Document created: 24 August 04
Air University Review, September-October 1970

Topline:

The USAF Personnel Plan for the Officer Force

Colonel George H. Ropp, Jr.

Three years ago top personnel managers concluded that a practical systems approach to total personnel force management not only was needed but was at last possible through new computer capability. They knew that reacting to events and making decisions only on the basis of near-term requirements often tended to perpetuate undesirable personnel force characteristics and create unforeseen future problems. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) was becoming increasingly interested in service personnel matters. A consistent, rational Air Force plan for longer-range personnel force management was necessary to provide stronger and more complete justification for personnel requirements and policies. As a case in point, in the matter of pilot training rates it was urgent that Air Force total requirements be set forth in clear and logical terms. Further, the changing aspirations of American young men, clearly pointed up in a variety of studies including “New View,”¹ signaled the need to recognize and respond to demands for responsible jobs and assure equitable and desirable career opportunities, visible to all.

personnel management objectives

In October 1967 the Director of Personnel Planning, to get started, formed an Ad Hoc Planning Group of the best-qualified personnel staff officers available. He charged this group with developing, on an urgent basis, the means to chart a personnel course and measure progress. The group, with a bow toward the management by objectives approach, first identified six broad qualitative characteristics defining the kind of total personnel force desired. Moving to the more specific, they then presented management goals to support each force characteristic and finally developed specific objectives for each of the personnel subforces (officer, airman, Reserve forces, and civilian). For the active duty officer force, for instance, there were 84 objectives grouped under traditional personnel function rubrics such as “procurement,” “education and training,” and “utilization.” Each of the characteristics, goals, and objectives was supported by rationale to promote understanding and acceptance.

Approved by the Deputy Chief of Staff, Personnel (DCS/P), the objectives were a milestone in personnel planning. They not only made top management aims visible but provided a basis for each subordinate manager to establish his own goals and facilitated communication by providing a common language. Together, the objectives constituted the Air Force position on vital personnel issues. In December 1968 the desired characteristics and qualitative goals of the personnel force were embodied in the personnel annex to the USAF Planning Concepts document (formerly known as The Plan).

USAF Personnel Plan

With the qualitative objectives as a foundation, work was directed toward defining the future personnel force in quantitative terms and identifying the actions necessary to achieve a desired structure for each of the four personnel subforces. The objectives became Volume I of the USAF Personnel Plan, the succeeding volumes to contain objective force structures for officer, airman, civilian, and Reserve forces as well as plans for personnel programming and personnel operations. The first of these volumes to be completed was Volume II, on the officer structure, which was given the short title TOPLINE (for Total Officer Personnel Objective Structure for the Line Officer Force). It represented a broad Air Staff effort that combined the findings of competent studies and analyses with the latest computer technology to produce a plan for configuring the total active line officer force. Because this plan is intended to help in making decisions that have long-range impacts, it is important that each officer understand its tenets.

The framework of the TOPLINE volume is a simple one. First, it analyzes the current line officer force distribution in terms of grade and years of service in rated and nonrated categories. (Management of chaplain, judge advocate, and medical and dental officers is treated separately.) Second, it identifies deficiencies and their causes and presents a desired officer distribution structure for 1980. Third, it displays annual interim objective forces; and it details needed policy changes to move today’s force through time toward a more desirable force configuration.

current inventory

The FY 71 officer force inventory reflects an undesirable profile of humps and valleys caused by disproportionate numbers of officers in certain year groups and in elements of the force (pilots, navigators, and nonrated line officers). (Figure 1) This condition, to one extent or another, has plagued the Air Force from birth and is a prime cause of problems in promotion, fluctuating annual accession and training rates, aging aircrews, obscure career opportunities, and excessive cockpit tenure. For instance, an analysis of the FY 71 active duty officer force shows:

Figure 1. Line officer force structure (inventory), fiscal year 1971, lieutenant colonel and below. The bulge on the left side in the 15- to 19-years groups represented rated officers filling jobs authorized in lower grades; on the right side, senior jobs being filled by junior officers.

―A large group of nonrated officers with less than five years of service. They are in positions of greater than normal responsibility to fill the voids in higher-level nonrated line positions.
―A shortage of rated officers with from 6 to 14 years of service.
―Many senior rated line officers being used in rated positions normally requiring more-junior officers. (This situation is not viewed favorably by seniors or their juniors.)
―Pilot and navigator inventories decreasing (owing to retirements, the lure of the airlines, and Vietnam losses).
―The number available for cockpit duties is the lowest since 1949, although the total pilot strength is compatible with OSD-determined operational needs. This situation is the result not only of a reduced inventory but also of the numbers that are in the pipeline (PCS travel, TDY, and training) and a minimum number selected for career broadening in schools and in nonrated line positions.
 ―The force has been permitted to free-flow in the past. This means that all qualified officers have been permitted to enter career status (or have been granted that status upon entry) in accordance with their individual desires. No planned stable retention objectives have been in force.
―The irregular shape of the line officer force profile over the years has contributed to inequitable promotion and job opportunities between year groups and elements.
―Field-grade manning in nonrated line career fields is 70 percent of authorizations. Without the rated officers assigned, manning would be less than 50 percent.

This analysis omitted mention of the positive aspects of today’s personnel force. It is a tribute to leaders of the past that the Air Force has fully met its commitments, and we can be confident that it will continue to do its job. However, personnel planners firmly believed that new computer technology, combined with modern personnel analysis, could produce an integrated plan that would mitigate if not eliminate in the future the kind of undesirable conditions in today’s force.

causes of unwanted officer force characteristics

Humps and depressions in the officer force structure resulted from a combination of (1) changing total force requirements in past years, (2) the numerical strength and training ceilings imposed on the officer force each fiscal year, and (3) the practice of varying procurement to adjust to changes in the ceiling. A contributing factor was the policy of allowing an uncontrolled number of officers to move into career status. Once humps and depressions are established, they tend to be self-perpetuating even in the absence of total strength changes. For instance, as officers in a hump complete their careers, it is necessary to replace them with newly procured officers in equivalent numbers if total strength is to be maintained.

The current nonrated officer shortages in the middle years can be largely attributed to the relatively high number of rated officers who were trained each year up to 1958 and their propensity to remain in the Air Force.

projected free-flow force of FY 80

Planners may ask the pertinent question: If current practices continue, what will the future be like? By aging the force with the computer model, using available experience factors for dynamics such as losses and promotions, a reasonable answer can be obtained

―as, for instance, the projected officer personnel force for FY 80 (Figure 2). It includes
―a minimal resource of experienced rated officers, since the median age and experience level of the rated force has declined significantly;
―a significant hump of nonrated officers beginning to develop in the field grades; and
―a developing hump of rated officers in the early years.

Figure 2. Inventory profile, free-flow projections, lt col and below, FY 80. Here the FY 80 force (as projected by computer model using current loss rates and force-regenerating policies) is compared with the objective. The aging pilot and navigator hump of FY 71 has disappeared, and a new one is forming in the early service years. On the nonrated side a bulge of officers in the middle years results from high procurement in FY 65-69 and uncontrolled flow into the career force.

The increase in young rated officers in this projected force is the result of high training rates in the early seventies. Increased training was needed to compensate for loss of the older pilot hump through retirement and normal losses of other pilots in every year group.

The hump of field-grade nonrated officers reflects the entry into the career force (without a planned retention program) of nonrated officers who were commissioned in the high procurement years of FY 65 through FY 69.

TOPLINE objective force

Having analyzed the current force and its projection into the future under current policies, the officer force planning team had two basic tasks remaining: (1) developing an attainable objective force within realistic parameters of annual accessions, training rates, retention, and promotion; and (2) determining the actions and policies needed to shape the inventory so as to meet the objective.

In establishing criteria for selecting an objective force, planners had to bear in mind the special nature of the officer force. For instance, its closed system requires continuous input of new people at the bottom, an upward flow through the years of service and grades, and finally controlled and purposeful attrition. A dominant characteristic of the force is that it contains pilots, navigators, and nonrated specialists, who in many respects are not interchangeable. Recognizing these factors and deciding that a complex personnel system can best be structured and evaluated by using numbers, TOPLINE architects established basic objectives and controls, which included:

(1)  Strength objectives for pilots, navigators, and nonrated officers (in both the Regular and active duty Reserve categories).
(2)  A range of acceptable annual procurement with a floor for each element (pilot, navigator, and nonrated) of the force.
(3)  Specific numbers of officers in each element who will be selected for Regular commissions and for career Reserve status before they complete their initial service commitments.
(4)  Acceptable ranges of numbers of officers to receive career status in each element each year. (A selection-in process will identify those to be given career status.)
(5)  Establishment of equitable promotion opportunity for each element within the career force.
(6)  Retirement of most Reserve officers at the 20-year point. These quantified standards simplify the process of evaluating deviations (such as externally or internally generated strength changes) and cost versus benefit.

Using a static personnel planning computer model (SP²) and the parameters established in the objectives, the DCS/P team, after more than 800 computer runs, chose the optimum objective structure that is TOPLINE. In Figure 3 and in the actions to be taken to achieve the objective structure, each officer can begin to see how TOPLINE affects him.

Figure 3. TOPLINE objective force, Regular and Reserve, lt col and below. This would most satisfactorily meet Air force requirements as to cost, attainability, viability, and effectiveness standards. An inventory approximating this objective force must be a long-range goal, since there is no satisfactory way of instantly filling current voids with personnel possessing appropriate experience levels or of reducing humps without unacceptable effects on individual careers.

new personnel policies

To get on a direct course toward TOPLINE (Figure 4 shows how the force would look in ten years), the Air Force adopted concepts that departed from past ways of steering the officer force. Some of the ideas were not new, having been debated in various forms through the years. TOPLINE, however, made it possible to evaluate these ideas, as well as new policies, by simulation testing in a total force context. Although a few of the ideas required new legislation, they were not entirely interdependent, and progress toward TOPLINE began in early 1970. New policies for the officer force included:

Figure 4. TOPLINE FY 80 profile, lt col and below. Following the TOPLINE structure, the computer model projected the FY 80 inventory. Here that projection is compared to the objective force configuration. Voids in rated officer requirements are partly filled with contracted officers, to preclude another uncontrolled hump going through the system. Only the bottom half of the TOPLINE stucture is filled, indicating it will take ten years to achieve the planned force.

A youth/experience standard for computing pilot and navigator requirements
Nonrated officer career progression equity
Definition of the rated officer supplement and its use
Specific time period contracts for some noncareer officers
Restructured flight pay.

The youth/experience standard. A significant feature of TOPLINE is the youth/experience standard for the officer force in the grades of lieutenant colonel and below. The manpower structure, reflecting requirements developed by traditional manpower engineering validation techniques, was found to be inadequate for evaluating the personnel force structure. While the manpower structure states needs in terms of grade, an officer’s grade is an inaccurate indicator of his age, experience, or (in the case of the rated officer) rated proficiency. For example, in June 1969 there were captains in every year group from 3 to 19 years, majors from 8 to 22 years, and lieutenant colonels from 13 to 28 years. Further, in today’s force only 42 percent of pilots in the grades of lieutenant colonel and below have less than 13 years of service, whereas over 80 percent of all nonrated officers are in the 12-years-and-under category. The simple comparison of inventory against manpower grade requirements, therefore, does not provide sufficient information for the personnel planner or manager.

TOPLINE provided an additional standard by stating a percentage of the total force inventory, in the grades of lieutenant colonel and below, that should have 12 years or less total active federal commissioned service (TAFCS). (TAFCS was selected as a criterion because it is a reliable indicator of age and experience.) The TOPLINE standard requires that accession and training rates be aimed toward keeping not only total officer requirements filled but also toward maintaining 70 percent of the requirements for lieutenant colonel and below filled with officers of 12 years or less TAFCS. Computer modeling showed that determining training rates this way would give the Air Force (1) adequate, attainable, and sustaining annual officer production, (2) a continuing youthful posture in its force, (3) adequate numbers of senior officers to meet supervisory requirements (from normal progression out of the 1- to 12-year group), and (4) the means for a purposeful and visible career development program for the entire officer force.

Nonrated officer career progression. When we went into Vietnam, we had approximately 61,500 rated officers in the grades of lieutenant colonel and below (as of 30 June 1965); on 30 June 1969, the inventory was about 52,800. The steady decline in rated strength emphasizes the importance of preserving nonrated managerial capability today and signifies the increasing role of the nonrated officer in future senior management. The TOPLINE structure is deliberately and purposefully designed to provide an adequate flow of nonrated officers through the year groups and grades, as well as greater job challenges for nonrated officers (because they will comprise a higher percentage of senior management capability in the future). The relatively high rated inventory of past years resulted inevitably in rated officers occupying a higher percentage of non-rated line positions.

This situation will undergo a steady change toward equality, since TOPLINE assures the career nonrated officer of progression and promotion opportunities to colonel equal to those of the rated officer. Floor and ceiling bench marks for nonrated accessions and quotas for nonrated (as well as rated) officer selection for Regular commissions and career Reserve status were designed to insure this equality of opportunity. These controls will preclude unplanned numbers of rated officers from crossing into nonrated fields to block nonrated progression opportunities and will dampen the formation of a nonrated hump, with its stultifying effects on promotions. TOPLINE provides methodology to determine equitable promotion quotas for pilots, navigators, and nonrated officers to major and lieutenant colonel if such decisions are required to prevent imbalances in year groups, grades, or elements (pilot, navigator, or non-rated officer) of the force.

Even with equitable advancement, however, there will not be enough nonrated colonels for the nonrated colonel jobs, since three out of four colonel jobs are in nonrated utilization fields (a higher ratio than found in lieutenant colonel jobs). The equitable advancement of officers in each element, therefore, will mean that a portion of the colonel positions in nonrated line areas will always be filled by rated officers.

In sum, the controlled placement of younger rated officers in nonrated jobs, plus the purposeful input to the career force of nonrated officers at the four-year point, will serve to open a long channel of progression for the career nonrated officer. In effect, the nonrated officer’s chances of winning career status will be greater than previously afforded but somewhat fewer than those of his rated colleague, whose training costs are high. Once in the career force, however, his advancement opportunities through colonel will be equal to those of the rated officer.

Rated supplement and its use. TOPLINE plans for some pilots and navigators to be in nonrated jobs during both peace and war. Some will be capable senior executives whose rated skills will be surplus to operationally determined rated requirements. Others will be in the rated supplement, centrally managed to a planned size and to the youth/ experience standard. (“Supplement” is defined as the additional pilots and navigators needed to maintain or expand the wartime capabilities of the Air Force and to provide for career development of the rated force during peace and war.) Each officer in the supplement will be in one of these categories:

Category	Contingency Response
Surge	To meet immediate demands for increased crew members at the beginning of a conflict
Drawdown	To provide additional replacement crews through the next 18 months of conflict.
Controlled rotation	To provide replacements to meet combat tour rotation policies (as rated officers return from combat, some will be assigned to nonrated positions in this category, releasing others for combat on a one-for-one basis).

Young rated officers will be selected (according to merit and desire) from cockpit duty for a several-year tour in the supplement upon entry into the career force. This planned placement of the rated officer into the supplement (1) provides the most usable, responsible replacement crews; (2) minimizes the impact on nonrated functions when the supplement is withdrawn (because these younger officers can be more readily replaced by increased input of new nonrated officers); and (3) makes possible a broad leadership and executive development program for deserving young officers.

Contracts. As we have seen, the officer personnel force has tended to rebuild itself in its own image. When one hump moves out at the top, another is created at the bottom to maintain total strength. New humps could be kept from moving through the system by inducing officers to remain on active duty temporarily past their initial commitments, while reducing procurement oscillation. TOPLINE therefore recognized current authority for contracting officers’ services for specified time periods.² To provide incentive for officers to accept contracts, TOPLINE recommends the seeking of necessary legislation for bonus payments. By using contracts, the Air Force can maintain total strength without creating long-lived humps. Further, contracts provide a satisfactory way of reducing or increasing the force in response to short-range demands without adversely affecting the career force.  The use of contracts envisioned in TOPLINE provides for

―adequate monetary incentives (bonus)
―contract maximum of three years
―contracts shorter than three years being renewed as required to as high as three years
―contractees’ being offered career status if required. (Acceptance would preclude payment, or cause repayment, of bonus.)

Flight pay. One of the main thrusts of TOPLINE is to insure optimum retention rates by remedying those situations that have been cause for good officers to forego careers in the Air Force. The most important accomplishment in this regard will be the assurance to all officers of challenging careers with visible advancement opportunities, including the planned development of specific numbers of rated officers in specialties outside the cockpit after the initial term of service. Another important area affecting retention is pay. The combined effect of attractive airline pay an absence of flight pay increases in the Air Force over the years has been an important factor in the decision of many highly qualified young rated officers to leave the service. To offset this disadvantage to the Air Force, TOPLINE supports a restructured flight pay tble (developed by OSD) that would increase flight pay earnings over a full career while providing emphasis on aircrew duty.

benefits of TOPLINE

Using the systems approach to total force planning, TOPLINE gives the Air Force both an objective officer force structure and patterns for utilization of officers. It provides justification of the requirements for officer procurement and retention. From the OSD viewpoint, it means that personnel force policies need not be reviewed piecemeal but that the total personnel base can and must be considered along with the impact of each policy on it. TOPLINE also contains the promise of stabilized undergraduate pilot and navigator training costs in the future. Finally, for the career officer himself, TOPLINE makes possible visible, obtainable, and attractive career progression opportunities. The rated career officer can expect planned opportunities for school attendance and career broadening in nonrated jobs and a career that does not require an indefinite cockpit tenure. The nonrated career officer, on the other hand, can have higher confidence that his opportunities for higher grades (through colonel) are equitable and protected.

The USAF Personnel Plan, of which TOPLINE is but one part, is a milestone in the advancement of top-level personnel management. This article describes its inception as well as the details of the volume on the active officer force. While the plan is an official document for the current (and continuing) guidance of personnel managers, it will require many years to fulfill. Further, some of its recommended changes may ultimately be modified or deleted, since implementation depends on factors beyond Air Force control.

The USAF Personnel Plan is designed to be dynamic. It is as good as current knowledge can make it. As events occur, as new experience factors are obtained, as technology and the nation’s defense requirements change, incremental changes to the plan will be made. It will be at all times, however, the road map to tell top managers where the personnel force is, where they want it to be, and the best way to get it there. It is being used as the basis of dialogue with the Office of the Secretary of Defense on those portions requiring OSD approval or legislation.

Hq United States Air Force

Notes

1. Department of the Air Force, A Study in Officer Motivation (New View), Office of the Chief of Staff, United States Air Force, Washington, D.C., November 1966, Vols. I and II (distribution to wings and groups). Also see Dr. Clifford E. Smith, “The Implications of ‘New View’ for Motivating Officer Behavior,” Air University Review, XX, (March-April 1969), 57-62.

2. 10 U.S.C.A. Sec. 679.

Contributor

Colonel George H. Ropp, Jr., (B.S., University of Maryland) is Chief of the Personnel Planning Group, DCS/Personnel, Hq USAF. During his Air Force career he has had assignments in England, Germany, and France and is a graduate of Air War College. Colonel Ropp has served in the Command Post at Hq USAF and has been involved in personnel planning and programming since 1961, first at Hq SAC and since at Hq USAF.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.