do not mesh well with their squadrons, or have any number of additional issues have an inherent disadvantage in acquiring a high squadron ranking early enough to be relevant.
7. See LTJG Josh Hano, USN, “Revamp Officer Service Assignments,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 148, no. 8 (August 2022).
8. MyNavyHR, FY-24 Active Duty Line Community Briefs. This number remains consistently around 90 percent between FY15 and FY24 community briefs.
9. Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, “Officer Inventory/Authorization,” February 2023. This document is used to monitor community manning health. The FY23 O-4 inventory of 81 percent represented a 6 percent reduction from the prior year.
10. This list is not all-inclusive; several of the process changes have already been discussed by PERS-42 as potential reforms; and these reforms were selected because PERS-42 has the most direct control over them. The recommended path is original and intended to improve retention and complement reforms already being considered.
