The Navy’s got questions and wants your answers. If you want to inform future policy changes, now is your chance to take a little time and sound off. 

For the past 32-years the Navy has captured a pulse of the fleet by asking Sailors their opinions on a wide swath of topics about their lives and careers in uniform.  

In August, the Navy started taking the latest pulse -- The 2020 version of the Personal and Professional Choices Survey, a poll that taken every two years since 1988. This long-running survey gathers data on retention, medical support, physical fitness, childcare, parenthood, family planning, parental leave, and a variety of other work/life balance issues. 

The information gathered is the primary source Navy leadership will use to make decisions about future initiatives and policies affecting the lives of Sailors across the fleet. Past surveys have led to a number of changes in policies and programs, including policy changes such as the Career Intermission Program and an increase in authorized maternity leave.

Navy officials estimate that providing input will only take about 15-30 minutes of your time. 

The importance the Navy places on the data it gets from this survey makers it critical that enough personnel participate to ensure the validity and reliability of the results. 

The identified a stratified, random sample of 100,000 Active Duty -- service members, roughly a third of those in uniform and have sent them an invite to take the survey. But you don’t need an invite to participate. 

If you’ve been picked to participate, you should have already received an email from the website ‘max.gov’ inviting them to participate in the survey. The Max.Gov platform is operated by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and is an approved data collection tool for the Navy. 

The email invitation includes a unique link for each potential participant that enables it to ensure only those who have not participated receive reminder emails. 

If you did not receive an email but would still like to contribute, you may follow this link https://go.max.gov/dod/2020pnp. Although this is an anonymous survey, your DOD ID number will be required to participate to verify active duty status. 

The initial invitation to participate in the survey was sent out on August 24th. The survey will remain open for six weeks and reminder emails will be sent every two weeks until the survey closes. 

The survey is being conducted by MyNavy HR’s Sailor Engagement & Innovation Branch in coordination with the 21st Century Sailor Office of Inclusion and Diversity OPNAV N17I.  Questions about the survey should be addressed to the 21st Century Sailor Office at ALTN_USN_Inclusion_and_Diversity@navy.mil. 

A summary of the 2018 Personal and Professional Choices Survey results are available on NPC at https://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-npc/support/21st_Century_Sailor/inclusion/Pages/Resources.aspx 
The 2020 survey results will be made available in early 2021. 

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