Sea Shore Flow Replacement Survey Looks for Your Opinion on Sea Duty

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The Navy is overhauling its Sea Shore Flow policy and wants Sailors’ opinions on what might entice them into taking and staying in critical sea duty billets.
Your chance to sound off starts March 17th and your response just might impact the rest of your career and those of Sailors coming up the ranks behind you.
Balancing the needs of the Navy with the desires of Sailors has long been the goal but was always difficult to achieve due to more gaps at sea than Sailors available to fill them. The result has been multiple overhauls and sea tour length updates over the last three decades, all in attempt to better man the Fleet and provide Sailors a reasonable work/life balance.

The Navy needs to give commands higher manning levels maintained throughout the entire Optimized Fleet Response Plan (OFRP) cycle, including the maintenance and training phases, while also rewarding Sailors for assignment to high-value jobs at sea.

Your input will help the Navy identify new opportunities and incentives Sailors value most. Options such as increased advancement opportunities, as well as monetary and non-monetary incentives, are all being considered. 

These could end up as packages of perks offered Sailors during the detailing process. If you have an idea or an opinion, now's your chance to make a difference. 

The survey takes roughly 30 minutes and is available at https://go.max.gov/dod/seashore. Some Sailors, such as those in the 22 most sea intensive ratings, will also get an email request to take the survey. This will come from Max.gov and is not a phishing attempt. The link in the email will take you to the same survey site.

The survey is only open to active-duty Sailors. To access the site, they must enter their Department of Defense ID number located on the back of their ID card to prove their active component status. 

Once in the survey, all responses are confidential. Leadership wants candid responses, so none will tracked back to individual Sailors. Only aggregated responses from Sailor opinions and ideas will be in the final report.

The survey results are expected to be released later this fiscal year and the Navy hopes to field its new policy as soon thereafter.