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Over the last several years the Navy has invested considerable time and energy in developing a human resource strategy that emphasizes the link between personnel quality and operational readiness. Success will require the linkage of human resource approaches with the accomplishment of organizational goals; implementation of recruiting, selection, training, and retention approaches that foster mission accomplishment; and transformation to a results-oriented organizational culture. One human resource component that will play a vital role is personnel advancement. The process of identifying potential candidates for advancement, and selecting those to be promoted is critical for an organization's continuing success and productivity. Organizations use a variety of different personnel advancement systems to facilitate the decision-making process, and many of these systems incorporate multiple criteria to improve accurate evaluation of candidates. For Navy Enlisted Sailors, the current advancement system provides for the orderly progression of qualified personnel to higher levels of responsibility throughout their naval careers. Generally, advancement is based on demonstrated proficiency in assigned duties, on the performance evaluation and recommendation of the commanding officer, and on written examinations.

Over the last several years, the Navy has been developing new strategies for revolutionizing Navy strategic human capital management. This includes a renewed emphasis on approaching a Sailor's career as a lifelong learning continuum gauged toward producing motivated and well-trained Sailors. This perspective suggests that everyone has the capability to grow in some way, at anytime during their career. Thus, an important component of strategic human capital management is understanding and helping each individual realize that potential. At the heart of this initiative is what is known as "The Sailor Continuum," that incorporates five distinct vectors forming the foundation on which the Navy identifies the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) that Sailors need to succeed in today's Navy. This five-vector model encompasses: professional development, personal development, leadership, certifications and qualifications, and job performance. This broad vision sees the Sailor Continuum as an executable career roadmap and resume that precisely maps and measures an individual's career progress and identifies learning resources that lead to achieving career milestones, as the Sailor moves through the recruit, apprentice, journeyman, and master career levels. By allowing Sailors to identify and diagram different career paths, they will be better equipped to apply for educational opportunities and future duty assignments.

People are an indispensable element in mission accomplishment. Consequently, the Navy has begun to underscore the notion that a Sailor's career is a lifelong learning continuum. This strategy aims toward producing motivated and well trained Sailors who possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities to do their jobs. Initiatives such as Task Force EXCEL (Task Force for Excellence through Commitment to Education and Learning) and Sea Warrior have already begun to operationalize this strategy. The Task Force Excel Performance Vector Research Team (PVRT) recently completed development of new performance management and appraisal systems for all supervisory and non-supervisory personnel in the U. S. Navy. The new "counseling" component is known as the Human Performance Feedback and Development (HPFD) model. The performance appraisal component utilizes the behaviors identified in the HPFD model, and consists of one form for supervisory-level personnel and a separate form for non-supervisory-level personnel.

The objective of this study was to assess a pilot version of the Web-based, behaviorally based, performance management (HPFD) and appraisal system (ePerformance). Specifically, the objectives were to capture quantitative and objective data as well as qualitative and subjective data from participants to identify potential sources of error and user burden. To capture these data, the Performance Vector Research Team (PVRT) and RTI International conducted usability testing and user surveys. This study assessed problems and errors using the Web-based system and the users' perceptions about the proposed new system., RTI Project No. 09166.002.

When a single job is the target, established job analysis approaches provide relatively straightforward methods for identifying performance requirements. However, when multiple jobs are involved, the identification of a single set of relevant performance dimensions can be more daunting. In the application here, there was also a compelling requirement to develop a dimension set that conformed with U.S. Navy fleet personnel perceptions of the performance domain. Accordingly, the behavioral performance constructs that experienced Navy officers believed differentiate effective from ineffective supervisory performance were gathered using a personal construct theory protocol. We then used a methodology suggested by Borman and Brush (1993) to integrate and summarize these personal work constructs, to provide-through a series of qualitative and quantitative strategies-a dimension set targeted toward supervisors in all Navy communities. The resulting dimensions revealed certain themes that might not have emerged if traditional job analysis strategies had been used. The dimension set and the resulting behaviorally anchored rating scales appear widely relevant to Navy supervisor jobs, and the performance appraisal system that employs the scales is nearing implementation., Published in Military Psychology, v16 n4 p231-243, 2004. Prepared in cooperation with Organizational Solutions Group, Excelsior, MN, and Personnel Decisions Research Institutes, Minneapolis, MN.