Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James Cody on Dec. 7 sent an email to the service's command chiefs, chastising some for unfairly and inaccurately measuring airmen's performance in the new assessment system.
In an email to command chiefs, first posted on the Air Force amn/nco/snco social media page last week, Cody rebuked some units for improperly tying the performance assessments of airmen to their promotion recommendations. Some airmen who are not eligible for promotion this year also improperly received a blanket performance assessment of "meets expectations" on their enlisted performance reports, Cody said in his email.
"These blanket policies are absolutely unacceptable and contradict Air Force policy," Cody said in the email to all command chiefs. "A performance assessment needs to stand on its own. I am in no way advocating for all Airmen to be marked all the way to the right, but I am asking that all Airmen be rated fairly, based on their performance."
Under the new enlisted evaluation system, noncommissioned officers are supposed to receive an annual assessment of their performance, completed by the immediate supervisor whom they work for on a daily basis. A senior rater — such as a squadron commander or higher — is then supposed to use that assessment to determine a promotion recommendation for the airman.
The new system is driven by quotas — or "forced distribution" — that limit how many airmen can get the two highest promotion recommendations and their accompanying EPR points. Technical sergeants were the first to get quotas when their EPRs closed out Nov. 30.
But in a Tuesday interview at the Pentagon, Cody said that he received "a few" reports from airmen in the field that their units essentially got the process backward — determining promotion recommendations first, and then using those recommendations to decide what performance assessment the airmen should receive.
"Performance influences the recommendation; recommendation doesn't influence the performance" assessment, Cody said. He said that while he didn't definitively see this happening himself, "I heard it enough through airmen either asking me the questions directly, through social media to me directly, that I addressed it. Because we don't want that to be the case. That's clearly not the policy that's in place. But if airmen are getting the perception, or somebody is doing that because they don't understand, it was my responsibility to clear that up."
Even if an airman is not up for promotion in a given year, his performance assessments in off years still carry weight. During the promotion process for technical sergeant and below, as many as the three most recent EPRs are considered. That means that someone who was unfairly rated "meets expectations" when not eligible for promotion would be placed at a disadvantage.
Cody said the issue did not appear to be widespread across the Air Force, and did not say how many complaints he got, but said it was enough that he felt the need to respond and clear things up. Cody also said he reached out to the specific units whose airmen he heard from to further clear up the matter.
"The good news is, none of that stuff is filed yet, none of that stuff is in the records yet, everybody's going through the process right now of implementing forced distribution," Cody said. "It was a preemptive thing before any of this stuff got out of control."
In his email, Cody also said he learned some units have developed their own performance forms and given them to airmen to fill out on their own. Cody said in the email that those local forms were said to be required for forced distribution.
But that's not so, Cody told command chiefs. Air Force units should only use the Airman Comprehensive Assessment feedback form to assess performance, and the EPR form to decide which promotion recommendation an airman should receive.
"We risk losing the trust and confidence of our Airmen if we violate the processes or add/use information not detailed in the Air Force policy," Cody said in the email. "This needs to stop."
In his email, Cody also outlined how the Air Force will handle promotion recommendations for as many as 343 airmen who received a referral EPR with a 1 or 2 rating out of 5 last year.
Cody said in the email that the Air Force's computer system cannot handle both the old and the new EPRs. So this year, he said, it will only calculate one year of EPRs, even if an airmen should have had more calculated.
For the 85 percent or so of airmen who received a 5 on their previous EPRs, Cody said in the email, that will have little effect. Airmen who received a 3 or a 4 on their previous EPRs, Cody said, "are now on an even slate with those who received inflated ratings" since those previous EPRs won't be counted.
But this year, those 343 airmen with previous referral EPRs will only be able to receive one of the three lowest recommendations — "do not promote," "not ready now" or "promote" — on this year's EPR. They will be ineligible for the top two, "must promote" or "promote now."
"This somewhat cleans the slate for Airmen who received a referral EPR last year, but ensures they do not receive a distinct or significant advantage over their peers a year after receiving a referral EPR," Cody wrote.
This will only be in effect for the 2016 promotion cycle, Cody said. In future years, referral EPRs will be included in the normal Weighted Airman Promotion System calculations.
Cody concluded his email by urging chiefs to stick to the new system's rules.
"If we fail to get this right up front, we risk losing the opportunity to instill an evaluation and promotion system that fairly assesses performance while ensuring we promote our Airmen in the right order," Cody wrote. "I ask that you trust and follow the policy and do not create additional blanket policies.
have what Cody called a "backup solution" put into place.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.
