Sailor of 2025 Talent Management Initiatives

Posted on August 14, 2015 Updated on August 16, 2015

There are some exciting and interesting initiatives underway to modernize the Navy’s personnel system.  There have been many articles on this in Navy Times.  Here is one article recently released by the Military Officers Association of America.

In addition, here are some slides that describe this initiative:

PERS-4 Fleet Engagement

The changes that physicians should be aware of, some already finalized and others representing potential changes, are:

1. Pay and bonus changes that would reward individual talent rather than treat everyone the same.
2. A removal of promotion zones.  No longer would records be stamped as below-zone, in-zone, or above-zone during promotion boards.  This would switch to a system that rewards talent and milestones rather than longevity.  It would allow those that progress faster to promote faster and no longer have to “wait their turn” as well as remove the stigma that some feel is associated with being above-zone.
3. Expansion of opportunities to diversify your career.  Examples include an expansion of the career intermission program and fellowships providing officers with the opportunity to spend some time in civilian industry so that they can bring best practices back to the Navy.
4. An information technology (IT) investment in a new, more transparent personnel management system.  Ideas I have heard mentioned include eliminating all of the various computer systems that exist and consolidating them into one so that you don’t have to update your record in 20 different ways.  An assignments system has also been mentioned that would allow officers to see all the billets available and apply for the ones that they want, giving commands the ability to pick which officers they want.
5. Improved co-location policy.  I have no details on this one, and right now I feel the detailers do a pretty good job co-locating dual active duty couples, but others may disagree.
6. Changes to the physical fitness assessment/body composition assessment (PFA/BCA), which were detailed in this NAVADMIN.  This includes expanded fitness center hours.
7. Changes to the maternity leave policy, detailed in this NAVADMIN, and expanded child development center hours.

Keep in mind that while some of these changes have been released already, like the PFA/BCA and maternity leave policies, the rest are works in progress.  I think it is interesting, though, to see that the DoD and Navy leadership are interesting in modernizing our personnel system and management.  As a detailer who writes orders on a DOS-based system, I can assure you that modernization is sorely needed.