SECNAV orders review of fitness, advancement changes

A month after Navy Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced far-reaching personnel policy moves in a speech at the Naval Academy, May, 13 in Annapolis some very bold goals, he's released an ALNAV to the Navy and Marine Corps that adds new details and deadlines and a few new details.

Officials say the purpose of his ALNAV message, published FridayJune 11, XXX/XX which was released June XX is to "codify" many of the new initiatives announced in the Annapolis speech and set formal goals and timelines for much — but not all of what he announced was in the work.

"We are moving forward with multiple initiatives that will impact every sailor and Marine," Mabus said in the ALNAV 050/15 opening of the message, released Thursday. "Some will be implemented immediately, others in the coming months and years."

Some goals — and how the service will deliver on them — remain murkycloudy, such as Mabus' call to make women a quarter of the Navy and Marine Corps, a landmark change that will require more recruiting and much better retention. Personnel officials say he's not backing down, and details on this initiative are expected to be revealed in an upcoming message., the this message is expected to be the first of many over the next few months.

Both the Navy and Marine Corps are responsible for certain blocks of mandatory training each year. Sailors have both Navy and DoD-mandated training topics that must be addressed done periodicallysome periodicity. But Mabus sees these requirements, which have grown over the years as a distraction to commanders. In the past two years, the number of big Navy-mandated topics has dropped.

Officials say the deadline set by Mabus was met, at least for Navy-mandated GMT. So, Now CO's can decide what training to mandate, based on the command's training needs. They can also decide whether training is done online or by an instructor in a classroom.

Personnel officials say those discussions could take some time and result in the Navy convincing them on new ways to deliver the training, such as through interactive games as the Navy has proposed and will field for some GMT topics starting in 2016.

Mabus' speech called the Navy's current physical fitness test "a high-stakes, bi-annual crucible that often results in sailors resorting to drastic, unhealthy measures" to ensure they pass.

Fitness requirements the message says, should "properly measure the conditioning required to complete the specific mission," according to the ALNAV. "They will integrate spot checks between test cycles and [ensure] there are programs in place to recognize individuals for superior physical achievement, including documented performance on fitness reports and evals."

Sources tell Navy Times, The Navy is planning to try new methods of assessing body composition and will look into a ribbon or medalsawards to recognize superior fitness, something service officials have long fought instituting.

But now the time is right, Mabus says and says that By the end of 2015, Mabus wants new programs in place that "promote a year-round culture of health and fitness."

And Getting there has a short fuse. The message gives the Navy The message states that within 60-days of the ALNAV's release, both the Navy aand Marine Corps 60 days to have their plans on will have plan on Mabus' desk describing their new way ahead.

Navy personnel officials say tell Navy Times their proposal is nearly done and currently is in routing through Chief of Naval Operations Jon Greenert and could be delivered to the secretaryon the secretary's desk well ahead of schedulethe deadline.

In the meantime, Mabus wants the services to adjust fitness center hours to improve access, especially for those who get to work early or stay late. nsure that everyone has access to a place to work out, regardless of their work schedule.

In his speech, Mabus He also wants the outlined specific goals for both the Navy and Marine Corps to revamp their chow halls to and stated in the message his desire they "provide more healthy eating options at sea and shore facilities."

In the speech, he said the dietary effort will start in fiscal 2016, with one sea-based and one shore dining facility experimenting with more healthy and nutritious food. This effort, though in the planning stages will be discussed in future messages, sources said.

Child care for active-duty women and families is one of the foremost retention concerns that Navy officials say they hear. Navy officials have been hearing from service women and families that one of the major retention issues is ensuring their children are cared for while they're at work.

While it's not feasible to do that for while making every center, round the clock would be nice, it's not feasible, officials say, the service would like to gradually expand in that direction. Starting Oct. 1, all of the services' child care facilities will be open four more hours each day, two hours earlier and two hours laterextend their hours by four hours — two at each end of the day.

The services must provide more flexibility for sailors and MarinesFor those with newborn children, according to the ALNAVMabus says, the services needs to offer more flexibility. In his speech, Mabus he announced the service is proposing legislation to double paid maternity leave from 6 to 12 weeks. In addition, service officials plan to change policy to "better support paternity and adoption leave," though the ALNAV it doesn't state how this will happen.

In addition, Mabus wrote, in the message that a new DoD policy will allow the services to ensure more dual spouse military couples are co-located. a coming revision of Department of Defense policy for the assignment of dual-service military couples, the Navy and Marine Corps will now be better able to insure more military spouse co-location. Officials say they are working out the details with DoD and the other services and more information will come in future messages.

On July 1, the Command Advancement Program will become the Meritorious Advancement Program, officials tell Navy Times, and the first spot advancement promotioneritorious Advancement "season" will begin. Skippers of sea duty commands can spot promote advance their best sailors to E-4, E-5 and E-6 in the three-month window that ends Sept.ember 30th. during which they're asking sea duty commanding officers to advance their best sailors ahead of the fall exam cycle.

An even bigger change is in the works. The following year,This year, the Navy will change the name from the Command Advancement Program to the Meritorious Advancement Program.Next year, the Navy will more changes will come to will be instituted to vastly increase the number of sailors that commands can who can be spot advanced by their commands. As MAP replaces the Traditionally, commands have used what up to now has been called theCommand Advancement Program,CAP, officials hope to change both the culture and the use of the program'sculture and use in the fleet. Some sailors have griped that, up to now, the intent of the program had been subverted the , which some had griped was used to help sailors facing high-year tenure caps, rather than reward the top performers. much like a medal to reward sailors with a new stripe for exceptional performance, or on the other end of the spectrum, to save a struggling sailor from high-year tenure.

MAP will Personnel officials are trying to grant that wish through morphing the existing CAP into one that allows grant authority for more fleet-based advancements for top performers, of the top performing sailors, letting the rest battle for quotas through the semi-annual Navy-wide advancement exams cycles.

Also bBy October, the beginning of fiscal year 2016, he says the Navy will have a plan in place to expand the number of spot advancement quotas to 5 percent of the total operational force, including those on shore duty.

"Marine Corps will continue to maximize its use of Meritorious Promotion Boards," Mabus wrote. Sources tell Navy Times, the Corps' already meritoriously promotes to nearly the 5 fivepercent figure he's looking to expand the Navy to next year.

Changes to officer personnel management will start soon with the establishment of an Office of Talent Optimization at the Naval Academy in Annapolis by September of this year.

This office will assess the military's needs and align military needs with "current and future educational and labor market conditions." They're hoping the office will help with service selection in the future to better align the talents of officers with the Navy's needs and "align those developing talents to long-term war fighting requirements."

But evenThough based at Annapolis, this effort to revamp an officer's initial assignments could eventually reach way beyond the banks of the Severn River and the ranks of the Academy Brigade.

Because even though initially it's being developed to help Academy Midshipmen get plugged into the career path that best meets their talents and abilities, Eventually, this could also "inform the assignment process for sailors and Marines entering the service from other commissioning sources."

Beyond officer accessions improvement, Mabus also wants to ditchtotally rework the long-standing policies of year-groups and other hard and fast career milestones that have made the officer corps Navy a rigid, "up or out" system.

Instead of a rigid set of the mandatory career milestones that exist today in all officer communities, what Mabus wants is a way to take into account more of the "total officer" when looking at promotions and career potential.

This is seen as a key factor in future retention — especially for women — something the service must have to compete with private sector companies that can often pay more and that already provide more already have flexible career choices in place.

To do this, he wants to offer more sabbaticals and a robust internship program that will allow officers to mingle with corporate counterparts to learn and bring back best practices backto the Navy and Marine Corps.

BMabus would like to see more sailors take advantage of the sabbaticals become mainstream and get away from the niche program it's been since it was first piloted By the navy nearly a decade ago. He's petitioning Congress to expand the Career Intermission Program, which allows them to take up to three years off. ing absence from the service for up to three years to pursue goals of their choosing.

Another enticement he sees as necessary is expanding graduate school opportunities for officers as soon as possible.

Mabus said in his speech that he wants a more diverse force and, specifically, he wants to increase the numbers of women in the ranks.

He'd like to see women comprise a quarter of the Navy, and of every fleet, unit to be women by 2025. In addition, he says he wants every operational billet to be open to women as well — giving them an equal footing in the service as men.

But the message doesn't detail how the service will achieve these goals, which would require a sea change in female recruiting and retention to come anywhere close to reality. Details on this initiative are likely in later messages, officials say.