{"id":38477,"date":"2019-05-06T17:45:11","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T17:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/05\/06\/sma-new-army-promotion-system-wont-speed-things-up\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T03:19:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T03:19:12","slug":"sma-new-army-promotion-system-wont-speed-things-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/your-army\/2019\/05\/06\/sma-new-army-promotion-system-wont-speed-things-up\/","title":{"rendered":"SMA: New Army promotion system won\u2019t speed things up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Army will spend the next three or so years implementing a new noncommissioned offic<\/a>er evaluation system<\/a> that is designed to set aside experience based on time and reward performance<\/a> instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new centralized promotion system<\/a>, unveiled on April 15, won\u2019t speed up promotions necessarily, Sergeant Major of the Army Dan Dailey said in an AUSA Army Matters<\/a> podcast aired Monday, but it will allow some accomplished NCOs to stick around longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re at a horse race and the gates open, the no. 1 horse wins. They don\u2019t go back and say, \u2018When did you start racing and how old is the horse?\u2019\u201d he said, using a favored analogy. \u201cSo if you can make it to the gate, you win.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new board system will review every soldier ranked E-6 through E-9 once a year and create an Order of Merit list based on their qualifications and their evaluation reports, then use that ranking to select for promotions, schools, training and other assignments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past, when a promotion board created such a list, they would then reorder it based on time in service, to put those with the most years in up top. Then Human Resources Command would make an educated guess about how many NCOs it would need to promote a year or more from now, then select those soldiers from the list, get them trained and then let them wait until a spot opened up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, the Army will use the performance-based OML to select for school, then later select for promotion on a monthly basis, without having to make advance predictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, we\u2019re not going to promote sooner. That\u2019s what everybody\u2019s going to say \u2013 \u2018Oh, you\u2019re promoting too fast,’ ” Dailey said. \u201cNo. We\u2019re going to select earlier, we\u2019re going to evaluate earlier, to give us more time to train, because we want to train you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the amount of time between a promotion selection and a promotion will be much less, the time between promotions will be largely the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for some those periods could get even longer, as the new system focuses less on time in service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur current system, which requires us to have retention control points, doesn\u2019t allow them the opportunity to serve beyond a certain number of years,\u201d Dailey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, a 30-year sergeant major is forced to retire to allow someone else to move up, regardless of whether either of them is performing.<\/p>\n\n\n\t