US Navy Adjusts Selective Reenlistment Bonus Plan to Retain Critical Skilled Sailors

The Navy released an updated Selective Reenlistment Bonus (SRB) award plan Jan. 6 in NAVADMIN 013/12.

SRB is a special incentive pay to help meet critical skill reenlistment benchmarks. The intent of the SRB is to reward those who attain special training in skills most critical to current needs and mission requirements. While the Navy has 31 overmanned ratings there are 91 specific critical skills that use SRB to help meet critical skill needs.

“The SRB program provides a needed incentive to our top performing Sailors with critical skills,” said Rear Adm. Tony Kurta, director, military personnel plans and policy. “We will continue to monitor our bonus programs to maximize retention behavior in our most critical skills within the constraints of our budget.”

Enlisted Community Managers continuously monitor the health of their community and make recommendations to leadership, as required, to maintain acceptable manning levels.

From the 91 skill/zone combinations detailed in NAVADMIN 253/11, this update includes reductions for eight skills, four skills elimination, 31 skills award levels increase and 11 skills added to the list.

The plan also continues the quota management policy established in NAVADMIN 166/11, whereby reenlistment requests for SRB will be approved based on quota availability.

As with Perform to Serve (PTS), eligible Sailors desiring SRB reenlistment are encouraged to work with their command career counselors, command master chiefs, and chain of command to discuss timing of reenlistment and procedures well before their end of active obligated service.

Command career counselors can use the Force Management System or the Officer Personnel Information System (OPINS) to submit an SRB request.

[mappress]
Naval Today Staff , January 10, 2012; Image: navy