Do you think the Navy needs to revamp the way PO's are selected and advanced?

PO2 Brandon Grier - Shippie, I'd rather see the evaluation system be overhauled than the advancement system. There has to be a better way to recognize performance and there needs to be a 360 degree evaluation of leadership, technical proficiency l, and followership. I'd also like to see a fitness for higher leadership within a quantifiable strata. We have all seen that one advance who met education and community/command involvement wickets because she/he couldnt handle increased responsibilities in the shop. That's what should change.

You need demonstrated requisite knowledge and the examination process helps you show that. Do the right things - true merit will get you there. Good question - thanks for sharing!

What do you define as "merit"?

Your evaluations are how your chain of command evaluates your "merit".

Your test score is how the Navy evaluates your technical "merit".

So it seems we are doing what you want done already.

I believe it should remain the way it is. We need to realize why we have this system in place. In the Navy, there isn't a one size fits all way to make advancement work where everyone comes out on top. Unfortunately, we need to maintain our budget and one of the biggest pieces of the Navy's budget is payroll. This is a very effective way of managing it as well as attrition. Just my 2 cents... :D

Leave it as is. Advancement should be based on how well you know your job, not how long you have been in.

I like the system up to about E7... You can make rank based on your own merit. Not as much ass smooching that way.

After working in a joint environment, The way we do advancement is better than the other services. With our two tiered system, test score (how well you know your job) and evaluations ( how well you do your job) is the perfect balance. Working with other services, they envy our system because we advance the ones that know and do. Other services have people in high enlisted ranks that can't do the basics of their trade.

For God's sake leave the Navy alone and take all that PC crap to the head! We are trained to finish what what missions we were given with maximum efficiency and a deliberate outcome. This was accomplished without politics with highly trained people! Competency and skilled leadership has always been the base! Don't change anything to make it easier or diversity intent! Leave skill measurement at maximum potential.

Does the Navy still have the Command Advancement Program (CAP)? If so, there's your merit based promotion system. I always thought the Navy's system was overall fairly sound - could the points distribution have been tweaked..sure, but overall - taking in account evals, awards, TIR and your exam scores (PNA points) - I always thought other services should've modeled their advancement system off of the Navy's. Then again, I'm biased.

I understand the frustration of the OP, I spent five years as an LS3 and had good evails (MP's/EP's and Blue Jacket of the Year) which helped me to finish anywhere from .54 to 9.03 points short of advancement on six consecutive advancement cycles including one where I was told I was chosen for advancement only to find out someone in the S-1 shop misread another person's name. On top of this, during our deployment to Afghanistan our LPO was selected for CPO over the... "objections" if you will of our unit. He was a PFA failure (or should have been if not for some questionable time keeping) who had to take multiple attempts to pass his SCW's board, took a two hour nap in his office every afternoon, but claimed on his eval that out of 24 people in our S-4 shop, 18 were LPO's and he could supposedly demonstrate leadership and mentoring skills which enabled their success. It's very aggravating to see someone like that named a chief mostly because they know how to work the system and not so much because he was a strong leader or proficient at his job.

That was a unit problem though, our unit never should have given him an eval that would enable him to be in consideration for entry into the Chief's mess. My three years spent in a magazine did not produce the same results because we had different unit leadership, a different culture within the unit, and most importantly our LPO's didn't spend all day in an office, they worked side by side with the PO3's and SN's so when it came time to do evals the work performed corresponded with the appropriate rating in the eval blocks, none of this "I heard he/she did X" non-sense.

It would be nice to have a full-fledged merit based system in place (one that doesn't take rate/MOS into consideration), and I believe for the most part the Navy does that. At the very least, the system in the Navy is more transparent. I went over to the Army because they offered a spot in OCS, a commission, and student repayment (SLRP). The Navy only offered direct commission with no SLRP but not till after I completed my Master's degree. In the Army it's all a numbers game and at least for junior enlisted, the member has less say or input for their own eval. Ultimately though, no matter what system the military uses, there will always be an opportunity for bias to creep in whether it be bias in the creation of the evaluation process or implementation of said process, it's impossible to completely remove the human element.

The advancement to E-7 is far too political. I had one CO who did not like me, so scoring in the 98th percentile on the test was meaningless.