Nothing has more impact on sailors' careers than their evaluations . Good marks and they move up, bad marks and they go home.

Navy officials are tweaking the rules for how the evaluation (enlisted) and fitness report (officer) system works, and everyone will now be graded for fostering a healthy command climate and fighting sexual assault. Skippers and admirals will also be accountable for the conduct and climate of their organization.

The new instruction, dated May 1, in effect and available now. It was announced to the Navy in NavAdmin message 113/15 on May 5.

They factor into the enlisted advancement system for those E-6 and below and are the key documents looked at by selection boards for selecting all grades of chiefs and officers.

And if you are a good sea lawyer and want to read the whole things yourself, you can find it at — http://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-npc/reference/instructions/BUPERSInstructions/Pages/default.aspx.

What you need to know:

1.Surveys and skippers. The fitness reports have new standards by which commanding officers will be evaluated, such as command climate surveys. COs are required to conduct one within two months of taking charge, and then at the one year mark and each year after that — and they'll be knocked if they don't get them done.

"Failure to conduct required command assessments is considered a leadership deficiency for grading purposes," said the new instruction, dated May 1.

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The new rules also grade them on classified material handling and their sailors' security clearances .

2. Healthy command climate. Everyone from the lowest E-1 to the top admiral will now be graded on helping to foster healthy command climates and fighting sexual harassment.

"For commanding officers, indicate the extent to which they have or have not established a command climate where allegations of sexual assault are properly managed and fairly evaluated," the instruction says.

It also calls for marks on whether victims of any criminal activities feel they "can report the criminal activity without fear of retaliation, including ostracism and group pressure."

The same thing applies for the evaluations of every leader in the command down to the leading petty officer level.

To get high marks in military bearing, even the most junior sailors must "demonstrate how they have cultivated or maintained command climates where improper discrimination of any kind, sexual harassment, sexual assault, hazing and other inappropriate conduct is not tolerated."

3. New rules for admirals. It's lonely at the top. Admirals are going to start being evaluated for the attitudes they foster at their commands, including integrity, accepting responsibility for subordinates' actions and "undertaking necessary action," though the instruction doesn't give examples of this.

4. The same language. Because more reservists are pulling duty, from drills to orders that can cover years, it's important that reserves and active-duty speak the same language in evaluations and fitness reports. Reservists on any type of active-duty must now receive concurrent reports from the active duty command with which they're serving . .

5. Be honest. The evaluation system depends on evaluators, from work center supervisors to COs, accurately depicting their subordinate's performance.

But the success and failure of the system relies on the individual evaluators from work center supervisors up to the commanding officer.

"If you don't think someone is measuring up, you need to be brutally honest and upfront with those people, because one poor evaluation is not going to make or break someone's career," said Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Bill Moran .

"It's only with a pattern of less than adequate performance that they shouldn't be advanced or promoted in the Navy. But the only way you're going [to document poor performance] is by commands and command triads being a bit more upfront with how they write those — truly calling it how they see it."