Some Thoughts on the Army's Officer Personnel System

Today we spent a class talking about how the Army manages its personnel system.  Considering the fact that Army Human Resources Command (HRC) is the ultimate in personnel bureaucracy, they don't do a poor job considering the system they've been given.  Unfortunately, that system is designed simply to match manning requirements with personnel requirements, or more simply, matching spaces with faces.  While the personnel managers at HRC do their best to put the right people in the right spaces, in the end their job is to ensure that the Army's requirements are met.  What this often means is that faces are matched with spaces randomly.

Another issue is that the Army has difficulty managing talent.  Much of the assignment process and the promotion system is based on a series of block checks.  Officers have to gain a minimum of 1 year in Key Developmental (qualifying) jobs before being truly eligible for promotion.

Adding to this is the combination of the year group cohort and the up or out system. The year group cohort is a system where officers are grouped together based on the year they received their commission.  From this, the Army has a rigid timeline which determines when officers are eligible for promotion.  Officers have the opportunity for promotion up to one year early (called below the zone, or BZ), and the possibility of promotion one year late (above the zone, or AZ), but that is the only authorized deviation.  The up or out system means that if officers get passed over for promotion in their primary zone, they MUST be selected AZ, or else they are asked to leave the Army. 

What this causes is a system where competition for KD jobs, and pressure of meeting the HRC timelines mean that officers are forced to follow a rigid pathway through their careers, and any significant deviation may likely result in getting passed over for promotion.  What this does is means that officers have difficulty making time for mandatory schooling like ILE or taking on "broadening assignments" like graduate school, inter-agency fellowships, and any other number of opportunities which expand the abilities and perspectives of officers. (My West Point assignment and the grad school going with it are broadening assignments, as is the ILE I'm attending now.  I was selected to attend the 1-yr ILE at Ft. Leavenworth, but because grad school and West Point will take up 4 years of my 7 year timeline, leaving me only three years to get my KD time, or two years if I want to be competitive for BZ promotion.  I even took 6 months out of my two years for grad school to make sure I could get to ILE, since there was no way I could afford a year at Ft. Leavenworth)

A big problem here is that not every officer is cut out to do the jobs, or carry the responsibilities, of each advancing rank.  Some officers excel at being a captain and commanding companies or working on battalion staffs.  Some officers may peak at major, where they excel at running brigade and above staff sections.  But just because someone makes a good captain or major, doesn't mean they will make a good lieutenant colonel and battalion commander.  Still, the Army forces them to move up. What this creates is leaders who are incapable of fulfilling the duties of their rank and position.  It's not the fault of the officer, but that of the Army.

While there are a lot of details that would need to be worked out, one possible solution to these problems is to remove the concept of the year group cohort, remove the idea of the up or out, and get rid of the promotion timelines.  The exception would be lieutenants, whose timelines should be extended, with two years as a 2LT, and two years as a 1LT.  Once promoted to CPT, officers would go into a general pool, where they could move through positions as necessary.  Promotion would be by application, with certain requirements as mandatory gateways, but there would be no mandatory timelines.  If an officer's performance in a KD job showed the potential for promotion after only two years, they could apply and potentially be selected.  If an officer had no desire to get promoted, and was content to remain in their current grade, they could, so long as they continued to perform to standard.  If officers received two substandard (below center of mass) OERs, or a do not retain rating, they would face a mandatory separation board.  This would help to ensure that the Army would not be saddled with underperformers. 

This system would also give officers the opportunity to take broadening assignments without risking their timelines.  Giving more officers the opportunities for these assignments would create better officers with greater breadth of experience.  This would also give officers the opportunity to actually learn their operational jobs and become truly proficient at them.

Another possibility would be to make all promotions to major and above a "frocked" position for a year.  Frocking is when an officer is unofficially promoted to the next rank, giving them the responsibility and authority of the new rank, but retaining the old rank according to HRC.  This would allow officers the ability to prove themselves at the new rank, and after a year, the promotion would either become permanent or be rescinded depending on performance.

What I haven't been able to address is how the Army would handle an excess of sufficiently performing officers.  Possibly a combination of branch transfer possibilities, early retirement possibilities or severance packages would be sufficient for getting long-term officers voluntarily separated.

Anyway, these are my random thoughts on our personnel system.