U.S. Navy Does Away With Fitness Test Failures to Improve Retention

Sailors with a Failure in physical fitness assessment A new Navy policy announced Thursday will give them a fresh start that will allow them stay in the Navy.

The shift is part and parcel of a Navy-wide campaign Rear Adm. James Waters III is the director of military personnel plans. He stated that this initiative aims at increasing accessions, retention, attrition, so that the service can reach its end-strength goal for 2023.

“This is connected because it clearly affects attrition, right? It will reduce attrition if we do not separate sailors based on past PFA failures,” Waters stated Wednesday that he was speaking to reporters. “But it came about through all of the analysis for this campaign plan, through a recognition that we don’t want to punish sailors because gyms were closed during the pandemic. We don’t want to disadvantage sailors.”

The Navy referred to the policy as a “one-time reset,” The policy applies to all active-duty sailors and Navy Reserve sailors who want to stay in the Navy and move up. There will be zero PFA failures in 2023 which will allow commanding officers the opportunity to reinstate retention or advancement recommendations. The policy does NOT apply to any other programs that evaluate past PFA failings, such as officer commissioning and selection or screening boards, special duty screenings, and so on.

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The Career Progression Department will cease processing administrative separation applications from officers who have been subject to PFA failures in the past. Their command will issue an evaluation to reinstate retention and advancement eligibility for enlisted personnel according to a naval administrative notice.

“We expect this reset to balance challenges sailors had in preparing for and completing physical fitness assessments throughout the pandemic and also allow experienced and talented sailors to remain in the Navy,” Waters said. “We think this reset could allow up to 1,500 sailors to remain in the service who might otherwise be separated. Requirements and standards remain constant.”

The Navy was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. One PFA Each calendar year instead of two. Waters indicated that the current plan is not to restart two PFAs in FY24.

According to Navy Times, the Navy exceeded its retention goals for FY22. It is now ahead of retention goals for this fiscal year. The service met its objectives. Recruitment goals for active duty enlisted personnel in FY22However, they failed to reach the recruitment targets for reserve and active duty officers as well as reserve enlisted personnel.

Waters explained that the Navy has a clear understanding of the situation. “challenging” A lower propensity of serving, fewer eligible recruits, and a competitive labor market make it difficult for recruiting to occur. These challenges demand that the Navy implements. “course corrections” He liked the new policy.

Suspending is another initiative that was launched recently to improve retention and recruitment. enlisted high-year tenure For two years, sailors who have reached the high-year tenure threshold can remain in service.

The Navy also launched a Pilot Program in December The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery allows sailors with lower scores on the Armed Forces Qualification Test to continue their service. Prospective sailors who scored between 10th and 30th percentiles on the AFQT are now eligible to join the Navy, provided their individual ASVAB line scores are high enough for them to be eligible for a Navy rank.

“We’ve got to continue to be efficient,” While on vacation Dec. 8, Secretary of Navy Carlos Del Toro spoke to Defense News, a sister publication. “We’ve got to continue to provide incentives for our sailors to want to serve at sea, for example, motivate them. Not just from a financial perspective, but from a mission perspective and reward them in terms of promotions and things of that nature.”

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