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Senior Enlisted Personnel: Do We Need Another Grade?
December 1, 2001
Are the most senior enlisted service members adequately compensated? Given the varying levels of responsibility assigned to them, is the compensation sufficient to ensure that we retain the talent we require? Because these senior enlisted personnel are more apt to be retirement-eligible, are the best retiring too early? Are there sufficient incentives to induce the most competitive to remain in service? Service members in grade E-9 usually fall into two categories: the technical or duty expert of a certain occupational field; or the senior enlisted advisor to the commanding officer of a given unit, usually a unit with its own organizational colors. In discussing these issues, this paper starts with a short history of non-commissioned officers, concentrating on the most senior grade. Then we'll present a current overview of the E-9s in each of the services and describe what we see as the challenges facing the E-9 community today. We'll turn then to the current experience distribution of E-9s, promotion timings, and the pattern of retirements. Finally, we'll return to the question of incentives for E-9 retention and a proposal for an E-10grade.
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Trends in Navy Initial Skills Training: Evidence from Street-to-Fleet Data
May 1, 2001
As part of the Navy's Manpower and Personnel Integrated Warfare Architecture (M&P IWAR), N81 asked CNA to examine trends in the training recruits receive before their first fleet assignments. The Navy expects to enlist approximately 55,000 sailors each year in the near future. The Navy's system of training and delivering these recruits to operational billets must be an efficient one. The flow of sailors into the fleet depends on two things: the number of sailors who get there and the amount of time it takes. Accordingly, policy-makers are concerned with both the attrition of recruits during the period of initial training and the lengths of the training pipelines themselves. To examine these trends, we tracked recruits' early career histories from "street-to-fleet." This report updates a 1999 CNA analysis, adding recent accessions and reflecting training reengineering that the Navy has undertaken since then. We also examine initial skills training in more detail, looking at all contract lengths (2-, 3- and 5Yos, as well as 4- and 6YOs) and at ratings.
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Final Report: Street-to-Fleet Study, Volume I: Street-to-Fleet for the Enlisted Force
February 1, 2001
The Marine Corps has committed considerable resources to the development of the Total Force Data Warehouse (TFDW). This Oracle-based system allows Marine Corps analysts to look at the force historically and to do very detailed analysis of what it looks like today. A shortfall of the TFDW is that it cannot answer such "street-to-fleet" questions as: what enlisted recruit characteristics are associated with successful adaptation to the Marine Corps; and, what officer characteristics are associated with retention? The purpose of this Street-to-Fleet study was to identify the best historical data that could be found and to build accession-based files, for Marine Corps commissioned officer and enlisted personnel, organized by fiscal year of entry into the Marine Corps. In this volume of the final report, the Marine Corps attrition reasons (MCAR) and Marine Corps attrition interactive database (MCAID) databases for the enlisted personnel are described along with the procedures developed for updating them.
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Final Report: Street-to-Fleet Study, Volume II: Street-to-Fleet for Commissioned Officers
February 1, 2001
CRM DOO03033.Al Documents the Marine Corps Commissioned Officer Accession Career (MCCOAC) file, an events-based file that combines information from several data sources to describe the street-to-fleet process. Explains the method of compilation, and presents some initial analyses. Contains an Appendix describing the MCCOAC file format.
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Effectiveness of the Voluntary Education Program
April 1, 1998
This paper examines the effectiveness of Voluntary Education (VOLED) Program, which provides off-duty educational opportunities integrating a variety of continuing education programs to Sailors seeking to enhance their professional and personal growth. VOLED comprises three major instructional elements: Tuition Assistance, the Program for Afloat College Education (PACE) and the Academic Skills Learning Centers (ASLCs). The analyses finds that college education through VOLED improves promotion prospects, helps Sailors retake the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) to qualify for Navy ratings for which they were not eligible, has a significant positive impact on retention, and that all elements are cost-effective. The report recommends maintaining full support for VOLED and accelerating academic skills investments. It also recommends modifying the ASLC contract to promote greater participation and establishing an academic transcript system. Finally, it recommends encouraging a more supportive command climate and limiting the enrollment of E1s and E2s.
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How Successful Are Lateral Occupational Specialty Moves?
September 1, 1993
As part of the study Managing the Enlisted Marine Corps in the 1990s, CNA analyzed success patterns of Marines making lateral moves. Each of these Marines retrains in a primary military occupational specialty different from the original one. The Marine Corps currently has no basis for judging the success of Marines initiating lateral moves. Our analysis of historical data provides planners with information to help judge the efficiency of these moves. We will first describe the Marine Corps manpower planning and how lateral moves fit into this planning. We then consider the costs of selective reenlistment bonuses versus lateral moves. Finally, we provide statistical analysis of historical data on lateral moves. Our analysis of lateral moves focuses on the following considerations: (a) patterns of successful completion of a lateral move; (b) the promotion and attrition experience of Marines who have made lateral moves relative to their cohorts; and (c) experience in the Marine Corps compared with performance of occupation-related tasks.
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Surface Warfare Community Structure: The First Eight Years of Service
July 1, 1988
This research memorandum describes the career paths for Surface Warfare Officers (SWOs) during their first eight years of active duty. Longitudinal history files were created for each of four year groups and were then used to determine summary statistics for the movement of officers into and out of the SWO community, attainment of SWO qualifications, and selection for department head.
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Career Development of Managers and Executives: A Compendium
June 1, 1983
This paper summarizes selective material found in the professional literature which collectively suggest a variety of characteristics that would be desirable in an employee development program for managerial and executive levels.
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