Creating a quick win for squadron commanders, the Air Force’s Personnel Center now grants senior raters and senior rater trusted agents access to enlisted promotion selects lists via the virtual Enlisted Promotion Release system one full calendar week in advance of the public release date.

The seven-day advance notification began with the 17E6/Technical Sergeant Promotion release this past July and will continue with all future enlisted promotion releases.

Feedback received by the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s Revitalizing Air Force Squadrons effort prompted the change.

“One of the issues squadron commanders have repeatedly brought up is their desire to make promotion notifications to Airmen in their squadrons with sufficient planning time to recognize them appropriately,” said Brig. Gen. S.L. Davis, Chief of the Revitalization Team. “Squadron commanders at our most recent site visits are calling this a ‘win’.”

AFPC reintroduced three-to-four-day advance notification to commanders with the staff sergeant results in 2016, allowing them to be the first to notify Airmen of their selection for promotion. Prior to that, 2007 was the last year the Air Force provided advance notification to commanders.

“The change to a full week’s advance notification creates consistency across the force, so all squadron commanders will have the opportunity to plan and recognize their Airmen during promotion milestones,” said Maj. Gen. Brian Kelly, AFPC commander.

According to Kelly, all previous senior rater and trusted agent responsibilities and the intent of the commanders receiving the notification remain unchanged. Senior rater agents will export their select lists and sort them for distribution to the commanders under their hierarchy before the public release date.

“The intent is for commanders to notify their selects no earlier than one day before the public release,” Kelly said. “However, commanders may use their discretion to notify their selects earlier than that for exceptional circumstances such as departures for deployment, hospitalization, etc.”

Exceptional circumstances can also prevent Airmen from testing within their promotion cycle, requiring out-of-cycle consideration via the supplemental promotion process.

Noncommissioned officer in-system supplemental and senior NCO supplemental board results provide supplemental consideration for Airmen who had changes in their promotion files or who were otherwise not considered during the regular promotion release.

Currently, these results are manually processed and reviewed, Kelly said. Thus, due to workload and time constraints, senior raters have and will continue to receive SNCO results within 48 hours prior to public release via email, while NCO supplemental promotion results remain viewable on public release .

“AFPC continues to balance the art and science of Air Force human resources and talent management,” Kelly said. “My goal is to eventually provide advance notifications for all aspects of an Airman’s career, allowing their commanders to be fully engaged at the squadron level, the most essential level of command.”

Kelly noted that officer promotions are a different process as the Office of the Secretary of Defense holds those promotion lists for 10 days, prior to Presidential approval and receipt by the Senate. This process provides AFPC about nine to 10 calendar days advance notice to senior raters in order to plan promotions, notifications and letters. The hold by OSD is required to prevent early release of promotion lists, because once scanned into the Congressional record, the lists are available to the public.

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