At the beginning of the year, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark challenged Navy leaders in his 2005 Guidance to develop a Human Capital Strategy (HCS) that would provide the Navy with tools to remedy the imbalances in community manning and retention, revise the ratio of restricted line officers to unrestricted line officers, and adjust infrastructure manning to better mesh with future technologies, concepts and initiatives.
The task of bringing HCS to life is the responsibility of many Navy commands that are already working in concert to demonstrate the potential power this strategy will have when brought to fruition. In order for HCS to be successful, it must be incorporated into the Navy's Revolution in Training (RIT) and Sea Warrior initiatives, a task that has, in part, fallen to the Naval Personnel Development Command (NPDC).
"We are moving with as much speed as possible toward the CNO's goal," said Rear Adm. Ann Rondeau, commander of NPDC. "We have Navy Knowledge Online (NKO), which is the delivery portal to Sailors for communication, mentorship, education and career progression tools. We have developed the Learning Centers, which are the homes for communities of practice where they can go to find resources they can utilize in their day-to-day work," she said.
"We are also developing the 5 Vector Model (5VM) in an automated fashion so that the Total Force leaders, supervisors and mentors can access the resumes of their personnel and ensure the individual is matched up correctly to the job he or she is being assigned. This is very important because we want to tie the training directly to the skill sets the Navy needs," said Rondeau.
With all of these developmental tools available and more on the way, it is not hard to understand why HCS is a major focus for the Navy in 2005. The strategy is based upon mission focus, total force, and achieving a work/life balance in a wartime Navy that delivers the right Sailors with the right skills at the right time for the right work.
Simply put, HCS is a view of how the Navy values its people and how leadership can use the genius of its people — the human capital resource — in a way that gives the best possible alignment to the current mission. This meshes directly with the RIT and falls under the larger umbrella of the Sea Warrior initiative.
Fred Bertsch, assistant chief of staff for Functional Integration Management (FIM) at NPDC, explained that the RIT brought two models to the table that are in use today. The first was the human performance systems model, and the second was the 5VM. Understanding the symbiotic relationship between the two models is essential to understanding how the HCS will create a Sea Warrior who has the capability to access, develop, maintain, optimize and provide the human capital to meet the mission of the Navy.
"The human performance systems model said whenever you develop a solutions set for optimizing performance, you always start with the requirements. You then look at the solutions available to fulfill those requirements, and then you determine how best to integrate and implement it," Bertsch explained. "Next you execute — and the most important piece is to obtain feedback to measure and analyze. The final step is to provide feedback into the system. It's a closed loop process, which allows us to start to look at things through a systems model."
The 5VM provides the ability to look at a person in terms of skill set performance. Human capabilities are divided into four areas with a Performance Vector that allows leadership to measure how well a person is doing. The four other vectors are professional, leadership, personal development, and certifications and qualifications.
"We are trying to craft the 5VM as a spiral development process," Rondeau said. "The 5VM allows Sailors to see their development and allows leaders to see how the skills of Sailors, both officer and enlisted, fit mission needs and requirements. The more we can match Sailors' choices with mission requirements the better we can maximize mission capability and force capacity toward Sea Power 21."
The human performance systems model and 5VM, along with RIT and HCS, are part of the foundation for Sea Warrior. Sea Warrior brings together fleet requirements, distribution of manpower, personnel development and acquisition of new weapons systems. This ensures the Navy has the right inventory of people and equipment that are developed correctly from both a cultural (Navy basic training) and skills standpoint.
"When we put our people in a particular situation, we want to feel confident that they can handle the work that has been assigned to them at a standard that is acceptable to the Navy," Bertsch said. "We also want to make sure we are not spending money, time and effort on things that are not important to the Navy's core competencies."
Bertsch said a primary focus now in bringing HCS to life is automating learning capabilities in the schoolhouses. He concedes that the Navy will never and should never totally get away from having instructors and facilitators, but points out that shaping training into a "reusable format" that can be launched through an Integrated Learning Environment (ILE) is beneficial to both Sailors and the taxpayers who support them.
"In an ILE, Sailors have a far broader access and don't have to be temporarily detailed or delayed en route to their units as much," he said. "This saves the Navy and taxpayers money and also takes some of the burden off the back of Sailors. Sailors can move at their own pace, and those who take initiative can shine. That is what HCS is all about: Putting the right Sailors in the right place at the right time."
Bertsch said they are also starting to align other systems to integrate with the 5VM. The Job Advertising and Selection System (JASS), once aligned, will allow Sailors to move seamlessly between the 5VM (the resume) and the available billets the detailer offers so they can have more choice as to where they go in the future.
Future counseling tools that are now in the works will integrate with Fleet Readiness Programs (FRP), such as the TYCOM Readiness Management System (TRMS), enabling Sailors to see where they fit into the larger picture. There are also plans for HCS to integrate with Resources in Distance Learning (RIDE) and the Joint Operational Information Network. Each of these initiatives will proceed with the objective of giving the Sailor as many options as possible in his or her career.
Rondeau sees HCS as a personification of the CNO's covenant to provide Sailors with every opportunity to make the most of their careers. "The more we can provide Sailors choice and the capability to make decisions at the lowest level for their personal development, the better off the Navy is going to be," Rondeau said.
"The Human Capital Strategy will provide a means by which Sailors take charge for their own careers, as well as their personal and professional development. It is the means by which we tie end-to-end Sailor capacity with strategic and tactical implications of Sea Power 21. It will allow us to link acquisition, force architecture and human systems integration with training and skills architecture. It will give our servicemembers the power to become the best possible Sailor, leader, technical expert or even parent or whatever that Sailor wishes to excel in," Rondeau said.
For more information on the Human Capital Strategy and the 5VM, visit Navy Knowledge Online at https://www.nko.navy.mil/.