Navy did not document changes to recruitment procedures, watchdog says

The U.S. Navy didn’t correctly log new recruiting processes that helped the service attain its enlistment objectives in fiscal 2024, in keeping with a authorities watchdog report.

The Navy Recruiting Command, or NRC, exceeded its goal of 40,600 recruits in 2024 by streamlining the medical waiver course of and modernizing the operational recruitment course of.

However an improper chronicling of updates to those programs threatened to derail future successes, the Protection Division Workplace of Inspector Common mentioned.

“With out documented steerage, the NRC doesn’t have assurance that it might constantly meet future recruitment objectives,” the report mentioned.

In 2024, the commander of the Navy Recruiting Command addressed a backlog of 8,600 medical waivers by bringing in 37 personnel to resolve the difficulty. Throughout two separate three-day paperwork blitzes in Might and June 2024, workers authorized 10,917 medical waivers, recruiting 5,845 sailors within the course of.

The NRC eradicated the backlog and elevated workers within the Medical Waivers Division from 10 to 26 personnel, boosting the quantity of waivers processed every day from 50 to between 200 and 400.

The backlog resulted from prolonged medical waiver evaluations — a median of 40 days per case — that bought slowed down in requests for extra info, which led to a logjam of “no-decision” outcomes on functions, the IG report mentioned.

The Navy Recruiting Command didn’t chronicle and publish formal steerage relating to the brand new processes, nonetheless, regardless of their resounding success and regardless of necessities for documentation of these processes.

“Chapter 3 of the Navy Recruiting Command Group Guide states that one of many obligations of the Director of Operations is to make sure the existence and upkeep of requirements and metrics wanted to successfully and effectively execute the assigned mission,” the report said.

Along with bolstering its work on medical waivers, Navy Recruiting Command revamped its operational recruitment course of. It established the Recruiting Operations Middle to provide the commander with a every day operations transient that communicates the efficacy of every day recruitment efforts.

The command additionally applied Determination Steerage Memorandums to speak coverage modifications and reduce down on paperwork, enabling recruiters extra time to recruit, the report mentioned.

NRC informed the watchdog throughout a March 19, 2025, interview that the method to printed steerage in regards to the new medical waiver procedures would start in two months.

The command pledged to doc steerage for brand spanking new operational recruitment procedures, as nicely, the report mentioned.

The NRC addressed the inspector basic’s suggestions as of June 12, 2025, in keeping with the report.

The Navy just lately introduced that it met its enlistment purpose of 40,600 sailors for fiscal 2025 three months early.

The accomplishment comes two years after the service failed to achieve its recruitment goal in 2023 for the primary time ever, falling in need of its 37,700 goal by greater than 7,450 accessions.