|
Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced on June 9, 2016 ... the next steps
in his
Force of the Future initiative to modernize the rules and
regulations that govern how the Defense Department recruits,
develops and retains service members and civilian employees.
|
June 9, 2016 - Defense Secretary Ash Carter announces new "Force of the Future" initiatives at the Pentagon,.
(DoD photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Tim D. Godbee)
|
These are the third and fourth steps he's announced since a snowy
week in February 2015, his first week in office, when he spoke
urgently during an all-hands meeting here about one of his top
priorities: building the force of the future.
“Generations
change, technologies change, labor markets change. That's why one of
my responsibilities now -- and a job for all of us in the years
ahead -- is to make sure that amid all this change DoD continues to
recruit, develop and retain the most talented men and women America
has to offer,” Carter said during remarks today in the Pentagon
courtyard.
“It's critical we do so to meet and overcome the
five challenges we face today -- from Russia, China, North Korea,
Iran and terrorism -- especially [the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant],” he added, “and to be flexible and agile in preparing for ...
unknown dangers we can't anticipate today.”
Today's proposed
changes -- which the secretary called “the capstone of how the
department is building the Force of the Future” -- for the uniformed
military services, focusing on giving them room to make common-sense
improvements to the officer promotion system, and for DoD civilians,
focusing on continuing to attract and retain the best talent, Carter
said.
Landmark Changes
The department is proposing
four landmark changes to the 36-year-old Defense Officer Personnel
Management Act, or DOPMA, all of which Congress must approve.
Today, DOPMA governs the 100-year-old military “up or out”
promotion system involving promotion boards, minimum time-in-grade
requirements and maximum age limits that still mean officers have to
be good enough to advance or they have to retire, the defense
secretary said.
“Together, these stand to be the most
consequential changes to our officer promotion system in over 30
years, if not more,” Carter said, “and they'll improve that
hundred-year-old system and help bring it into the 21st century.”
The proposed DOPMA changes include:
-- Adjusting Lineal
Numbers: DOPMA limits how many personnel are allowed in each grade,
so officers chosen for promotion must wait for an opening in the
grade above them. When there is an opening, the order in which they
advance is determined by line numbers based on seniority. This might
mean an assignment goes to the senior person on the list, even if
someone lower down would be better in the job, or that
high-performing officers chosen for promotion ahead of their peers
have to wait in line behind everyone who is more senior.
“That's why we're seeking to change DOPMA to let the services adjust
lineal numbers based on superior performance,” Carter said. “It's a
key part of good talent management, and it'll help us recognize and
incentivize the very best performers.”
- Deferring Promotion
Boards: DOPMA has specific timelines for officers coming up for
promotion. Everyone in a year group is considered when the system
says they've stayed long enough at their current grade, and they're
considered in competition with their chronological peers. To
advance, officers must meet experience and knowledge requirements
within a specific amount of time, and the system can penalize
deviations from the typical career path.
“The second change
we're seeking -- to ensure our force doesn't lose or penalize
talented officers who wish to broaden their careers -- is the
authority for the services to be able to temporarily defer when
those officers are considered for promotion,” Carter said.
--
Expanding Lateral Entry: Civilian doctors can become commissioned
military officers at grades commensurate with their skill and
experience, Carter said, but in most other specialized fields,
there's no way for the services to recruit a properly skilled and
experienced civilian who wants to serve in uniform without having to
start at the lowest ranks.
In situations where, for example,
a network defense or encryption expert from a tech company feels a
call to serve and is willing to contribute to the DoD mission as a
reservist or on active duty, the department needs a way to harness
their expertise and put it to use, the secretary said.
“Allowing the military services to commission a wider segment of
specialized outside talent ... who can meet our standards, who provide
unique skills we need and who are willing to serve in uniform will
help fill critical gaps in our force and will make us more
effective,” he added.
-- Enduring Flexibility: Under certain
conditions the services must be able to waive select DOPMA
constraints to quickly build up expertise in a critical career
field, the secretary said. This will enable them to respond to an
uncertain future in ways that can be tailored to their specific
capability requirements and personnel needs without casting off a
system that still largely meets department needs for most officers
across the force.
“Here we're seeking enduring flexibility
for future defense secretaries to let the services make needed
tweaks to DOPMA-related policies down the line, for purposes of
improving the force,” Carter said. “While the other three changes
are about providing specific solutions to specific problems, this
change will help us be prepared for what we can't anticipate.”
Other Military Efforts
The department also is proposing
other measures to improve military recruiting efforts, Carter said.
These include moving to an all-digital system for recruiting and
processing new personnel into the military, and expanding work being
done by DoD's Joint Advertising, Market Research and Studies program
to leverage advances in data science and microtargeting to build a
precision recruiting database and making sure the department has
access to the nation's entire population.
“Rather than
identifying geographic and demographic groups that already have a
higher propensity to serve and sending recruiters to find people
like them -- which is what we do now -- we're going to build and use
this precision recruiting database to identify those who'd be a
great service member but might not know it,” the secretary added.
Changes for DoD Civilians
For DoD civilians, the
department is proposing three changes to current policies. These
include:
-- On-Campus Direct Hire Authority: Today, if a DoD
recruiter meets an undergraduate student, a graduate student or a
recent graduate who is a perfect candidate for a particular job, the
candidate must go to the USAJOBS website and start a 90-day or
longer process of applying for the job, not counting the time it
takes to get a security clearance.
In this change, Carter
said, “we're seeking authority from Congress to directly hire
civilian employees from college campuses. ... This has potential to be
a real game-changer for us. Our civilian recruiters will be able to
go to a campus job fair, do some interviews, and if they find
someone who's the right fit, they can make a tentative offer on the
spot, pending security clearance.”
-- Two-Way Talent Exchange
with the Private Sector: In this change, the department proposes to
create a new two-way talent exchange program for DoD civilians with
the private sector.
“Right now we only have one such program,
and it's limited to information technology-related fields,” Carter
said. “If we want to send a civilian from the Defense Logistics
Agency or the U.S. Transportation Command to spend six months at a
place like Amazon or Federal Express to see what we might be able to
learn, there's no formal mechanism for that.”
-- Paid
Parental Leave: For this change the department is calling on
Congress to authorize paid maternity and paternity leave for DoD
civilians.
“Parental leave is fully paid for military
personnel, and the same should be true for their civilian
colleagues. ... We can't afford to risk losing civilian talent just
because private-sector companies will pay them during their
maternity and paternity leave and we won't,” Carter said.
Other Civilian Efforts
The department has other proposals
that will help build its civilian force of the future, the secretary
said, including to better leverage existing authorities to directly
hire more highly qualified experts across the department.
A
highly qualified expert is an individual, usually from outside of
the federal government, who possesses cutting-edge skills or
world-class knowledge in a particular technical discipline or
interdisciplinary field beyond the usual range of expertise. The
expertise and skills of such personnel are generally not available
within the department and are needed to satisfy emerging and
nonpermanent requirements.
“Today,” Carter said, “we only
have about 90 such experts ... across DoD, including some really
talented and innovative people like the director of the Defense
Digital Service, the head of DoD's Strategic Capabilities Office and
the Air Force's chief scientist, ... so we're going to use this
authority more often and increase our number of highly qualified
experts by 10 percent a year over the next five years.”
The
department also will increase participation by 10 percent a year
over five years in the dozens of career-broadening programs now
offered to civilians, and expand by 10 percent over five years DoD's
decade-old scholarship-for-service program, which brings in
graduates in mission-critical science, technology, engineering and
math fields to build the next generation of DoD science and
technology leaders, Carter said.
By Cheryl Pellerin
DOD News
Copyright 2016
Comment on this article |
