What are the best tools to help manage your military assignments and career?

2014-02-03T18:26:48-05:00

Leaders,

Recently I've found myself pondering talent management in the Army. I am a firm believer that having the right person, in the right job, at the right time are multiplying forces in the success of an organization.

For those leaders who are proactive in their careers and work toward getting those unique, hard, and/or positions that you feel would benefit you and the organization. What are some tools you used? In addition, if you could improve the Army's HR "Best Practices" in assignments what would you do?

Response by SFC Robert Trodahl made Feb 3 at 2014 10:42 PM

2014-02-03T22:42:33-05:00

Stay in contact with your branch manager. If you want a job, give them a valid reason to select you. An email stating "I want this job" does not do as much as "I want this job and these are the reasons/qualifications why I should be selected". And then stay in contact with them.

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 15 at 2014 8:28 AM

2014-03-15T08:28:44-04:00

Get good mentors, both in your MOS and from outside your MOS. You MOS mentor will be your sounding board concerning assignments that relate directly to your career. You non-MOS mentor will help develop you as a total Soldier concept, looking beyond just your technical competence.

Communication is critical, talk with your branch manager!

Response by CW2 Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 16 at 2014 3:26 PM

2014-03-16T15:26:59-04:00

I know this has been a recent topic of discussion with HRC. In the past, it's been quite difficult for personnel with the right qualifications to be placed in the right positions due to the multitude of personnel that a branch manager has to manage assignments for. I know the Army is looking at fielding a more personable approach for SSGs and SFCs, more akin to how the more senior enlisted and officers get assigned. I'm hoping they plan to expand the amount of branch managers, otherwise it will be quite difficult for a single branch manager to reach out to the hundreds of thousands of NCOs prior to each and every reassignment.

Personally, I ran into a similar issue with my last PCS. I had reenlisted for a SOF bonus that required me to remain in my SOF assignment for two more years. My branch manager cut orders for my replacement after my reenlistment date and cut my reassignment orders out of SOF the following month. When I attempted to rectify the situation on my own, my branch manager basically told me "tough, there's nothing that can be done now." Despite the fact that both my replacement's and my transition dates were still months out. Both my unit CSM and my shop COL attempted to reach out to branch and other contacts they had to prevent losing me and having to train a brand new guy with less qualifications than I had, but to no avail. Even though it does me no good now, my CSM was able to bring up my situation with the SOCOM Senior Enlisted Leader and they are working out a plan with HRC where they will be able to provide an OML of personnel to rank personnel according to who is most to least essential. They're hoping to basically be able to let HRC know who they can reassign and who they can't touch in order to keep quality people, while still allowing HRC to fulfill their mission of rotating personnel in and out. This used to be accomplished with personnel receiving an "S" identifier to let HRC know who was valuable to the SOF community to facilitate future assignments within SOF, but in recent years it hasn't seemed to be as much of a factor when HRC considers personnel for assignments and there's even talk of the "S" identifier being done away with completely.

I would say that the general consensus within the conventional Army has always seemed to be that anyone is replaceable and the unit will continue to execute whether you're here or not. I'm not sure if this will ever change within the larger force, but I definitely see the validity of operating in this manner when it comes to SOF and their specific missions.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 17 at 2014 9:24 PM

2014-03-17T21:24:15-04:00

Here's a little inside ball from when I managed nominative assignments. HRC has minimal tools at their disposal that helps them in finding the perfect candidate for special or nominative assignments. EDAS, iPerms, and a couple in house tools help in minimizing the available pool but you have to go through each NCOER to see if they meet the qualifications you are looking for. They are also limited by who is available. You can't move a Soldier with under a year on station without a waiver from the SecArmy and under two years requires a waiver from the Dir of HRC.

Now, add in the hundreds of phone calls and emails each manager gets every day you begin to see the picture. You also need to take into account they are also Soldiers that have training and other distractions from their day-to-day duties. Not trying to make excuses, just try and be aware of the challenges they face. So.....I highly recommend you outline your goals in an email to your assignment manager and give them a selection of places you would like to be assigned. You must be realistic though in those locations.

Response by COL Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 1 at 2015 6:53 PM

2015-01-01T18:53:17-05:00

This is going to become a more important topic as we reduce the force even further.