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The Navy must make human resources management a top priority, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark said this week.

"We have not been as disciplined or as vigorous in our manpower [management] as we should have been," Clark said at the Navy Workforce Research and Analysis conference in Arlington, Va., on Monday. He said crafting a human resources strategy would allow the service to eliminate excess personnel and retain and recruit a more skilled workforce.

Clark said the Navy spends more than two-thirds of its roughly $120 billion annual budget on personnel costs associated with its 380,000 active duty sailors, 12,000 reservists, 180,000 civilian workers and 230,000 contract employees. Like large corporations, the Navy must manage people as an asset that comes with a price, Clark said.

The Navy's top officer cited concerns about whether the service has more personnel than it needs. Clark said he was surprised that during the height of Operation Iraqi Freedom only about 55 percent of the Navy was deployed. "Where are all those [other] people?" he asked.

Clark said the Navy could save $1.2 billion for every 10,000 sailors it cuts from the force. "We will invest whatever we need [in personnel], but I don't want to invest one penny we don't need," he said.

But Clark also said that cutting the size of the force would require the Navy to do a better job recruiting and training its sailors.

Clark said the service will seek to stop assigning sailors to jobs they do not want, a practice derisively known as "slamming." Over the past year, the number of "slams" in the Navy has fallen from as much as 30 percent of all job assignments to 1.5 percent.

The Navy also has begun using online auctions to find personnel for hard-to-fill jobs, particularly in overseas and information technology positions. The auctions allow sailors to bid for a job based on how much extra monthly pay they would be willing to take to accept a particular post. Since last summer, the Navy has filled about 800 positions by giving sailors an average of $250 a month in extra pay.

"There is more to be gained to by finding the right human resource strategy than just about anything else we can take on," Clark said.

COMMENTS

• When the Navy looks to improve the management of personnel, care should be taken to consider the untapped resources that reside in the ranks of Military and Civilian Service retirees. I am a retired Federal Civil Servant with 37 years of Navy enlisted and civil service who volunteers quite extensively in my community. I would really like to have an opportunity to apply the experience and expertise that the Navy paid for me to develop over the course of the last 37 Years toward helping the Navy. My initial inquiries were met with a negative response, not because the help was not wanted, but because the laws don’t allow such volunteerism. I understand that there is legislation now in Congress to allow such efforts. Hopefully this legislation is being actively supported by the Navy. Although I have no study data at my disposal, I can’t believe that my desire to serve in such a fashion is unique. I have met a host of men and women during my years of enlisted and civilian service who share my love of the Navy and who like me were ready to retire and may also be reluctant to commit to a 40 hour work week, but who may welcome an opportunity to once again serve in a less structured environment. GovExec.com reader Posted April 4, 2004 2:03 PM
• The good CNO makes a valid point. When will he start culling the Admiral Corp? For instance where I work the ratio is one Admiral/ SES for every 40 people. Think about what that would mean to GE or IBM or a knowledge-based worldwide consulting firm. Maybe the model was established during WWII when it was something like six to one support to operational. That's changed or requires revalidation. A honest revalidation as opposed to bringing in Mitre or BAH and saying here's the answer give me a report. Asset Posted April 4, 2004 8:06 AM