FY 2012 Gunnery Sergeant Selection Board
March 27, 2012Per MARADMIN 091/12, the board will convene on 17 April 2012 for a period of about 8 weeks.
The ENLPROMMAN specifies that selection board members consider demonstrated performance/achievement, leadership, professional and technical knowledge, experience (type and level), growth potential, motivation, military proficiency, physical fitness, personal appearance, conduct, moral character, and maturity in order to determine who is “best and fully qualified” for selection.
Having previously served as a SNCO Selection Board member, and a member of numerous Remedial SNCO Selection Boards, I offer that completed fitness reports are carefully scrutinized to determine precisely who among the keen competition is “best and fully qualified” for selection. Incomplete records, as a result of missing fitness reports tended to diminish the Marine’s competitiveness, when being compared to their peers.
MARADMIN 091/12 also specifies that each Marine is personally responsible for ensuring the accuracy and completeness of his/her Official Military Personnel File (OMPF) and Master Brief Sheet (MBS).
MCO P1610.7F Performance Evaluation System (PES) includes the following guidance/direction:
The PES provides a continuous chain of fitness reports that cumulatively covers every day a Marine serves in the grades of sergeant through major general.
Reporting seniors are responsible for determining the fitness report requirements for their subordinate Marines, and preparing the reports. Reviewing officers must ensure the accuracy and timely submission of fitness reports, and take corrective action to prevent late submission of fitness reports.
The timely receipt of fitness reports (within 30 days of the end of the reporting period) by HQMC ensures complete and accurate updates of Marine’s OMPFs.
Though not in the reporting chain, all senior enlisted advisors have the responsibility to assist reporting officials and commanders in completing and processing enlisted fitness reports per provisions of this order.
According to a leader assigned at the Manpower Management Support Branch (MMSB), Marines that are eligible for consideration during the FY 2012 Gunnery Sergeant Board are currently missing over 400 fitness reports.
As the individual Marine does not prepare, review or submit their own fitness reports, is it appropriate for them to be personally responsible for the completeness of their OMPF/MBS?
After logging onto the M&RA website, I accessed MMSB-30, and conducted several MCC and RUC date gap queries. There is evidence that many unit leaders are very diligently fulfilling their duty to prevent and/or resolve missing fitness reports (to include date gaps). Perhaps those leaders are willing to share their best practices?
Comments
This seems the same in almost
This seems the same in almost all regards, in and out of the Service. When push comes to shove, one should *always* assume responsibility for a proper accounting of their job, successes, etc.
"Trust but verify" ... one considerable President once said. :)
Bradley
Responsibility should result in accountability
Bradley,
I agree that the individual Marine should be responsible for the accuracy and currency of information within the MCTFS. However, the PES specifies that the completion of fitness reports is one of an officer's most critical responsibilities, and inherent in this duty is the commitment of each reporting senior and reviewing officer to ensure timely reporting.
Unfortunately, the current reality is that individual Marines who are missing fitness reports suffer the greatest consequences.
Semper fi,
Rick
Rick, Well stated, and the
Rick,
Well stated, and the same is expected of managers in the civilian world. IMO, your call for 'best practices' from those doing a good job is a good one. I hope we get some suggestions!
Bradley
Reenlistment Prerequisite
On a separate, but related azimuth, per MCO 1040.31 a Marine is not qualified for reenlistment if they are missing a fitness report, or have a date gap of more than 30 days.
Reporting officials are responsible for preparing and submitting fitness reports. Is it truly fair to hold the individual Marine accountable for missing fitness reports and/or date gaps?
Semper Fi,
Rick
Concur, with a caveat
Rick,
Will your leadership and contributions to our Corps never cease? Glad to see you are still involved.
Like many of you I have personally seen cases where a Marine lost out on a promotion opportunity because of a missing fitrep that he had no control over, however in most cases Marines don't realize or take action on a missing fitrep until they come in zone for promotion, or submit for reenlistment. I do believe that enlisted Marines should not have to shoulder the entire burden of ensuring that their fitreps are submitted in a timely fashion, but I also feel that many could be much more proactive about fixing gaps. I am continually amazed by the numbers of Marines who are completely lost when it comes to the PES, their OMPF, and the SNCO promotion process.
Dylan
A learned skill
I greatly appreciate your words of confidence, Dylan.
I believe that our senior enlisted leaders have an obligation to teach their subordinate leaders how to effectively and proactively identify missing fitreps and date gaps, as well as inaccurate/missing information within the MCTFS, and to diagnose/implement the appropriate corrective action.
As we fulfill our mentoring roles at the Senior Enlisted Course, Kelly Scanlon and I systematically review the MCTFS records and Master Brief Sheets of each student, prior to their attendance. During the course, we sit down with each individual student and discuss the contents of both. Our primary objective is to offer them a time-tested method to both conduct such reviews, and to enable them to prepare their subordinates to do the same. Ideally, the senior enlisted leaders will instruct their immediate subordinates, who will then, in turn, teach their immediate subordinates. In my opinion, this is the most effective method of ensuring mutual understanding.
For your confidence, we also spend a significant amount of time addressing the SNCO selection board process within the course.
Along those lines, I'd like to offer a major trend that we have identified within fitness reports. The RS profiles and the RO comparative assessments are often in significant conflict with the Section I and Section K comments. In many cases, the MRO reads positive and favorable comments in Sections I and K, only to discover when the fitness report is posted within their MBS that the RS/RO ranked them in the bottom 1/3 of their grade peers.
I can provide numerous 'sanitized' examples of these contradictions upon individual request. For everyone's confidence, my objective is to improve the performance evaluation process, my intent is ABSOLUTELY NOT to impugn the character of any Marine leaders.
Semper Fi,
Rick
Rick, I am the victim of this
Rick,
I am the victim of this trend you mentioned in your post. When I was leaving Iraq I received a hard copy of my fitness report and it looked great at face value. The section I comments were awesome and I was "enthusiastically" recommended for promotion. I was pretty excited since it was my first combat Fitrep. My excitement would soon fade to anger when it posted to my OMPF. I found the Fitrep’s relative value was an 80! I’m sure you’re familiar with what an 80 means, especially during combat. Needless to say I was passed over for promotion that year and this Fitrep was a big part of the reason.
Since there was a huge discrepancy between the relative value and section I comments I assumed the RS made a mistake in his markings. I reached out to him and all he would say is that it "wasn't a mistake". This was shocking news because at no time was I made aware that my performance was below average. After his remarks, I can only assume the FitRep was a carefully designed stealth attack.
I immediately appealed the report to the Performance Evaluation Review Board (PERB). I appealed on the basis of paragraph 4012, subparagraph 2c of the PES, "The RS must take care when making section I comments to ensure they neither conflict with nor obscure the remainder of the evaluation”. I believe this is important because the contradictions between the Section I comments and the relative value are confusing and it forces leadership to interpret the meaning of the report. This open interpretation denies the Marine a fair and just evaluation. Ultimately, the PERB voted against removing the FitRep, stating it was “administratively correct”. But just because a Fitrep is “administratively correct” doesn’t mean it’s a fair evaluation. In my opinion, a FitRep can still adhere to the letter but not the spirit of the PES.The following quote from the PES best illustrates the importance of an accurate evaluation. “The completed fitness report is the most important information component in manpower management. It is the primary means of measuring a Marine’s performance”. As we all know, fitness reports hold a lot of weight in promotion boards. As such, they should be as accurate and fair to the Marine as possible. They should not be a surprise nor ambiguous, and if they are, they should be pulled from the Marines record.
I have a couple of ideas that could correct this trend. First, we should go back to signing fitness reports, this way they are more apt to be submitted on time and you know the Marine was briefed on his performance. Second, require RS's to debrief the MRO on his performance and where he falls out in his profile. This would lead to a more honest evaluation with no surprises.
MSgt S
Accountability
Rick,
Great points across the board regarding missing fitness reports and the effect they have on MROs as they compete in the board process.
When the PES first came on the scene a decade or so ago the problem of reporting seniors not completing fitreps with the inclusion of Section H: Fulfillment of Evaluation Responsibilities in the marked comments section of the report. Unfortunately, that block has become a throwaway in the grand scheme of things because it has no teeth; it provides a useless metric.
Along with the Section H the RS/RO Profile available from MOL lists how many reports that the writer has submitted late. Unfortunately that also has become a toothless metric because it is not used as an evaluative tool. It has just became a data point that shows that the writer missed the submission cycle on X occasions.
So how can the Marine Corps hold fitrep writers accountable, and to your point, reduce the number of Marines negatively affected by late or missing reports?
I would recommend making the metrics matter. Require the RO to annotate how many reports the RS submitted late during the reporting period, and require the RS to respond via Addendum Page entry as to why they were late. There are times when it is perfectly acceptable to have late reports, such as when conducting major combat operations or in case of an unscheduled deployment, but other than that the RS and RO should be able to get the fitreps in on time. Show the boards that the RS competes just how well he or she takes care of Marines.
Another recommendation would be to pull an RS or RO from consideration on their boards if they have outstanding/missing reports on their MROs.
I have written literally hundreds and hundreds of reports as both an RS and an RO, and I worked diligently to make sure that they were correct and timely. Did I sometimes miss the timeline on some reports? Sure. It will happen, and I could very easily articulate why they were late in case I was held to task by the boss. As an RS and RO I would have welcomed a rigorous standard that held me accountable for my fitreps; I think that if the Marine Corps made submission of fitreps an accountable metric for RS and ROs it you would see the number of outstanding reports plummet.
Anyhow, just a thought. Great post!
S/F,
Mike Grice
Great contribution, Sir!
Mike,
Wholeheartedly concur with your assessments.
I have to confess that I was always apprehensive, regardless of how senior I was, when approaching a reporting official regarding my tardy and/or missing fitness report.
In a perfect Corps, the senior officers/commanders would diligently oversee the timely submission of fitness reports, as well as ensuring accurate and objective RS profiles, RO comparative assessments, and narrative comments.
As the size of our Corps diminishes, it is essential the we 'keep the faith' by promoting and retaining the best and fully qualified.
Semper Fi,
Rick
Career Retention
For years it still amazes me how a MARINE is at fault for others not doing their jobs as they are sworn to do. The individual Marine can not say too much to his officers who is in charge of him/her and this ultimately limits the individual Marine from career progression by accidentally burning bridges for himself/herself. A personality and moral character are other issues that the individual Marine does not get promoted. The individual Marine can not process his own documentation to ensure everything is accurate. There are also too many lower ranking personnel handling very important documentation who have very little experience in his/her job, and life in general. These Marines who are handling others information is about what age? About 17 years old through about 21 years old right. But when it come to civilians that works with the Marines, the civilians do a lot better job that is accurate. Why is this?
Career Retention
Anonymous,
Your thought that lower ranking Marines can hinder a senior Marines promotability is a little unsettling. These young Marines do not ask for orders to MMSB, MMEA or PACs around the Corps; they are assigned to these places to support the entire Marine Corps. Additionally, these young Marines process thousands of pieces of information daily, and frankly these hard chargers do a great job. The civilian employees throughout the Marine Corps provide continuity in various MOS's that would not be well served to have a high turnover rate. This is a good economy of effort and forces.
I would encourage you to look at the PES, which addresses your concerns about personality and moral character within the 13 attributes for enlisted and 14 for officers. Each Marine from private to general have the responsibility to ensure the accuracy of their own records, and are encouraged to do so well before their promotion selection board goes in session. The documentation that goes into our OMPF should be reviewed on a regular basis. If things are not correct, than you have the responsibility to correct the issue as soon as it is identified.
I do agree with you that our Corps' civilians ranks do a fantastic job. And assert that our young warriors in administrative support MOS's carry their fair share of the workload to insure that we, senior Marines, are administratively correct for selection consideration on various boards (enlisted and officers). I would offer that your issue stems from a yerning to better understand the administrative process at the various MM's take care of for our Corps.
r/
Ed Parsons
Adminstrative Perspective
This is a great observation. I've augmented with the HQMC IG on countless inspections and we have the ability to pull reports before we arrive onsite. In most cases we know before we get there where the gaps and trends are and how they can be mitigated. I think as leaders its not only important to set the example but like previous dialog, it's equaly important to ensure that managers on all leves provide leadership, training, and implement control mechanisms and situation awareness regarding the importance of this matter. In many cases, by the time the IG team arrives on site, there are many reports long past due. Under the wire, one of the many trends is that although this is a requirement for managers, it's also a back burner task, one that is set aside for spare time. Until that organizational culture changes, this pattern will most likely continue. Establishing the control mechanisms such having someone pull reports on recurring basis is a great way to take a proactive approach from a unit perspective. In conjunction, that same approach needs to come from the individual Marine. There's no reason why a Marine should have to constanly remind his leadership that something is past due. :-) In contrast, the leadership should not have to constantly remind their Marines something is due. Lets face it, reality is we can't hand carry folks through their career. Senior leaders rely (and should be able to) on lower level managers and senior enlisted help drive our Marines down a positive path. As senior leaders however I think it's important to set the that example as well as ensure that managers and senior enlisted teach individual Marines how to take that proactive approach. Not using this collective effort hurts unit reporting but the Marines in more ways than one.
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