The Navy is undergoing a major revamp in how it promotes across the ranks, starting with the way it moves up sailors to master chief petty officer, the top enlisted rank, Military.com reported.
In the current system, a board reviews all eligible sailors and decides who to promote in a process that is totally independent of the sailor's command or future assignments.
But starting next year, those two factors will be tied together in a new policy that Navy officials insist will get higher-ranking sailors into matching jobs more rapidly and provide sailors more control and transparency over their careers.
A Navy press release said that in the new policy, called "Bullet Based Advancement," senior chiefs who are eligible for promotion will now be "screened," and the sailors considered the "best and fully qualified" will become eligible to take part in a marketplace of available master chief positions throughout the Navy.
If chosen for a position, the promotion to master chief will occur as soon as they report to their new post.
"This is a fundamental shift in how we do business with respect to enlisted advancement," Rear Adm. Jim Waters said. "We think this process better aligns sailor talent with unit job requirements and seeks to advance sailors who are committed to staying Navy."
He said that he hopes the new policy will lead "to an increased amount of control that the sailor has in their career progression, because they have the ability to be identified for advancement and then make a choice as to where and when they go to be advanced while, at the same time, the Navy gets some incentive to fill those billets."
Vice Adm. Richard Cheeseman, the Navy's chief of personnel, said the new system should fix the problem of not getting newly promoted sailors into jobs that match their rank fast enough, which leads to "chronic misalignments between available talent and unit-level job requirements."
The service is planning to eventually use the same promotion system for most sailors, though for many junior ones the options for advancement will probably include posts in their current command.
The Navy also noted that some communities — such as the command senior enlisted leader program, the submarine force, the surface nuclear program, musicians, the Naval Special Warfare community, and sailors in the reserves — will continue using the old system.
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