Posted on Mar 3, 2023
Junior NCO promotions have collapsed — here’s the data, and why
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"A combination of policy decisions, pressure to keep the ranks filled during a recruiting crisis and difficulties with data transfers in the Army’s new human resources platform have made the math frustrating for junior troops in 2023." (Winkie, 2023)
These articles send a message of doom and gloom when in reality, it is just a cyclical occurrence. Sure there are factors inhibiting promotions but they will iron themselves out. Think decades back through today, not just what the article poses, and you'll see a pattern of high and low tides.
This too shall pass!
These articles send a message of doom and gloom when in reality, it is just a cyclical occurrence. Sure there are factors inhibiting promotions but they will iron themselves out. Think decades back through today, not just what the article poses, and you'll see a pattern of high and low tides.
This too shall pass!
Junior NCO promotions have collapsed — here’s the data, and why
Posted from armytimes.com
Promotions
Money
NCO Academy
Posted 2 y ago
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"This too shall pass!" Absolutely true. History has shown many such hiccups in the promotion system, and eventually things straighten out.
On the other hand, history also shows that the Army can occasionally still manage to trip over its own feet while straightening out such problems.
Many years ago we lived through over a year with no promotions to E6 army-wide.
Bright young E5's were still being recommended for promotion, attending promotion boards, and being put on the promotion list, but the promotion cut-off score for every MOS was set higher than the max possible score. That kept the existing system in place and functioning while simultaneously freezing promotions to E6.
Eventually the freeze ended.
Of course it ended with an enormous number of E5(P) anxiously waiting to see what the new cut-off score would be. Most of us expected that the Army would thin out the list and spread out promotions by setting a high cut-off score for the first month, then lowing the score gradually, but no, in their infinite wisdom the new cut-off score for most MOS was set at the minimum so that everyone on the list was promoted that first month. We suddenly had many hundreds of SSGs with the same DOR.
OK, that's not a problem, is it?
So it annoyed a few people who had been waiting a year with scores around 800, but no real impact on The Army, right?
Fast forward a few years and we bump into the ooops.
Remember that the primary and secondary zone of consideration for E7 are each based on DOR as an E6. Every year the Army would announce a new zone, but no one was ever surprised because everyone knew that the zone was going to advance by one year each time. Suddenly the Army bumped into a situation where there would be no one in the zone for the next year because there was over a year gap in DOR army-wide. They 'solved' that problem by advancing the DOR for the zone by two years instead of one. And, of course, that resulted in an enormous number of people in the zone, which resulted in a much larger than usual number of people selected for promotion, which resulted in a new promotion list that that took well over a year to exhaust the list.
On the other hand, history also shows that the Army can occasionally still manage to trip over its own feet while straightening out such problems.
Many years ago we lived through over a year with no promotions to E6 army-wide.
Bright young E5's were still being recommended for promotion, attending promotion boards, and being put on the promotion list, but the promotion cut-off score for every MOS was set higher than the max possible score. That kept the existing system in place and functioning while simultaneously freezing promotions to E6.
Eventually the freeze ended.
Of course it ended with an enormous number of E5(P) anxiously waiting to see what the new cut-off score would be. Most of us expected that the Army would thin out the list and spread out promotions by setting a high cut-off score for the first month, then lowing the score gradually, but no, in their infinite wisdom the new cut-off score for most MOS was set at the minimum so that everyone on the list was promoted that first month. We suddenly had many hundreds of SSGs with the same DOR.
OK, that's not a problem, is it?
So it annoyed a few people who had been waiting a year with scores around 800, but no real impact on The Army, right?
Fast forward a few years and we bump into the ooops.
Remember that the primary and secondary zone of consideration for E7 are each based on DOR as an E6. Every year the Army would announce a new zone, but no one was ever surprised because everyone knew that the zone was going to advance by one year each time. Suddenly the Army bumped into a situation where there would be no one in the zone for the next year because there was over a year gap in DOR army-wide. They 'solved' that problem by advancing the DOR for the zone by two years instead of one. And, of course, that resulted in an enormous number of people in the zone, which resulted in a much larger than usual number of people selected for promotion, which resulted in a new promotion list that that took well over a year to exhaust the list.
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Why stay and put up with the military's version of a 401K [the Thrift Savings Plan], be separated from your family 6-12 months at a time, harassed about you weight, appearance and physical condition, when you can become a civilian and not worry about being an overweight slob utilizing your military training as a diesel mechanic working on garbage trucks or transit buses usually at twice the pay.
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