Big changes are coming on the personnel front.
The rigid hierarchy of officers and enlisted is narrowing and demands a rethink of the authority and tasks given to enlisted. The Navy is reviewing its long-standing evaluation system to look for ways to identify and correct problems before an enlisted or officer ascends to leadership posts. And the service is adjusting its training to keep millennials out of trouble, including booze.
All these changes are about time for the Navy’s personnel boss, Vice Adm. Bill Moran, who in nearly three years as the chief of naval personnel hiked sea pay for the first time in a decade, saved and revamped the spot advancement system and ushered in new body fat rules designed to give sailors who pass fitness tests more lenience.
Moran discussed these issues in a Dec. 16 interview. Answers have been edited for brevity.
Q. The gap is narrower in education between enlisted and officers than it used to be. Does the culture need to change to match it?
A.Interviewee: Oh, there is no doubt. I mean I love hearing that from sailors and I do not know if they are just playing up to us or not. Fleet feel free to weigh in here. When we asked them about money, today the answer is, ‘Yeah, it is not about the money. I want a good place to work. I want a job that is meaningful, I am doing meaningful work.’ So sending everybody down to scrub the decks like we did in the old days, is maybe not as necessary. And we do not have as much, I am not sure the term access is right, but we do not have as much access excess labor as we used to have. We are paying a lot closer attention to the numbers of sailors we have on the ship to make sure that they are doing the work that is needed.
Q. Alcohol abuse seems to be an ongoing problem, as much as you have done with breathalyzers and so forth. It has ruined lots of careers for talented people. But there is a cultural aspect that seems to endure.
A. Interviewee: First of all, I am happy to show you the stats. Our alcohol-related incidents trend lines are down significantly over the last four years. That is good sign. We have taken a lot of turns on how to train, educate, make sailors aware that their behavior is in fact unprofessional. This is not a club. It is a profession. To be a professional, you act in these ways and you need to understand what impacts your actions could have on members of the team if you do the following things. Then when you see that happen more importantly as a professional, you step in and you do not let it run its course. You take proactive action to correct that behavior, correct those attitudes, correct those statements whatever they are. I think we are starting to see the effects of that. I think it is a combination of more senior level of sailor that is coming in, you know on average a little older a little more mature. I think you are starting to see young men and women who want to take responsibility and hold themselves accountable. That is a shift, a significant and important shift.
Q. Still, there are about 20 skipper firings a year. What about screening for command? Is something missing there or something more that could be done? Presumably these problems did not just develop.
A. Every one of these is a like an aviation mishap to us, you know. Something happens, an airplane crashes, a leader fails, and then we peel it back and we try to – and sometimes we discover that people knew that this person had some character flaws. How did that happen?
We are standing up an effort to reevaluate how we do the performance evaluations. Are we measuring the right things? Do we measure them in the right way? What do they mean? How do they inform boards? You know it is about what every 15 or 20 years we seem to go through this cycle and we make another adjustment. It is time. So we are starting that effort and [Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Richardson] has asked me to do that so we are off and running to try to get participation at multiple different levels in the fleet on this one to get there.
Q. There have been a number of changes to the body composition assessment and physical fitness. Some of those discussions are ways to reward sailors, outstanding fitness award, and other incentives. What’s on tap for 2016?
A. You guys are always pushing me to be in a hurry. Look, we have not even started the new cycle yet. It starts in January. The first cycle of the new BCA standard starts in January. Give us a shot at seeing how that goes. I just did my weigh in this morning for the last cycle under the old rules and I can still tell you I am still frustrated with the old rules. So, we are starting in January and let us see how it goes. We are encouraging fleet input.
