DUKE FIELD, Fla. -- The 919th Special Operations Wing commander installed commander's comments/suggestion boxes at various locations around the base. When the questions/comments are applicable wing-wide they will be published on the home page and members who provide their name and contact information will be contacted directly.
Here are the December comments/suggestions and the commander's responses:
AFIS
Comment: Need to reiterate or get clarification on where the disconnect is between the AFIS CBT description and how new inspection guidance is supposed to work. It is just as bad if not worse than getting ready for a UCI. Better clarification for everyone can prevent the program from continuing down the path it is supposed to fix to begin with. MICT will be better served as it was intended not as it has been implemented. CBT is very clear this is supposed to ID places for improvement not to make everyone 100 percent compliant 100 percent which is impossible to do.
Response: The perception we were “preparing for an inspection” is easy to make, but the reality is we were building a baseline for how we will operate under the new Air Force Inspection System. The primary objective of AFIS is to foster a culture of critical self-assessment and continuous improvement, and to reduce reliance on external inspection teams. The CBT’s description of AFIS states that MICT, IGEMS, SAV’s, Inspections and Exercises are the tools to give the commander the ability to measure the unit’s readiness and compliance, and to find areas of undetected risk.
These tools give commanders a way of documenting deficiencies, tracking them through completion and for planning the allocation of resources. Our recent UEI Capstone was a tremendous success and all of your hard work has paid off, but all of this work would have been accomplished regardless of whether we were in line for a Capstone inspection or not. Now that we have established our baseline, the next challenge is to determine what our steady state will be as we continue to refine our implementation of AFIS.
Lunch
Comment: Ensure that shops/offices that provide service to customers stay open during the duty day- i.e. not all staff going to lunch at the same time. Better customer service for military members and their dependents.
Response: We will make every effort to ensure that lunch breaks are staggered within our customer support functions where possible. When offices are manned one deep, we will ensure that signs are posted with the return time for our customers planning purposes.
Force Support
Comment: Signed in at 10:10 a.m., there was no sign of anyone. No one acknowledged my presence so there is no way to know if staff knew that anyone was awaiting service. It is now 10:25 a.m. and nothing. Does the customer not matter? Please improve your customer service. (Seen at 10:28 a.m. Submitted by retired master sergeant.
Response: We have implemented an immediate change to our sign-in process at the FSS to ensure customer service personnel are aware you have arrived and can better monitor your wait time. These changes include opening doors that were previously kept closed and moving the sign in desk closer to the customer service office. We are looking at other long term fixes to include IT solutions and possible remodeling of the customer waiting area, to provide a more positive customer experience. We also recommend you take advantage of the opportunity to schedule an appointment with us for your customer service needs, which will greatly reduce your wait time, particularly during peak hours.
FSS
Comment: Bad customer service. Been waiting 45+ minutes still haven’t been seen.
Response: Please see the answer above concerning the changes to customer service.
Kudos
Comment: I’ve been here, stationed for about three and a half years, and every single time I’ve been on Duke airfield to load vehicles (borrow loading ramp at 919th), use their facility for our joint inspection with 96th, gas up or even get a new CAC card I have always received the most professional/hospitable welcome and service. Thank you so much. I am glad that you are here and appreciate all of the 919th support! Submitted by Master Sgt. Gibbons 7th SFG(A).
Response: Thank you for taking the time to submit this comment. We take pride in our customer service here at the 919th SOW, and are happy we can provide a convenient and positive customer service option for the 7 SFG.
DEERs
Comment: Ms. Long- Thank you so much for everything you did to help us out with our DEERs situation. You helped save us over $2,000 in Tricare bills due to our eligibility issues.
Response: Thank you for the compliment! We are very proud of Ms. Long and the customer service she provides here at Duke Field. She is the epitome of the quality and professionalism we strive for on a daily basis. We will be sure to recognize her for her positive contributions.
ATAAPs
Comment: ATAAPs is a civilian time card management tool that needs to be brought in alignment with the same OPM policies that govern federal and military employees. Some would say OPM does not govern a military employee. That is not completely true because they are mandated by laws to manage job standards for all federal employees. What is an ART? They are a civilian employee with a military position requirement. Here is a time card improvement idea, submit changes to the ATAAPs program to record all the same requirements as required in the Wing excel time card work sheets. Our section uses 76 MBs for just 12 employees for just one year and that would be 92 GB for 1200 employees in the wing. (The rest of this comment has been removed in order to save space).
Response: ATAAPS is the time management program that was built for OPM to be used by all federal employees; however I cannot determine if they currently all use the program (Google failed me). Up until a couple years ago, ARTs did not use that program but rather used just the Excel timesheets. It was determined that we needed to brought into alignment with other Civil Service organizations; but our dual status still required the use of the Excel timecards according to AFRC. Remember that the Excel time cards are mandated by HQ AFRC, not here at the wing level. We currently have just over 260 civilians here in the 919 SOW, both ARTs and straight Civil Service. The straight civilians do not need to record time on the Excel timecards. In your calculations you provided, you figured electronic storage space for Excel timecards for 1200 wing members, while the impact is actually much lower than what you concluded. You also calculated paper cost savings for all federal employees, but most of them don’t have a hard copy folder at all, just ATAAPS. I do agree with you that our timekeepers do great at taking care of a thankless job.
DEOCs survey
Comment: The 919 SOW Sharepoint homepage could use a facelift… it is plain and uninviting. It should be a place to celebrate our victories and share wing news… I recommend the wing look at other wing SharePoint home pages and update to a more interactive and user friendly opening.. I.E. photos of recent events, better layout for linking to sub sites and a focus on the people and our upcoming events rather than programs.”
Response: I’m glad to hear you’ve spent some time on the 919th’s SharePoint site. The purpose of SharePoint is to provide a medium for sharing information and team collaboration. As such, the site should be clean and free of graphics and artwork which slows down the user’s ability to find and disseminate information. Our SharePoint page was recently redesigned to make it easier and quicker to use.
The place to go to “celebrate our victories and share wing news” is the 919th’s Public Website. It contains a wealth of feature stories and photos of our members on and off the job. We also unveiled our new Facebook page this month which not only highlights our mission but also recognizes the amazing Citizen Air Commandos and their families who make this such a distinguished organization.
If you haven’t seen the site, I encourage you to check it out here. While you’re there, be sure to like the page so you can get updates as we post them to the site going forward.
Thank you for bringing these issues to my attention; changes have already taken place to address some of these. Whenever possible, provide your name and contact information in case we have follow-up questions for you or to let you know directly what is being done about the issue you bring up.