It's finally happening . . . Big Navy is canning the stack rank FITREP/Eval

[nittany03]

https://www.navytimes.com/articles/all-new-evals

Sorely needed reform. Sounds like they are making an honest effort to, among other things, try to take "sustained superior timing" out of the equation.

 

[Uncle Fester]

I like the idea of 'rolling' due dates, rather than all (paygrade) reports due in (month). But the article only mentions the report after a year onboard. I assume it's yearly thereafter? If I report in June then I get my fitrep every June until I detach? If I detach in September, do I get a detaching fitrep?

Mostly I'm glad they're getting rid of reporting senior average and peer-group rack/stack. Those two items were so 'gamed' they were essentially useless.

 

[IKE]

• Changing the current five-point assessment scale to one that grades sailors using a nine-point scale.

There’s a lot of science out there that says you get a lot better granularity in reporting when you do something closer to a 10-point system...

I disagree here. Higher granularity? Sure. But I think that's at the cost of higher variability between reporting seniors. In other words, we'll be precisely inaccurate.
I've read articles supporting the opposite opinion: that any more than 5 steps on a grading scale results in a bit of randomness. I think we could mostly agree on the difference between a 3.0, 4.0, or 5.0 performer. Good luck explaining the difference between a 7/9 and a 8/9 performer.

 

[sevenhelmet]

Call me cynical, but I'm mentally putting this in the same category as "getting rid of" NKO and YGs.


At least the phasing out of blueberries turned out to be real. Couldn't happen fast enough to suit me.

 

[ChuckMK23]

I work for a company (GE) that has completely abandoned performance reviews altogether (going on 3 years now) - best thing this company has ever done IMHO.

Reading this thread - I almost get a rash thinking about the fitrep and ranking process in Big Navy. Such utter bullshit. Its perverse.

"I flew a lot, got the mission accomplished, and didn't break anything and brought my crew home alive" was my best career summary (sic).

 

[SynixMan]

Just like the "rating change", the Devil is gonna be in the details. If this perpetuates the current system in a different form, it's a window dressing fail. If it allows COs to honestly evaluate talent without the restrictions (regular cycle/CoC timing, forced stack rankings, etc), it could be good. The JOPA Hunger Games created by the sequester around quals, flight hours, "career enhancing ground jobs", "career path", & golden children will likely continue, regardless of our performance evaluation type.

I do have some hope for the Enlisted sailors in this. A shit hot E6 showing up and getting ranked at the bottom is and was always bullshit.

 

[RobLyman]

Meh..FITREP SCHMITREP. Find the mythical system that encourages a CO to spend more time getting to know his JOs instead of looking after his own career and you might be on to something. In my small experience spanning 30 years it never really is the system that is at fault. I have been both a victim and a benefactor of several FITREP and OER systems. It is never the system's fault. It is the individual or the rater who is almost always to blame for a bad rating.

For example:

The Army uses a "top block" in their OERs. You must be in the upper 49% to get that block checked. A rater's profile is tracked by HRC and they get pinged for going above 49%. Lately I got an OER where I was not top blocked. It was the first since making my current rank and was by a rater who did not know me. I had been "loaned out" to the brigade and my rater was a platoon leader in a company. Despite me asking him several times to come to the brigade to see what I do on the SIPR side, he was too lazy. As a former O-4, old enough to be his father, I had no problem addressing it with him. It turns out he based the OER on rumors that I was not performing at the company level. When I produced hard evidence that he was wrong and that I had been clearly out performing his favorite (another story), his boss fixed the discrepancy by becoming my rater. You could discount this as anecdotal, but I have seen this behavior in both the Navy and Army. You would be a fool to rely solely on your boss to recognize your performance. You have to sell yourself. But if your boss is a poor judge of character and cannot recognize real performance? No FITREP/OER system in the world will fix that.

These bosses are the ones who force and encourage ass kissing vs real performance. Again, show me a system that fixes that and you might be on to something.

 

[BigRed389]

Meh..FITREP SCHMITREP. Find the mythical system that encourages a CO to spend more time getting to know his JOs instead of looking after his own career and you might be on to something. In my small experience spanning 30 years it never really is the system that is at fault. I have been both a victim and a benefactor of several FITREP and OER systems. It is never the system's fault. It is the individual or the rater who is almost always to blame for a bad rating.

For example:

The Army uses a "top block" in their OERs. You must be in the upper 49% to get that block checked. A rater's profile is tracked by HRC and they get pinged for going above 49%. Lately I got an OER where I was not top blocked. It was the first since making my current rank and was by a rater who did not know me. I had been "loaned out" to the brigade and my rater was a platoon leader in a company. Despite me asking him several times to come to the brigade to see what I do on the SIPR side, he was too lazy. As a former O-4, old enough to be his father, I had no problem addressing it with him. It turns out he based the OER on rumors that I was not performing at the company level. When I produced hard evidence that he was wrong and that I had been clearly out performing his favorite (another story), his boss fixed the discrepancy by becoming my rater. You could discount this as anecdotal, but I have seen this behavior in both the Navy and Army. You would be a fool to rely solely on your boss to recognize your performance. You have to sell yourself. But if your boss is a poor judge of character and cannot recognize real performance? No FITREP/OER system in the world will fix that.

These bosses are the ones who force and encourage ass kissing vs real performance. Again, show me a system that fixes that and you might be on to something.

Agree.

The current system definitely has some "decoding" that needs to be done, but it's a relatively level playing field for the raters because everybody is playing the same game. The ones that don't play by the rules just end up fucking over their own people.

Not sure how the next system is supposed to fix any of that...if it doesn't actually tie to relevant changes in the selection boards or advancement, it's not a meaningful change (other than to maybe make people feel better).

 

[bert]

Changing to a 9 point scale will allow a lot more flexibility for COs in maintaining their averages, while also allowing greater degrees of breakout for above average ratings.*

* I'm assuming comparing trait averages to the CO's average will be even more helpful in understanding how a CO really felt about somebody.

 

[ChuckMK23]

So besides flight hours, making quals such as Aircraft Commander on time, what does success look like?

 

[Gatordev]

On the CNP Talking Points email I got today, I noticed that they're divying up the types of FITREPs into a more peer-type group. O-1/0-2, O-3/O-4, E-1/E-3, etc. Interestingly, there was no mention of E-7 to E-9. I have to admit that irritates me a bit.

So besides flight hours, making quals such as Aircraft Commander on time, what does success look like?

The only place I've seen flight hours matter is at CNATRA, and I'm not convinced that's as good a metric as some CO's thought it was. There were plenty of guys that walked from the aircraft back to aircraft issue carrying a big fat pencil.

Other items that indicate success: successfully running a division or department, to include production bullets and items that show you took care of your people. Of course everyone is a hero in a FITREP write-up, but certain words indicate how much truthiness is in the verbiage.

As Rob mentioned, there's always going to be a system to game, but if by the time you're a shore-tour O-3 or salty E-6 you haven't figured out how to game it, that's not the fault of the system.

 

[IKE]

Changing to a 9 point scale will allow a lot more flexibility for COs in maintaining their averages, while also allowing greater degrees of breakout for above average ratings.*

* I'm assuming comparing trait averages to the CO's average will be even more helpful in understanding how a CO really felt about somebody.

I missed that paragraph, which kind of indicates the new system may ultimately just be a higher resolution version of the old system where individual trait average vs. RS CUM is a major factor.

 

[jtmedli]

Just like the "rating change", the Devil is gonna be in the details. If this perpetuates the current system in a different form, it's a window dressing fail. If it allows COs to honestly evaluate talent without the restrictions (regular cycle/CoC timing, forced stack rankings, etc), it could be good. The JOPA Hunger Games created by the sequester around quals, flight hours, "career enhancing ground jobs", "career path", & golden children will likely continue, regardless of our performance evaluation type.

I do have some hope for the Enlisted sailors in this. A shit hot E6 showing up and getting ranked at the bottom is and was always bullshit.

The golden children thing, "golden path" thing, and career enhancing (read: shitty, hard fill) jobs will continue so long as the Navy continues to overman and waste junior officers. Big Navy has a very expensive and wasteful luxury in that they have the funding and training pipeline that gives them the option of getting "quality from quantity" (best way I've heard it explained) rather than investing in their people. No amount of FITREP fanciness and rewriting will change the fact that Big Navy values the golden path and shitty disassociated tours more than they value keeping experienced aviators in the cockpit.

If anything, I see this just screwing over good people until the Navy until those of us who sign people's FITREPs and Evals learn how to play the 'new game'.

 

[ChuckMK23]

I'm flabbergasted by this thread that you guys feel so strongly about FITREPS and that as pilots and NFO's any of you give a shit what your front office thinks.

Times have changed. What ever happened to :

1. Fly as much as possible, become awesome in the cockpit. Become expert at your mission and aircraft - but make it look easy and dont be seen working too hard

2. Get your Chief or LPO to do your ground job

3. Drink and have fun

 

[jtmedli]

I'm flabbergasted by this thread that you guys feel so strongly about FITREPS and that as pilots and NFO's any of you give a shit what your front office thinks.

Times have changed. What ever happened to :

1. Fly as much as possible, become awesome in the cockpit. Become expert at your mission and aircraft - but make it look easy and dont be seen working too hard

2. Get your Chief or LPO to do your ground job

3. Drink and have fun

It turned into;
1) the "best" jobs are there ones where you fly the least but still fly.
2) get uber-qualified to do mission you'll never do but look like you do on paper
3) be seen working wayyy too hard as much as possible because, if you don't, someone else will. Being the last one to leave work is a good start on this
4) ground job matters more than flying. Chief "teaches you how to be an officer".
5) drink and have fun