It’s amazing what you can accomplish from a position of strength. That’s a fundamental rule of warfare and one of the first things you learn as a Naval Aviator.
The same thing applies to the manpower and personnel world. If you want to continue to grow as an institution — to compete and to win — you must attract and retain the very best people. It’s people, after all, who bring our combat capability to bear; it’s people who give us the advantage.
Today, thanks to the Chief of Naval Operations and the emphasis he has placed on manpower issues, that advantage is significant. Higher quality recruits, historic retention rates, reduced attrition and outstanding deckplate leadership continue to make this the highest-quality work force the Navy has ever seen. We are now in a position of extraordinary strength.
Enlistment, Reenlistment Percentages Favorable
Consider the numbers. Over the last 12 months, first-term sailors have reenlisted at an average of 54 percent. If you count only this fiscal year to date, the number exceeds 59 percent. Second-term reenlistment is more than 72 percent; the fiscal year to date puts it at just over 73 percent. To give some perspective, at about the time the CNO took office in the summer of 2000, the first term reenlistment rate was just over 48 percent and second term reenlistment was about 63 percent.
Officers, too, want to continue their service. The loss rate — that metric we use to calculate how many officers leave the service each year due to retirement, resignation, separation and other factors — dropped nearly 2.5 percentage points from a high of 9.5 percent in 2000 to just over 7 percent in 2003.
On the recruiting side, we’ve met our enlisted new contract goals for 35 straight months — a record. And we’re on track to accomplish this year’s goal of just under 40,000 new recruits, which, by the way, is the lowest annual recruiting goal in the 30-year history of the All-Volunteer Force. Recruiting has been so effective at bringing in talent that we reduced the number of critical ratings last year — those enlisted job skills we particularly need to fill — from 39 to six.
Naval Aviation is no exception to this success. Aviation ratings are seeing strong reenlistment rates along with the rest of the Navy, many of them at or above the CNO’s goals. Pilots are continuing their service at a rate of 51 percent and NFOs at 56 percent — both the highest they have been over the last eight years.
Managing Our Personnel Strengths
The question before us, then, is what do we do and what can we accomplish from this unique position of strength?
The answer is much, indeed. By not having to worry incessantly about getting people in the front door and keeping them, we’re able to focus more on their growth and development, which, in turn, makes for a more capable work force and a more ready Navy. We have before us a rare opportunity to invest smartly in new tools and technology that will alter the way manpower contributes to combat capability.
Here are three of the things that top my “to do” list:
Balance the Force
For all our success, the Navy’s work force is still out of balance in many areas. We have too many sailors in some skill areas, not enough in others; too many officers at some paygrades, not enough in others. Military people are doing work that could be done by civilians or contractors, and there are civilians in jobs that might best be done by people in uniform. It all comes down to better “force-shaping,” and we’ve been working hard to get that right.
Perform to Serve — our central reenlistment approval process for first-term sailors — is helping us better shape the enlisted work force by encouraging sailors in overmanned ratings to convert to less crowded ones. Since the beginning of the program in March 2003, almost 4,000 of the more than 40,000 sailors who have applied for reenlistment have been approved for conversion. Assignment incentive pay has encouraged hundreds of qualified, talented sailors to take orders in historically hard-to-fill locations. And selected reenlistment and critical skills retention bonuses are repeatedly refined to improve manning within specific Navy Enlisted Classifications.
On the officer side, we face two imbalances. The first is that imbalance between the unrestricted line and the restricted line and staff corps. Right now, fewer than half the Navy’s officers are in the unrestricted line. The restricted line and staff corps perform terrific work, and we will continue to need their talent and expertise. But is this the right mix and can we accomplish part of our supporting mission in a more efficient and cost-effective manner?
The second is an imbalance in career paths themselves, particularly in Naval Aviation. Excess aviators at the department head level in most communities now require us to hold formal Department Head Screen Boards and revise the rules for Aviation Career Continuation Pay (ACCP). In June we held the first department-head board in eight years, selecting some 300 officers for this important career milestone. And future ACCP receipt is now contingent upon department head screen for those who take the bonus in FY ’04 and beyond.
We need to find more time for graduate education and Joint Professional Military Education (JPME). Joint duty will become increasingly more important for promotion and career opportunity, as is “grad ed.” Officers headed to command absolutely must obtain JPME/grad
ed. Those who will select to O-5, but not command, need to get grad ed in targeted fields. And for many, we should emphasize nonresident JPME during first shore/second sea tours.
We should also emphasize those academic disciplines that help us to better run the “business” of the Navy — acquisition, technical, operational analysis and financial management, to name a few. These sorts of studies are critical parallel professional skills that I believe our officers need to master to lead the Navy in this century. We grow great warriors — we’re good at that. But we also need to be able to grow visionary leaders. Being a visionary leader means knowing how to look at our institution from an enterprise perspective.
Finally, we need to figure out how to make education more flexible through distance learning, Web-based instruction and expanded partnerships with major universities in fleet concentration areas. No one wants to change career paths radically, but we must find a more effective way to make it fit.
Focus More On Fit Than On Fill
More on fit than on fill, “making it fit” remains a challenge in manning as well. We have done a great job manning the Navy, there’s no question about that. More than half our fleet — and some 76,000 sailors — deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and each strike group was manned at 98 percent or more. But this doesn’t mean the fleet didn’t face shortfalls in certain skill areas.
We must get better at “fit” — more clearly identifying the knowledge, skills, abilities and tools required for each job in the Navy and producing sailors who can meet those requirements. We need a training and assignment regimen that can be responsive to the changing needs of a transforming Navy. It’s a tall order, but this concept we call Sea Warrior is fast becoming reality.
Sea Warrior — the manpower and personnel component of SeaPower 21 — will take the currently segregated functions of manpower, personnel and training/education and integrate them around comprehensive knowledge of each individual and the specific tasks that individual needs to perform a specific job. It will capture the early gains of Project SAIL, the revolution in training and the Navy’s work force initiatives to create a comprehensive approach to an individual’s development on both a professional and personal level.
Sea Warrior will make our people aware of skill conversion opportunities, identify new career paths and training/education opportunities, and introduce them to a much wider array of job possibilities. It will consider the individual’s aptitude and interests, as well as the Navy’s needs, to produce a set of skills for which the member would be richly qualified.
In short, Sea Warrior will provide each member of the Navy team the ability to achieve his or her personal goals — reinforcing our commitment to the diversity of talent and experience — while at the same time giving human resource managers a powerful force-shaping tool. It will help us tackle the challenge of “fit.”
Determine the True Manpower Requirement
One of the first and most critical steps in delivering Sea Warrior is to determine the true manpower requirement across the fleet and our supporting infrastructure. We must have a better handle on where our people are serving and what jobs they’re performing before we can make useful changes to the billet structure.
We must ask ourselves important questions: Does a given function still need to be done? If so, does a sailor have to do it, or could a more cost-effective civilian fill the position? How much of our workload can — or should — be contracted out? How do we capitalize upon new and more efficient technology in determining manpower needs for a given system?
Several initiatives are under way to help us answer these questions. Our “Flagpole” studies are relatively small-scale reviews that will assess the delivery of a service or function throughout the Navy. These studies are primarily process-driven, validating the proper application and total force mix of personnel resources to specific tasks.
The Challenge of a New Century
My “to do” list, of course, is longer than this, but these are the three most important things on it. I have no doubt they will lead us to a smaller, smarter work force and a more competitive Navy, but it would be wrong to assume that these alone are the goals. What we are after is a Navy appropriately manned with the right blend of skills, talent and experience. This is about changing the way we employ and invest in our people.
In fact, we’re working hard right now to develop a 21st Century Human Capital Strategy that defines in broad terms exactly how to do this. The strategy, which the CNO has made his fifth-year objective, will reconcile valid requirements for work with the appropriate numbers and quality of individuals to perform that work. It will articulate a total force approach to manpower that integrates everyone — active and Reserve personnel, civilians and contractors. And it will cascade down the chain, providing structure to similar strategies developed within each major activity and community in the Navy.
The timing could not be better. As the CNO noted, “We are sitting at an incredibly opportune time in our history. I believe that in the area of human resources, with the things that have happened to us in our institution over the last number of years, we have the opportunity to do truly great things.” Truth is, we couldn’t even have dreamed of attempting anything so sweeping only a few years ago when retention was low and recruiting a struggle.
But, then, it is amazing what you can accomplish from a position of strength.
Ed. Note: VADM Hoewing, a native of Keokuk, Iowa, graduated from Iowa State University and received his commission through the NROTC program. Designated a Naval Aviator in 1972, Hoewing flew the A-7E Corsair II with VA-147, VA-22 and VA-94, completing several Western Pacific deployments before assignment to VX-5 at NAS China Lake as a test director for the F/A-18 Hornet operational evaluation.
Later assignments at sea included command of VFA-82, USS Seattle (AOE-3), John F. Kennedy (CV-67) and Carrier Group Seven. He has extensive experience in Naval personnel management in Washington, D.C., and assumed the duties of Chief of Naval Personnel in Millington, Tenn., in October 2002.