Unveiling what he called “the most consequential changes to our officer promotion system in over 30 years,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced policies that will revamp the current advancement system known as “up-or-out.”
“Up-or-out is not broken. In fact, it’s an essential and highly successful system,” Carter said in a Pentagon speech Thursday. “But it’s also not perfect.”
To illustrate the how the current system can be “too rigid,” Carter cited the example of Army Lt. Joseph Riley, a Rhodes Scholar and the nation’s top ROTC cadet in 2013. Because Riley spent two years at Oxford instead of holding the typical military jobs, he almost didn’t get promoted and was on track to be separated, but for the last minute intervention of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.
“We can’t have a system that inadvertently almost kicks out a Rhodes scholar just because the calendar tells us to,” Carter said.
The new policy will allow military personnel to defer their promotion boards, while they pursue less traditional career paths and then give them time to meet all requirements before they’re considered for promotion. The idea is to retain more top-notch officers who might otherwise jump to more lucrative jobs in the civilian sector.
Other changes announced by Carter includes new rules that would put more emphasis on merit and less on seniority in promotion decisions, as well as broaden the kinds of jobs where civilians can enter the service at a high rank because of scientific or technical expertise.
Such an exception already exist for doctors, but in most other specialized fields, there’s no way for the services to recruit highly skilled civilians without having them start at the lowest ranks.
“This can be problematic in some very specific areas, such as cyber and other scientific and technical fields, where jobs are not only high-skill, but also hard-to-fill, rapidly changing, and in high demand by the private sector,” Carter said.
The changes outlined Thursday are the latest in adjustments to Defense Department personnel policies under Carter’s “Force of the Future” initiative, designed to recruit, develop and retain the most talented men and women.
Previous changes included more family friendly policies such as expanding maternity and paternity leave, and expanding connections to the tech industry.
