Sailors man the rails of the USS Gerald R. Ford as they depart Naval Station Norfolk, Va., in June 2021. (Angel Thuy Jaskuloski/U.S. Navy)
A new Navy promotion system for junior enlisted sailors that will base advancement on time in the service will take effect Monday.
Under the new policy, which was announced last year, sailors will be promoted to E-2 after nine months, E-3 after 18 months and E-4 after 30 months.
The policy effectively does away with a system that delayed junior advancement in more crowded job fields and at one time required high scores on examinations that were administered twice a year, which made the Navy an outlier among the services.
Under the new system, sailors must maintain their commanding officer’s retention recommendation and meet the time requirement.
Meritorious advancements will still be available for E-3 sailors with the necessary experience and their commanding officer’s endorsement.
The new policy excludes sailors in nuclear, advanced technical and electronics fields, who already have a faster path to E-4 because of additional service obligations.
Known as Apprentice Advancement Alignment, the system aims to streamline the advancement process and provide sailors with clear expectations for their career progression, according to Navy officials.
The Navy will phase in the new policy, heavily weighting the fall advancement cycle’s calculations toward time in service, with significantly increased quotas for rates that traditionally advance more slowly than others.
Sailors who still require eligibility for their next rank by Monday will be automatically enrolled in the Apprentice Advancement Alignment program, with those over the 30-month mark being phased in throughout the year.
The policy is part of the service’s efforts to promote with “increased flexibility, transparency, and greater geographic stability,” according to a 2022 service memo.
The Navy discontinued advancement exams for E-4 candidates starting in April 2020, when 20,000 exams couldn’t be administered due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although there were efforts to reschedule and stagger the exams, concerns about possible cheating and the need to adhere to mitigation measures overrode those attempts.
“I could only speculate the advancement exams themselves will be going away and replaced with the Rating Knowledge Exam” for sailors vying for pay grades E-5 and E-6, said a Navy educational services officer who requested anonymity in order to speak freely about the policy.
The new knowledge exam would cover the same material as the former advancement exam but be required only once per pay grade, or be taken multiple times if a sailor wants to improve their score.
Aviation boatswain’s mates and sailors working in damage control began taking the knowledge exam during the spring advancement cycle.
“In other words, the E-4 and junior sailors are going through an apprenticeship phase by learning their trade, and when they are eligible to advance to E-5 and E-6, they will take a Rating Knowledge Exam and compete for assignments to the next higher pay grade to fill the billet gap,” the educational services officer said.
