: The Army is seeking to improve professionalism among senior NCOs. Some recent and impending steps include:

@ a new 700-page manual on managing your NCO career

@ increased class sizes at the Sergeants Major Academy to provide a deeper pool of academy-educated E8s for selection boards to consider. The ancient policy of select, then promote, then train will be reversed, with E8s trained, then the best of them selected for promotion.

@ giving senior sergeants who accept promotion to warrant officer guarantees that they can complete a career even if passed over for promotion from CW3 to CW4.

@ hiring retired sergeants major to be mentors at the Sergeants Major Academy and other top training courses. This avoids having to take active duty sergeants major out of troop units for these jobs. 

@ ending the current policy that sergeants major who accept teaching posts at the Sergeants Major Academy cannot later hold field positions as sergeants major.

@ consolidating career fields so that there are no dead-end fields that have little opportunity for promotion to senior NCO rank.--Stephen V Cole