ANALYSIS OF PROMOTION ZONE EFFECTS ON NAVAL OFFICERS CAREERS

Abstract

The Navy uses “zones” to define promotion eligibility of its officers in each of the control grades, O4–O6. Recent shifts in policy have begun to move the promotion system away from strict zone eligibility in favor of a more merit-based system that have re-defined zones. Despite recent steps to minimize the effects of promotion zone, such as removing zone labels from officer records, little to no research exists that supports such a policy change or other proposed alterations. Using data from Navy Personnel Command, we use linear probability models to show that recent policy removing zone labels from promotion-eligible officer records increases probabilities of promotion both below and above-zone while lowering probabilities of promotion for in-zone officers. Additionally, using data from the Defense Manpower Data Center, we use Cox Survival analysis to show that attrition rates decline for previously fast-tracking officers and increase for slow-tracking officers. Moreover, we show that promotion probabilities increase for fast-tracking officers while they decrease for slow-trackers. Based on our findings we therefore recommend expanding below-zone selections to allow for a more robust naval officer workforce and that if limits must be made, they should made towards above-zone eligible officers. Future studies should look to secure data that would allow statistical methods that isolate zones and determine the causality and effects that zones have on an officer.