I__. - International Military Testing Association

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the Army’s near-term personnel needs and to make up for the differences with the DEP.
More flexibility in manpower management and personnel assignment is needed. The
development of “Job Sets”, as described below, would give the Army such flexibility.
Grouping Jobs
Many MOS have the same or very similar entry requirements (i.e., Armed Services
Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) Aptitude Area [AA] composite score cut-offs and
physical [e.g., vision] profiles). This is especially true of MOS in the same CMF or Career
Management Field (such as Mechanical Maintenance). It would therefore seem possible
to group such MOS into “sets” for recruiting and enlistment purposes. The Army would
then be able to enlist soldiers as turret mechanics, for example, without specifying, at the
time of enlistment, which type of turret mechanic training they would receive. This would
give the Army just that much more manpower management flexibility. Much closer to the
point of actually filling training seats, the Army would be able to determine which
individual would receive which specific course of training.
As with any change to an established system, implementation of this JSERT concept
will cause disruptions and periods of awkward adjustment. However, the concept does fit
well with other current Army cost-saving initiatives (e.g., consolidating MOS and reducing
the number of reception battalions) and appears to offer important benefits. This is not
to trivialize the adjustments that will need to be made by, for the example, the recruiting
and especially the training communities. Therefore, several steps have been taken to
minimize the potential down-side of JSERT-related changes. These measures are described
below.
Identification and Coordination With Key Players
Working closely with the Army’s Manpower and Personnel Management/Enlisted
Accessions Policy office, key agencies and functions that would be affected by JSERT were
identified. A “strawman” concept was circulated, briefed and discussed with each key player
over a four-month period. The concept was refined and modifications were made based
on the inputs received.. One key refinement was the addition of parallel tracks, one for
testbed implementation and one for research and development. The tracking will be
described shortly.
In addition to exploring the concept with Army personnel, the Air Force classification
system was also examined. While many of the manpower and personnel issues faced by the
two services are quite different, the JSERT concept is not drastically different from the
Air Force’s current classification system.
After these information gathering and coordination efforts, a key players research and
planning meeting was held. This provided the opportunity for further explication of the
JSERT concept, exchange of concerns, identification of roles and responsibilities, selection
of candidate job sets for a testbed, and the joint determination of milestones for the
implementation of the testbed.
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