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The primary function of the Officer Evaluation Reporting Sys­tem is to provide information from the organizational chain of command to be used by HQDA for officer personnel decisions. The information contained in the OER is correlated with the Army’s needs and individual officer qualifications to provide the basis for OPMS XXI personnel actions such as promotion, Career Field des­ignation, elimination, retention in grade, retention on active duty, reduction in force, command and project manager designation, school selection, assignment and specialty designation.

An equally important function of the Officer Evaluation Reporting System is to encourage the professional development of the officer corps. To accomplish this, the system uses the Army’s leadership doctrine to relate teaching, coaching, counseling and as­sessing values, attributes, skills and actions to performance and professional development. The OER also requires rater and senior rater input regarding functional areas and Career Fields, unique/ special qualifications and future positions (Parts Vc and VIId) that strongly support OPMS XXI indoctrination throughout the officer corps. Particularly valuable is the developmental counseling fostered through senior officer linking the Army’s evaluation system to its leader development and personnel management systems. Develop-mental counseling is the responsibility of senior officers to provide feedback concerning professional growth, potential and career path-ways to success. While these aspects of developmental counseling through mentorship have always been a major element of the evalu­ation process, they must be continually emphasized.

The Officer Evaluation Reporting System support form process provides further impetus to continual two-way communication so that the rated officer is made aware of the specific nature of his or her duties and is provided an opportunity to participate in the organizational planning process. The rater uses the communication to give direction and development to subordinates, to obtain informa­tion about the status and progress of the organization and to systematically plan for accomplishing the mission. The senior/subordinate communication process also facilitates the discussion of career guid­ance with the rated officer, to include the decision process for his or her future OPMS XXI Career Field. This enables the rated officer to take advantage of the superior’s experience when making functional area, Career Field or assignment related decisions.

For further information on the Officer Evaluation System, see AR 623-1, AR 623-105, and DA Pam 623-105.

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Above information derived from Army Pamplet 600-3