MILLINGTON, Tenn. (NNS) -- A Sailor’s view of their quality of life plays an extremely important factor in determining whether they will choose to continue their military career. Recently, more than 5,000 Sailors expressed their views on quality of life in 15 areas during the 2002 Quality of Life Survey.
The survey, administered by the Navy Personnel Command’s (NPC) Navy Personnel Research and Development Center (NPRDC), was sent to 17,000 randomly selected Sailors. Approximately one-third responded with their inputs. The survey addressed quality of life in four professional areas: shipboard life, career development, current job and Sailor preparedness, as well as 11 personal areas including leisure and recreation, friends and other personal relationships, and standard of living/income levels.
According to the survey results, Sailors seem positive about their overall quality of life, with 63 percent saying they were satisfied with the military way of life, and 84 percent satisfied with their life in general.
However, when asked about their feelings on their professional domains, including shipboard life, current job, preparedness and career development, the satisfaction level varied, with the junior enlisted ranks being less satisfied than chief petty officer and officer ranks.
Overall, only 41 percent rated shipboard life as satisfactory. For example, Sailors in the E2-E-6 range weren’t as happy with their berthing space sizes as were the chiefs and officers.
Sailors in all ranks were more positive on the areas of current job, career development and preparedness, with overall marks of 67 percent for E1 - E6, 70 percent for chiefs and 79 percent for officers. The only exception was that less than half of the enlisted were satisfied with the amount of time they had to update their skills.
Similar finds were shown in the areas of standard of living/income, with the majority of E-2 through E-6 being dissatisfied with their income levels, stressing the need for more money for extras and saving, while CPOs and officers were generally satisfied with their income levels.
There was a similar trend in comparing non-career Sailors with less than 10 years of service to those of career Sailors with more than 10 years service. The survey showed that a sizeable number of non-careerists were happy with their career development and current job, but dissatisfied with shipboard life.
Thanks to these results, the Navy has concluded that improving shipboard life, especially for junior Sailors, is a way to improve overall quality of life and retention. The results of the survey have been forwarded to appropriate commands to determine how best to do this, including the possibility of things such as improving future ship designs to improve habitability issues, and accelerating construction of off-ship housing for single junior Sailors.
In the areas of job and career development, there are a number of initiatives underway to continue to raise satisfaction levels, such as mentoring, Sea Warrior and Covenant Leadership.
For more information on these initiatives, contact the NPC Customer Service Center at 1-866-U-ASK-NPC or visit them on the web at www.staynavy.navy.mil.
