New manning plan yields more sea duty - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

New manning plan yields more sea duty

DALLAS — The Navy will send more sailors to sea in coming months and years as part of a new manning plan that emphasizes sea duty over shore duty.

As shore billets are slashed and the drawdown to a 320,000-person force has now been defined — nearly 20,000 fewer sailors than on active duty now — manpower officials say the percentage of sea-duty billets will increase and shore duty itself will more closely resemble a sea-duty tour.

In addition, Navy planners have announced that a 5/3 sea-shore rotation policy will soon become the fleet standard. That means five years of mandated sea time and three years ashore for most, but not all, sailors; exceptions to that model are expected, said the Navy’s chief of personnel, Vice Adm. John C. Harvey. Harvey shared the plans with sailors attending the annual conference of Navy career counselors here June 26.

“Sailors should recognize that we are becoming a more sea-centric force,” Harvey told the counselors, who will pass the gouge down to the deck plates. “As the number of Navy missions and operations increases, even some shore-intensive ratings will move in the direction of 5/3 in the future.”

That said, under new assignment and rotation plans, no sailor will have more than a five-year mandated sea tour or fewer than three years ashore unless he chooses to, Harvey said.

And sailors serving in ratings that have a large billet base at sea can voluntarily extend their sea tour lengths and be compensated for it, Harvey said. On June 25, officials expanded the fledgling Sea Duty Incentive Pay pilot program to offer more money to more sailors in ratings that urgently need sailors to do longer sea tours.

Harvey said his office intends to create other quality-of-life initiatives to ensure that more sea time doesn’t result in a mass exodus from the ranks.

“No one is involuntarily assigned to sea tours greater than five years, and we are establishing that a sea-to-shore ratio of 5-to-3 will be the upper limit for mandated tours,” he said. That includes ratings which, in theory, have requirements that exceed that metric because they have more billets at sea.

The reality is that many sea-intensive ratings have seen their existing shore duty cut drastically in the current drawdown.

What was once a Navy-wide average of 70 percent shore duty to 30 percent sea duty is fast becoming a 50/50 split.

Sea-intensive ratings are in danger of becoming more sea-centric, while traditional shore-duty jobs are heading to sea.

Harvey’s manning plans will need to ensure both sets of sailors are managed properly under new sea-shore rotation metrics.

For example, given the shipboard duties of an Aegis-qualified fire controlman, sea-to-shore rotations should be 8-to-3. But that ratio is untenable, Harvey admitted.

Still, many ratings are in similar predicaments. You only have to look at who’s being offered SDIP to stay at sea, Harvey says, to see where the challenges are.

The Navy uses sea-shore rotation to ensure sailors aren’t overworked or over-deployed during their careers, and are guaranteed time at home. Some ratings with few or no shipboard billets measure it as in-ConUS or out-ConUS duty.

A rating’s sea-shore ratio is directly tied to the number of billets and whether they’re sea duty, and as such, ratios have varied widely from rating to rating.

By setting what Harvey called a “fleet standard” for sea-shore rotation, sailors should have more manageable and predictable tours of duty. Still, the new plan doesn’t mean every sailor in the Navy will serve a 5/3.

“We understand that some ratings lean toward shore duty, and by their nature will see sea-shore rotations less than 5/3,” Harvey said. “We will not increase sea tour lengths under these circumstances to artificially meet the ‘standard’ upper limit.”

Still, he said, it’s likely that even these ratings could get closer to that ratio in the future.

Quality of life improvements

To help mitigate the new at-sea realities of a downsized, wartime Navy, officials hope to keep people in the service by making their lives better when they’re at home, Harvey said.

And in the end, the antiquated sea-shore rotation policies could in fact be replaced with an as-yet-unannounced new strategy for ensuring sailors achieve a balance in duty types during their careers.

“We are in the early stages of determining how to transition our current sea-shore rotation business practices to achieve four desired outcomes for our people,” Harvey said. “What sailors want is geographic stability; deployment predictability; increased professional and personal development; and continually satisfying work.”

Getting there is the job of Harvey’s sea-shore rotation working group, which is currently examining new ways of doing business. That includes multicrewed ships — such as the Littoral Combat Ship — operational-to-operational support deployment rotations, and new incentives and compensation systems.

None of the other ideas has yet been fleshed out; SDIP is the first of these new initiatives to be launched, paying sailors extra money for spending more time on sea duty.

And more changes are on the way. This year, Congress is scheduled to change the law for sea pay to allow sailors from multicrewed vessels such as LCS to be able to collect their sea pay even when not physically attached to a ship.

Harvey said he likes those sorts of policies and is searching for more like them.

“I’m not in any rush here,” Harvey said. “The sea-shore rotation working group is doing a comprehensive analysis of SSR for every single rating — it’s a long and intensive process, but we’re not looking for an easy button here — we’re looking for a better button.”

However, the expansion of the Sea Duty Incentive Pay pilot program is clearly on the fast track.

In an effort to relieve pressure on overstressed ratings, Harvey announced new additions to the pilot program in NavAdmin 162/07, released June 25. It’s a program that officials believe has the potential to keep some sailors at sea longer without breaking their backs.

SDIP pays sailors in selected ratings and paygrades a lump sum of as much as $18,000 to extend their sea duty past their normal rotation or terminate shore duty and to return to sea.

Officially, SDIP remains an 18-24 month pilot program. The first sailors to get the pay were E-8 and E-9 aviation boatswain’s mates, enginemen first class and Aegis fire controlmen second class in 10 critical naval enlisted classifications.

Officials have now added more paygrades to three of those initial ratings: E-7 aviation boatswain’s mate (handling), E-5 and E-9 engineman, and E-6 through E-9 Aegis FCs are now eligible, as well.

The new ratings and paygrades on the list are E-7 aviation ordnanceman, E-9 damage controlman, E-5 non-nuclear — surface-qualified electrician’s mate, E-6 through E-9 submarine navigational electronics technician, E-9 surface machinist’s mate and submarine-qualified weapons machinist’s mate. Payment is a lump sum calculated by multiplying the monthly payout by the number of months the sailor agrees to extend at sea or the number of months of shore duty he elected to leave behind.

This means a sailor whose rating-paygrade combination nets a monthly equivalent of $750 could get $9,000 for agreeing to an extra year of sea duty, while a sailor eligible for $500 a month can get $6,000 for the same extra year.