Please stop telling NCOs that they can't get a 1/1 on their first NCOER
There has been a misconception in the Army for the last decade or more that says that if you DON'T get a 1/1, then you are a sh*tbag NCO.
If you read AR 623-3, you will see that a 1/1 evaluation is given for those who truly excel and outshine ALL OTHER NCOs in the raters' unit. Thus, every NCO CANNOT be a 1/1, otherwise a 1/1 becomes a 3/3 because it's the "new normal."
As a former BN S-1 NCO who has seen and reviewed hundreds of NCOERs, I have seen too many 1/1 evals for NCOs who truly did not deserve them. I have seen 1/1 NCOERs that were "cut & pasted" and even got three of these cut & paste evals on the same day-- same grammatical and typo errors.
If you, as a rater, are giving out 1/1 evals to everyone, then you are doing the NCO and the entire evaluation system a disservice, as you are watering down what a 1/1 stands for.
It's kind of like an economy-- if you keep printing money with nothing to back it, then all that cash is worthless because everyone has it and it has no value.
If a brand new SGT comes in, kicks butt, volunteers, is a PT stud, is an awesome leader, and excels at his/her job, then by all means. But just doing the job is NOT a 1/1-- coming in and doing your job without getting in trouble is a 3/3. If you have new SGTs that are getting 1/1s (honestly) and your experienced SGTs are not, then your "more experienced" SGTs need to get on the ball!
From my experience my first NCOER was 2/1 and I was rated for 6 months. However, during that rating period I filled the squad leader position for 2 1/2 months until my squad leader arrived to the unit. When it came to my EVAL he gave me what I earned a 2/1. I performed exceptionally well and had the potential to perform in the next higher rank.