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Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force Cody answers6 January 22, 2016
questions on promotions, EPRs and more
from AirForceTimes.com
Few enlisted leaders in recent de-
cades have had as great an impact on
airmen as Chief Master Sergeant of the
Air Force James Cody.
Since becoming the top enlisted
leader three years ago, Cody has shep-
herded the biggest reform to how air-
men are evaluated and promoted in
decades. This includes “forced distri-
bution” quotas that limit how many
airmen can get top promotion recom-
mendations.
As he enters his last full year as
chief — his four-year tenure will end
in early 2017 — Cody’s attention is fo-
cused on finishing the job on the new
enlisted performance system. He’s also
concerned about the steep operations
tempo the Air Force faces.
Cody recently spoke with Air Force
Times Staff Writer Stephen Losey in
his Pentagon office
The overhaul of the enlisted evalua-
tion system has been a massive under-
taking. What remains to be done?
It’s the end of the beginning for at
least the active-duty side of the house.
We still have some rolling out to do on
the reserve side because their promo-
tions are handled differently than the
active duty.
But for the active duty, the first itera-
tion of forced distribution [for techni-
cal sergeants] is out there. We will go
through the next two with senior air-
man and staff sergeant [in January and
March], but it’s the same philosophy.
The form’s there, the policy’s there. I
think everybody’s getting themselves
immersed in it and asking lots of ques-
tions, as you would expect with any
new policy. This one just has more
questions because there are more peo-
ple that it impacts.
Our airmen are handling it well.
What’s still to come for reservists?
The forms are being rolled out, but
their implementation is at a different
pace than ours. They’re already using
the chief [master sergeant]’s [enlisted
performance report] forms, but they’re
not using all the other forms yet.
They’re going to incrementally get that.
At the end state, they’ll be about 18
months behind the active-duty side of
the house for full implementation. But
they’re implementing the same way.
How might the forced distribution
quotas affect airmen in high-perform-
ing fields like the Thunderbirds and de-
velopmental special duties like military
training instructors? In a unit where all
airmen are intended to be the best of
the best, will restricting how many can
get the top promotion recommenda-
tions leave some at a disadvantage?
That’s certainly a question that has
come up with many of our airmen,
particularly airmen [nominated to be]
in those special duties. They are great
airmen. They’re really great airmen.
That doesn’t mean that they, racked and
stacked against all airmen in the Air
Force, are the best at any given time.
It’s impossible to do that unless you put
them all in the same room and have the
same person doing the evaluation.
But this is not a new dynamic, let’s
be honest. We didn’t create any new
special duties. These are jobs that have
been around in our Air Force for a long
time and we’ve always had really high-
quality airmen doing great work in them
every day. And they’ve always had to
compete for promotion against the peo-
ple that were in those duties with them.
So it’s like any other unit. We recog-
nize and reward sustained performance
over time. And there’s a great airman
in that unit, [but] it can be a little bit
presumptuous to think that that airman
would have been the one who would
have received that [promotion] in an-
other unit. It’s easy to say it, but it’s a ing into play in full effect.
little harder to prove it.
Forced distribution just says in ev-
ery unit that you’re in, there’s going to
be a lineup of those that we feel have
the highest potential to serve at the
next higher grade, and there’s an ability
for a commander to give a significant
promotion advantage to those airmen.
There will be plenty of airmen that get
promoted with a “promote” [recom-
mendation, the third-highest on the
list of five possible recommendations].
And over time, airmen that go do these
different duties that you described, if
they’re successful, that’s going to be in-
dicated in their record. If you look his-
torically, they have a higher percentage
rate of being promoted to the highest
grades in our Air Force.
Is that to say that if you’re in one of
these high-performing units and don’t
get one of those highest promotion rec-
ommendations because the competi-
tion is so stiff, then further down the
line, because you’ve been an MTI or in
the Thunderbirds, that will help you?
No question about it. The data sup-
ports that. We value breadth and depth
facebook.com/TeamMarch
Daniel Woolfolk/ Air Force Times Staff
Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James Cody speaks to the Air Force Times
Stephen Losey at the Pentagon in Arlington, VA, Dec. 15, 2015.
of experience. It’s part of what we degree. We’ll continue to look at prop-
are required to look at in promotion er development [of career fields]. By
boards. So I’m 100 percent confident the end of 2016, all the career fields
it will have a positive impact on those in the Air Force will have done a com-
that do a good job. plete scrub of their key billets to en-
sure that they have a strategy where
Going into 2016, what is the Air they are developing the right amount
Force going to be working on for en- of airmen to have the prerequisites to
listed airmen? fill those key billets.
We’re going to have to keep our air- We’re trying like heck to grow some
men focused on the mission. We have airmen in the areas that we had signifi-
stretched resources across the board. cant deficits. So right now we’re trying
You’ve heard our chief of staff, Gen. to increase the capacity of our pipe-
[Mark] Welsh, talk about the shortages in lines. We’re trying to bring some addi-
manning. That is concerning to us, given tional resources there so we can recruit
the tempo of our force. So we’re going to and access airmen into the areas where
have to balance that. We’re going to have we need them.
to continually, aggressively look at what
we shouldn’t be doing anymore as an Air What’s the biggest challenge in try-
Force so we can keep up with this, and ing to bring in 4,000 new airmen — in
it will be reasonable and sustainable for fields such as maintenance; cyber op-
airmen and their families. erations; intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance; and nuclear missile
We will continue to transition our enterprises — in 2016?
professional military education. We’ll
continue to transition the blended Getting the pipeline prepared to
learning approach to the [noncommis- handle additional accessions. Some of
sioned officer] academy [using more those pipelines take time to get people
Web-based instruction], with the Inter- qualified. So when you have this de-
mediate Leadership Experience com- mand signal that exceeds your capac-
ity in personnel it takes time [five to
seven years] to get people qualified to
We’ll continue to look at the Com- the 5 level [and] the 7 level. We’ll have
munity College of the Air Force and to monitor retention as we always do
how we can expand that opportunity in these career fields. It’s not that we
so our airmen can bring in more of
their earned credits into earning that See CHIEF page 7