The Navy is full of traditions—shared experiences that bond sailors. If there is one tradition that is constant throughout a seagoing career, whether on deployment or back home, it is in-port “duty.” To meet the requirements for force protection, damage control, and other tasks, ship crews have always been divided into daily rotating duty sections. The pendulum has swung over the years from three sections back in the 1980s to a high of 12 in the early 2000s and has settled to about six sections for most ships when in homeport. One perturbation that makes duty section planning even tougher is a holiday “stand down” or leave period. This may occur after a deployment or over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, but it always demands intense planning and normally a high level of scrutiny for both qualifications and experience, especially for leaders who actually try to establish a plan that has both equity and a thorough assessment of risk.
In 2020, as an executive officer on a cruiser that had just returned from an eight-month deployment, I was struggling with a unique problem. The ship was in four-section duty but personnel wishing to take leave—many for the first time in more than a year—fell into multiple categories. Some wanted to travel out of state, which would incur a two-week quarantine because of COVID-19 protocols. Others wanted local leave, and some wanted none at all. As I graphed out our plan on my white board with the department heads and command master chief, the 6 x 4 matrix was making my brain hurt. About the time we landed on something worth briefing to the captain, our ship was surged on a no-notice deployment to the other side of the Atlantic. Problem deferred—no leave at all!
On returning from deployment 2.0, the captain stopped in for a chat. We discussed the “artwork” on my white board and highlighted our situation for finding time for sailors to take leave. He asked me a strange question. “You are a millennial, right?” “What does that have to do with this?” I asked. He asked me to list some of the “traits” of my generation and if we could apply them here. So we did. Millennials:
- Value meaningful motivation. Most of the crew wants to take leave and still see the ship succeed. Maybe we can leverage that. Nothing motivates a crew better than outlining the due-outs required to accomplish leave and liberty.
- Challenge the hierarchy status quo. Most ships set two fixed-leave periods with a single turnover day. This often results in chaos on turnover day, too many requests for “exceptions to policy,” and a big drop in efficiency at the beginning of each mass exodus. Plus, no family really wants to be told when they can take leave—life happens outside those prescribed leave periods, so planning lives around specific dates that worked best only for the ships’ leave blocks can be a hard pill to swallow.
- Place importance on relationships with superiors. Delegation of duties—division and duty section—is key to success in many ways. Earning the trust of our superiors is fundamental to both qualifications and accomplishing the mission. We had to make leave and liberty our combined mission, and principal assistants had to be empowered to fill their superiors’s roles.
- Are open and adaptive to change. Leaders have to be willing to look at the problem in a new way. We had to toss out previous plans and do more than just change the dates at the top of last year’s leave matrix.
- Place importance on tasks rather than time. By focusing on what needs to get done over the longer period, new options become possible. Verify worklists and shipwide goals over a two-to-three-month leave period to get buy-in from all ranks. Ships can no longer afford stand downs. They must maintain normal in-port work schedules even over holiday periods.
- Are free-thinking and creative. Use white boards not PowerPoint. Get to the right answer with the help of your petty officers and junior officers. And when an old salt says, “This is how we’ve always done things,” give them a marker and ask them to try something different.
The captain suggested all of this; “an alternative plan” based on how the new generation works. Eliminate the turnover concept, expand the period, and set expectations. So, we did. This is what we came up with:
- Leave periods that last 6 to 12 weeks instead of 4 to provide flexibility.
- Four duty sections to ensure depth and coverage of all requirements.
- Eliminate turnover days and separate periods based on principle and principle assistant coverage.
- Limit leave to 14 days max.
- Each duty section must meet all watch requirements.
- Each division must meet all maintenance and training requirements
- No more than 40 percent of any duty section/division on leave at any time.
- Everyone (minus the command triad) stands duty.
This is what we did, and—surprise—it was the most smooth and uneventful holiday period I have experienced in 17 years, and a solid execution of all missions, while adhering to all COVID mitigation policies. While other ships collapsed to three sections or even port and starboard to survive, we thrived. Junior sailors advanced in their qualifications, drills were accomplished, the admin train stayed on the tracks, and, for the most part, people took leave when it worked best for their families. That required getting our principal assistants qualified (from the executive officer down), while designating and qualifying alternates for every collateral duty.
As the Navy heads into a new normal amid in-port requirements, COVID, surge deployments, and compressed maintenance periods, its leaders need to think outside the box. Take, for example, another ship led by a millennial, and his “guaranteed weekend” plan. On board the USS Mahan (DDG-72), the crew is in four-section duty, and when their duty falls on a Saturday, they give that section a “weekend” on Sunday and Monday. Sunday’s section will have its weekend on Friday and Saturday. Everyone can count on two days off per week, and the schedule keeps work moving along while allowing an occasional day off. Even with a plethora of new requirements in the wake of the Major Fires Report, with a few minor adjustments to the norm, the Mahan managed to meet both the mission and the needs of a range of sailors (of an altogether different generation) with a more humane rotation.
Somehow, months before execution of these leave plans, the captain knew it would all work out. “How?” I asked. His response: “Because it worked before” he said, tossing a copy of an old Proceedings article on my desk. “The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago!” he said with a wink.
