# Army Troop Drawdown



## Marauder06 (Feb 11, 2012)

If you're in the Army right now, or are considering joining, you ought to start taking a very close look at the strategic communication being put out by people the Chief of Staff of the Army, the Secretary of the Army, and the Secretary of Defense.  

Major cuts in troop levels and budgets are coming, I think most of us already know that.  But what does that mean?  Well, for starters, if you have any black marks on your record, or if you get any, you specifically are on the chopping block.  It used to be a commonly-told joke that you couldn't make SGM without having one or two Art. 15's, and a DUI was in some cases survivable.  I think that is shortly going to no longer be the case.  Waivers to enlist are going to dry up also.  And promotions, schooling, and assignments are going to start to become way more competitive.

So what to do?  Start familiarizing yourself with the upcoming changes.  There was an announcement about re-enlistments that I read today, that I found particularly concerning.  Educate yourself and your subordinates.  Prepare yourselves for the changes, and do what you can to help keep our Army getting better.


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## AWP (Feb 11, 2012)

Hmm...maybe we need a post or two on how promotions in the Army work? Points, schools, mandatory schools, when in your career, etc....or at least some external links. Our enlisted and junior O's might benefit.

For that matter, all of the branches would benefit with their respective processes.

Just a wild-assed idea on my part.


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## goon175 (Feb 11, 2012)

Enlistments period are drying up. I can't even find guys a job right now.


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## Brill (Feb 11, 2012)

MI is always a hot fill...isn't it????


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## goon175 (Feb 11, 2012)

> MI is always a hot fill...isn't it????


 
Hard to find guys that qualify for a TS and have high enough GT or ST scores. The only MI job I can get anyone lately is 35P, but very few are qualified and interested in it.


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## policemedic (Feb 12, 2012)

goon175 said:


> Enlistments period are drying up. I can't even find guys a job right now.


 

Hmm.  One of my guys is a CPT (P) who just took a position in a USAR CA unit; he's been trying to get me to go back in.  I figured as a multilingual medic I wouldn't have a problem...maybe that isn't the case.


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## goon175 (Feb 12, 2012)

I am talking about active duty. They are actually looking for prior service guys to go into the reserves, it's USAREC's top mission right now


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## 104TN (Feb 12, 2012)

goon175 said:


> I am talking about active duty. They are actually looking for prior service guys to go into the reserves, it's USAREC's top mission right now


 
Goon, can you speak a little more about Uncle Sugar's recruiting priorities? AD/NG/AR?


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## Brill (Feb 12, 2012)

goon175 said:


> Hard to find guys that qualify for a TS and have high enough GT or ST scores. The only MI job I can get anyone lately is 35P, but very few are qualified and interested in it.



Most likely because "it's so secret that you won't even know what you do". Too gay and full of BS. The job isn't classified it's the TTPs that are. Stupid.


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## goon175 (Feb 12, 2012)

> Most likely because "it's so secret that you won't even know what you do". Too gay and full of BS. The job isn't classified it's the TTPs that are. Stupid.


 
haha
http://www.goarmy.com/army-videos.sch-Linguist.html



> Goon, can you speak a little more about Uncle Sugar's recruiting priorities? AD/NG/AR?


 
I can only speak for reserve and active duty, national guard is a seperate branch. but yeah, stand by.


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## Marauder06 (Feb 12, 2012)

rick said:


> Goon, can you speak a little more about Uncle Sugar's recruiting priorities? AD/NG/AR?


 
"Anybody but Rick."  Any other questions?


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## 104TN (Feb 12, 2012)

Marauder06 said:


> "Anybody but Rick." Any other questions?


And that's why you don't get Christmas cards.


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## goon175 (Feb 12, 2012)

As far as recruiting priorities in the infancy of the draw down:

Active Duty- Seniors in high school who score over a 50 on the asvab and have no medical or moral issues, high school grads who score over a 50 and have no medical or moral issues, applicants with medical degrees, applicants who speak Dari, Farsi, or Arabic.

Reserves- Prior Service NCO's, Prior Service SL1, AR OCS applicants, High School seniors who score over a 50 on the asvab and no medical or moral issues.

Incentives have all but gone away for the active duty, and there are very few jobs available, as stated above. The Army wants to cut the active duty force and boost the reserve force, and so you can find incentives for joining the reserves but not the AD.


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## Red Flag 1 (Feb 12, 2012)

FWIW, the Air Force Times big headline is USAF must trim "10,000 Airmen".

RF 1


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## goon175 (Feb 13, 2012)

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2012/02/dn-2013-army-budget-calls-for-more-program-cuts-021312/



> *2013 Army budget calls for more program cuts*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## goon175 (Feb 13, 2012)

I don't have the e-mail right in front of me, it's on my work computer, but we recieved an e-mail today talking about the reduction in promotions, increased TIG to compete for promotions, and increased service commitment if chosen for promotion. A lot of changes coming down, some good and some bad in my opinion. As the push for keeping only the best leaders in the Army is upon us, I think one of the main questions needs to be "what is a good leader?". I know that the defintion of a good leader in the SOF community and a good leader in the rest of the army can sometimes (often times) have a lot of distance between the two. So, maybe we can talk about what we think the Army should be looking at for it's current and future leaders. Should the leaders we keep have high PT scores? Should they have a degree? an advanced degree? Should they have made the commandants list at atleast one NCOES course? How much admin time should they have?  and so on....


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## Brill (Feb 13, 2012)

Ask the subordinates "Do you trust this man with your life?"

Peer review plain & simple.  If they can survey for DADT and PT uniforms, they can get feedback on dangerous or questionable leaders.


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## goon175 (Feb 13, 2012)

There has been talk of changing the NCOER so that you recieved a rating from your rater, peers and subordinates. Not a bad idea. There has also been talk of getting ranked. For example, if a PSG is rating his 4 squad leaders, he would have to rank them 1 -4 and put that on their NCOER. I believe there is something similar on the OER presently.  I don't know how crazy I am about that idea, if you are in a unit with exceptional NCO's, that number rating may not be an accurate portrayal of your performance.


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## CDG (Feb 13, 2012)

lindy said:


> Ask the subordinates "Do you trust this man with your life?"
> 
> Peer review plain & simple. If they can survey for DADT and PT uniforms, they can get feedback on dangerous or questionable leaders.


 
Unless the feedback from junior guys is going to be taken seriously, this is pointless.  I think that when it comes down to it, most officers will protect their own and will interpret negative junior enlisted feedback as indicative of "Joe's" inability to grasp "the big picture".


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## Manolito (Feb 13, 2012)

I have a lot of problem with junior people rating senior people. Each of us that has risen through the ranks in military or civillian DOD circles have found out the job of our supervisor is not anything like we thought once we get that position. Lets take reflective belts this word came from high up and so the SSGT etc enforces what he was ordered to do does that make him a tool? I think it is a good idea to have junior people rate the command as a whole it gives some good insight to what is perceived at the private and corporal level. I am sure that good people will lose their way in this new austerity and some who polish the knob will rise at the expense of others. It is one thing to work in the top 5% but there are a lot of people out there that are not up to the lower 40% that still make the military go round and round.
What we will find in my opinion is the people that played the game and walked the walk will have it over the very effective combat leader every time. Except in the rare case when a person can do both sides very well.
Respectfully,
Bill


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## CDG (Feb 13, 2012)

Manolito said:


> I have a lot of problem with junior people rating senior people. Each of us that has risen through the ranks in military or civillian DOD circles have found out the job of our supervisor is not anything like we thought once we get that position. Lets take reflective belts this word came from high up and so the SSGT etc enforces what he was ordered to do does that make him a tool? I think it is a good idea to have junior people rate the command as a whole it gives some good insight to what is perceived at the private and corporal level. I am sure that good people will lose their way in this new austerity and some who polish the knob will rise at the expense of others. It is one thing to work in the top 5% but there are a lot of people out there that are not up to the lower 40% that still make the military go round and round.
> What we will find in my opinion is the people that played the game and walked the walk will have it over the very effective combat leader every time. Except in the rare case when a person can do both sides very well.
> Respectfully,
> Bill


 
Great points.  I left out making a clear delineation between the feedback of solid junior enlisted guys vs the feedback of Joe Shitbag who hates being in the military and wishes he was back home playing XBox.  There would almost by necessity be a demarcation between the weight given to the opinions of solid dudes vs shitbags, but this does not always translate into reality.


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## goon175 (Feb 13, 2012)

It's not like the subordinate is only referring to privates. The only person that would have privates input would be the buck sergeant. Also, if your subordinates ratings are averaged out, that should make up for the occasional shit bag who hates you, and lets not forget that you would also be getting rated by your peers and superiors, so that there is a system of checks and balances, so to speak. no one person would be able to ruin you based on their personal feelings.


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## Manolito (Feb 13, 2012)

Goon I value your opinion and you are more current than I am. When I spent my time in Military and DOD I often saw knob polisher sent to a school that made no sense until I later saw the modified retention notice that said five point would be given to anybody who had completed XYZ school. That was the ways of the road a few years back. The guy in the field was working and never got a shot at school XYZ without a sponsor watching out for him. Just my observation. We had a draw down of O3 and 04 officers that had spent their entire life preparing for life in the military with degrees that didn't transfer well and found themselves back in school scrambling to compete with the new graduates.
Bill


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## Etype (Feb 14, 2012)

Why not rate everyone on 3 or 4 different categories, then weight your ratings on how well you rate? It wouldn't take too long to work up the excel book to do it for a company sized element.
For example we grade everyone on PT, leadership. and army values. Possible scores are 1-5. If you rate a 5, you get a weight of 3 for your rating of others, if you rate a 4 you get a weight of 2, if you rate a 3, you get a weight of 1- if you are evaluated at a one or 2, you are not considered.

Say person x and y are rating person z.
Person x rates at a 5 giving him a weight of 3, person y rates at a 3 giving him a weight of 1.
X and Y rate Z 3 and 5 respectively. The equation would be-
(3+3+3+5)/4= 3.5
Z would rate a 3.5 in the category because X carries a more weight as given to him by his peers/subordinates/superiors, since he is considered higher within the category. Y gave Z a high rating, but it is overridden by X since person Y is only 60% of Z by equation.

It can be done, it needs to be done smartly in a way that excludes the shit bags.


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## Marauder06 (Feb 14, 2012)

I like 360 feedback, but NOT 360 evaluations.  Why?  Because it turns leadership into a popularity contest.  Not all of the best leadership decisions are the most popular ones with the troops, and many young troops (including officers) have trouble discerning the "professional" from the "personal."  I think 360 feedback is useful because it is always good to find out what your subordinates are thinking (sometimes it can be very eye-opening!) but tying it to evaluations is, IMO, a mistake.


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## AWP (Feb 14, 2012)

One idea: stop applying so much weight/ value to the APFT.


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## Brill (Feb 14, 2012)

Freefalling said:


> One idea: stop applying so much weight/ value to the APFT.



Says the guy with mutton chops for side burns!!!


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## Florida173 (Sep 15, 2015)

goon175 said:


> *There has been talk of changing the NCOER* so that you recieved a rating from your rater, peers and subordinates. Not a bad idea. There has also been talk of getting ranked. For example, if a PSG is rating his 4 squad leaders, he would have to rank them 1 -4 and put that on their NCOER. I believe there is something similar on the OER presently.  I don't know how crazy I am about that idea, if you are in a unit with exceptional NCO's, that number rating may not be an accurate portrayal of your performance.


 
Going to resurrect this thread and specifically this post based on the bold portion and I couldn't find a more appropriate prior post to add this to.

I just sat through a brief by HRC here at Macdill on the new Army NCOER system that goes in effect 01 Jan. I can immediately say that there is going to be some serious issues within some communities, especially within Special Operations and some smaller joint/guard/reserve billets.

1. If I am a senior rater and based on my position will only ever senior rate one soldier, I can give him a "Most Qualified" and then have to wait nine years before I can give another "Most Qualified." Based on the 24% limitation.

2. All NCO ranks can be senior rated by a GS9 or higher, meaning an E9 can be senior rated by a 23 year old kid with no experience.

3. A SSG can be rated by another senior SSG, but can only be senior rated by a MSG. Although the intention is that the Rater be directly responsible for the rated soldier, and the Senior Rater be directly responsible to the Rater. At least this is preferred, but they are adding an additional requirement that may complicate the rating scheme.

4. If a rated soldier is up for a promotion and the Senior Rater's "rating tendencies" are left of center (meaning mostly highly qualified and most qualified) it can actually hurt the soldier being considered for promotion because the board may discount that senior rater's opinion.

I admit there are a few good things.

1. Deflate the rating system

2. No more requirement for a Reviewer, only a Supplementary Reviewer in certain circumstances.

3. Senior Rater is responsible for potential of rated soldier and not performance, Rater is responsible for performance.

4. Senior Rater writes a narrative now of potential, although is prohibited in using board language (ie.. Would have rated "Most Qualified," but my profile doesn't allow for it.)


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## AWP (Sep 15, 2015)

Florida173 said:


> 2. All NCO ranks can be senior rated by a GS9 or higher,



What the hell? That's madness!


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## Viper1 (Sep 15, 2015)

Florida173 said:


> Going to resurrect this thread and specifically this post based on the bold portion and I couldn't find a more appropriate prior post to add this to.
> 
> I just sat through a brief by HRC here at Macdill on the new Army NCOER system that goes in effect 01 Jan. I can immediately say that there is going to be some serious issues within some communities, especially within Special Operations and some smaller joint/guard/reserve billets.
> 
> ...


It's weird how the new OER system allows 49% to be "most qualified" but the new NCOER only allows 24%.  That discrepancy alone is going to have serious repercussions


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## Marauder06 (Sep 15, 2015)

Both systems penalize individuals in elite units, and punish people for things completely beyond their control.  This is a terrible way to do talent management, all for the sake of providing a quantifiable number to make promotions boards' jobs easier.


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## Florida173 (Sep 15, 2015)

Other weird things are that a Rater for an E5 can only give a "Met Standard" or "Did Not Meet Standard," whereas a SSG and above are allowed to have all four performance measures. HRC's example for "Far Exceeded Standard" is a soldier that wins the competitions and boards (ie. "placed 1st of 23 teams in the recent LTG David E. Grange Jr. Best Ranger Competition") So I guess a highspeed SGT should wait to compete in Best Ranger until he gets SSG...


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## racing_kitty (Sep 15, 2015)

Sounds to me like mediocrity will be encouraged, and only the truly talented in verbal fellatio will advance.


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## Florida173 (Sep 15, 2015)

racing_kitty said:


> Sounds to me like mediocrity will be encouraged, and only the truly talented in verbal fellatio will advance.



Not only encouraged, but forced if the Senior rater has already given out too many center of left ratings. It's insane. A soldier being penalized because the Senior Rater has exceptional soldiers.


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## DA SWO (Sep 15, 2015)

Marauder06 said:


> Both systems penalize individuals in elite units, and punish people for things completely beyond their control.  This is a terrible way to do talent management, all for the sake of providing a quantifiable number to make promotions boards' jobs easier.


Air Force had a similar system in the mid to late 70's.
Guys handpicked by the CSAF getting middle of the road OER's because everyone else in the unit was also handpicked.  
End result was the really sharp guys avoided high profile assignments and stayed in the "mainstream" swimming with the middle tier fish.


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## Il Duce (Sep 15, 2015)

Marauder06 said:


> Both systems penalize individuals in elite units, and punish people for things completely beyond their control.  This is a terrible way to do talent management, all for the sake of providing a quantifiable number to make promotions boards' jobs easier.



I think what it does is force raters and senior raters to manage their profiles from the beginning of their career forward.  If leaders counsel, have consistent and fair standards (requirements in 600-20), and rate consistent with the needs of the Army the system will work fine.  What we've repeatedly have happen is leaders abrogating their responsibilities to 'take care' of people, play favorites, and fail to live up to their obligations as leaders to shape the force. 

I'm glad the new system is in place, I think the only thing it is missing is a way to hold raters/senior raters accountable for their abilities in shaping the force.  I was just having this conversation today with one of my MAJs about rating schemes and performance - that everytime you see a senior leader 'screwing over' a subordinate or 'being toxic' there is a host of leaders that failed to weed that leader out and properly shape the force.  It's a significant responsibility and one I think too many leaders fail.

I mean, @Marauder06 - look at me, clearly you failed to shape the force properly :)


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## AWP (Sep 16, 2015)

Corporate America has similar system of "everyone can't be great" which makes sense, not everyone is great. How it enforces the "standard" causes a whole new set of problems and you could potentially see something similar with this new system.

It issues ratings on a bell curve.

For example, you have a 1 to 5 system with 5 as the best rating. If you have 10 guys working for you, HR/ your manager allows one 5, one 4, you MUST have at least one two (but not too many, so that means managers give one guy a two regardless of his performance), and the rest are 3's.  By forcing a set number of evals you guarantee the 4's and 5's go to the ass-kissers. Sure, you will have cases where guys who deserve the best earn the best, but you're also empowering those toxic leaders to take care of their own more than they're doing now.


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## Florida173 (Sep 16, 2015)

Freefalling said:


> Corporate America has similar system of "everyone can't be great" which makes sense, not everyone is great. How it enforces the "standard" causes a whole new set of problems and you could potentially see something similar with this new system.
> 
> It issues ratings on a bell curve.
> 
> For example, you have a 1 to 5 system with 5 as the best rating. If you have 10 guys working for you, HR/ your manager allows one 5, one 4, you MUST have at least one two (but not too many, so that means managers give one guy a two regardless of his performance), and the rest are 3's.  By forcing a set number of evals you guarantee the 4's and 5's go to the ass-kissers. Sure, you will have cases where guys who deserve the best earn the best, but you're also empowering those toxic leaders to take care of their own more than they're doing now.


 
The biggest part of the corporate world is that there is actual money connected to the ratings because your bonus is typically tied into it. So the biggest ass-kissers are taken care of the most. Which may be fine in a small organization, but larger corporate side when you start to introduce "C" employees you will have a system that pushes the best out. Falls into the Pareto Principle where 20% do 80% of the work.


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## 104TN (Sep 16, 2015)

Freefalling said:


> Corporate America has similar system of "everyone can't be great" which makes sense, not everyone is great. How it enforces the "standard" causes a whole new set of problems and you could potentially see something similar with this new system.
> 
> It issues ratings on a bell curve.
> 
> For example, you have a 1 to 5 system with 5 as the best rating. If you have 10 guys working for you, HR/ your manager allows one 5, one 4, you MUST have at least one two (but not too many, so that means managers give one guy a two regardless of his performance), and the rest are 3's.  By forcing a set number of evals you guarantee the 4's and 5's go to the ass-kissers. Sure, you will have cases where guys who deserve the best earn the best, but you're also empowering those toxic leaders to take care of their own more than they're doing now.



This is such a toxic practice. Once upon a time I worked in was made-up entirely of people that had started at the bottom of the company and busted their butts to work their way up. The company made a smart decision in limiting who they'd hire for the role to people that had progressed through a process, but then went full dumb dumb in subjecting those folks to stack-ranking. This was especially problematic as the company would cull the bottom quartile of each group's stack every 6 months. That might be ok for an organization with a lot of new faces that aren't panning out, but to eject people that had earned their position through actual merit simply because their manager _had _to rank someone the worst was stupid of the company/demoralizing for its employees. This would also frequently put the business in a position where they had to back-fill an experienced/high performer from bodies in a talent pool that in some instances didn't have any viable candidates, resulting in a lot of people "failing upwards" and actually lowering the bar for the group rather than raising it.


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## Brill (Sep 16, 2015)

racing_kitty said:


> Sounds to me like mediocrity will be encouraged, and *only the truly talented in verbal fellatio will advance.*



Holy cow...going to use that tomorrow in the office!


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## DA SWO (Sep 16, 2015)

racing_kitty said:


> Sounds to me like mediocrity will be encouraged, and only the truly talented in verbal fellatio will advance.


You put it so nicely, I always said VBJ, or verbal Blow Job.  So eloquent you are.


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## ThunderHorse (Sep 19, 2015)

Although I'm a Cavalry Officer, I'm the Squadron S1 until I go to CCC pretty much.  The new NCOER was supposed to go live on 1 JUN but was pushed to 1 JAN.  

You can say it penalizes people in SOF, but it doesn't.  It penalizes everyone, because I could have three amazing section sergeants as a PL, but I'm only able to rate 1 with a top block and the other two won't get that.  Also, unless they give you some credits, there's no way a PL will be able to give his PSG a top block.

Current NCOER system is over-inflated, at my SQDN, my CSM here and at our previous SQDN seemed to make it his mission to deflate the system.  Which, just screwed over a lot of good NCOs.  At least here he stopped screwing with NCOERs where the SCO didn't have to sign.

Verbiage, for both Officers and NCOs, having just overseen board certification for April's unreleased CPT's board and this year's OSB for CPTs.  HRC has said pretty blatantly to me, if you can't give them a top block, but they deserved a top block, you write comments the same as you would for a top block that received a top block.

Promotion boards need to be well versed on what's going on, because I can see that a lot of folks won't be making SFC again.


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## Marauder06 (Sep 19, 2015)

I agree wholeheartedly that it punishes everyone.  There are far too many things that are completely outside the rated individual's control for this to be an effective means of talent management.  It's even worse in elite/selective units.


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## AWP (Sep 19, 2015)

ThunderHorse said:


> HRC has said pretty blatantly to me, if you can't give them a top block, but they deserved a top block, you write comments the same as you would for a top block that received a top block.



Then why bother with a new system if there's a pseudo-work around being passed along by HRC? You can't make up this stuff, the Army continually manages to out Army Strong the Army.

What a crock.


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## Il Duce (Sep 19, 2015)

A top block write-up is not the same as a top-block.  It's the next best thing but when going in front of a board with a tough selection rate you're in a tough spot.


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## AWP (Sep 19, 2015)

Il Duce said:


> A top block write-up is not the same as a top-block.  It's the next best thing but when going in front of a board with a tough selection rate you're in a tough spot.



I totally understand, the STPA program in the 90's was similar in that a bad system was replaced with a bad system which was then gamed to the point where nothing changed. All of the Army's efforts are more or less wasted. People are going to game the system or find loopholes, but as an outsider it appears as though nothing was solved and it only made things worse.


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## ThunderHorse (Sep 19, 2015)

I think it deflates the NCOER a lot.  Whereas for the OER raters now have a profile, and before you could always get a top block.  The Senior Rate piece was the same.


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## DA SWO (Sep 20, 2015)

ThunderHorse said:


> I think it deflates the NCOER a lot.  Whereas for the OER raters now have a profile, and before you could always get a top block.  The Senior Rate piece was the same.


My understanding is the Sr Rater was limited in the number of top blocks they could give.
My wife has a few that were not top blocked, but had top block language, didn't stop her from getting promoted.


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## ThunderHorse (Sep 20, 2015)

The senior rater always have a limited number of top blocks but I don't think there was an automated system like EES currently is.  I don't think it will really affect a person that bad.  From the Senior rater, because that was the same as previous.  But the rater now has a profile as well.


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## SpongeBob*24 (Sep 20, 2015)

I agree, the NCOER is broke...but they tried to fix this wrong!


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## x SF med (Sep 21, 2015)

The NCOER system has been broken for a long time, and will continue to be broken. 

This has been truly evident throughout the  time of the All-Volunteer Army, most of those who join are outstanding and want to be there for the long haul, this is exacerbated in the SOF Arena, where you are screening for the best of the best and dropping them into a canned system designed for the lowest common denominator of the largest possible force. 

Example:  just the quantitative sample size of an Infantry Battalion to a Special Forces Battalion, then toss in the difference of Rank distribution...  logically and statistically there are going to be less stellar performers in the sample of an Infantry battalion, based solely on training and selection criteria ...  SOF units are already screened to standards far above the 'meets expectations' standards of the US Army, but are held to the standard t and z curves of the larger population.  True, it can be argued that the rating system smoothes those differences by comparing SOF to SOF and regular forces to regular forces, but.... notsomuch in top-end review for SNCO slots across the board.

Maybe the introduction of an annual, anonymous 360* rating conducted at each command could help fix the system, but I rather doubt it, because in the current culture, the cream does not always rise to the top, and vindictive repercussions would be the product.

A few thoughts, but no solutions...


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## ThunderHorse (Sep 21, 2015)

I always wondered what MSAF 360 was for.


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## AfroNinja267 (Oct 5, 2015)

So for someone considering joining the Army, this basically means that if you fall into a good unit, odds are you'll look worse on paper as a result? 

Follow up question, if the above is true, would you be better off attempting to achieve rank outside of those good units before joining them?

I don't want to come off as someone who's concerned about being promoted but it would definitely help to know how the new promotion system works before being at its mercy


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## Il Duce (Oct 5, 2015)

@AfroNinja267 you're worrying about some stuff that is waaaaaaay down the line for you.  Exceptional performance - knowing your job, being physically/mentally fit, becoming a good leader - are going to set you apart with no worries all the way through E-6.  Most of the problems being discussed with the NCOER are the difficulties in separating field grade NCOs - E-7 and above.  You're not yet an E-1.  I think you'll have a pretty good idea how far from E-6 you are when you meet your drill sergeants.


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## AWP (Oct 5, 2015)

AfroNinja267 said:


> So for someone considering joining the Army, this basically means that if you fall into a good unit, odds are you'll look worse on paper as a result?
> 
> Follow up question, if the above is true, would you be better off attempting to achieve rank outside of those good units before joining them?
> 
> I don't want to come off as someone who's concerned about being promoted but it would definitely help to know how the new promotion system works before being at its mercy



By the time it matters it may not matter. You are years out and anything could happen. As for certain units, by the time this topic becomes an issue you'll already be in those units are assessing inito those units.

In other words, don't worry about it and if you're still worrying the other branches are hiring.


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