Personnel issues

Seems like a bunch of minor things – but this is the kind of things that loses troops to CIVLANT when they could be retained.

The Air Force comes in at the top of the list –  Child care at Eglin is such a problem that since 7th SF moved in, they had to build a day care and the waiting list is still huge, despite an average drive of an hour ONE-WAY. Think of adding 4 hours to a soldier’s/airperson’s (?) day just to take their kid or pick them up.

“This is endemic of the retention and recruiting problem we’re having right now,” said retired Army Special Forces Col. Stu Bradin, president and CEO of the Global SOF Foundation.

Bradin got involved in advocating for a child development center after 7th SFG families approached him for help about three years ago. Recently, the foundation held a video teleconference about the child care issue, expecting around 25 people, he said. He was astounded when more than 500 people took part.    Military Times

There’s relief on the way, but part of it is pay-for-play like Montessori (not cheap) or 5 years off. I know, if the Army wanted you to have kids they would have issued them – but that attitude has been costing us good troops for at least 50 years I know of.

And again with the AF, now that they are phasing out the Global Hawk they have a bunch of enlisted ‘pilots’ who need jobs.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown Jr. and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne Bass floated their plan for those airmen in a November 2021 letter. They laid out options for the pilots to commission as officers, which requires a college degree, or to pursue enlisted jobs outside the cockpit like flight engineer, aircraft loadmaster or refueling specialist.

Many waited eight months before they were asked to list their three most preferred jobs. Some were allowed to commission as long as they stayed in the remotely piloted aircraft field, the letter said. One or two others were approved to train into non-RPA jobs.

Over the summer, they received bad news: Many were disqualified for most of the nearly five dozen careers they were offered in lieu of flying the Global Hawk.  Most of the positions were in understaffed fields related to information technology or communications, one airman told Air Force Times. They were tailored to early- and mid-career airmen, with few jobs senior enough for those transferring in from the Global Hawk enterprise.

Military Times II

Now, let’s not forget the Army: due to release a new updated Human Resources HR platform, they are kicking the can down the road:

The Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army — otherwise known as IPPS-A — was originally scheduled to go live across the entire Army in December 2021, before failed systems tests led senior leaders to order a nine-month delay

But the extra time wasn’t enough, despite the Army declaring in May that they were on track, and officials acknowledged that there’s not a new release timeline in place following the latest delay. Army Times reported Aug. 15 that another delay could occur after the service scuttled a scheduled shutdown of several older HR systems, with the IPPS-A functional management director acknowledging in a phone interview that a fully functional release wouldn’t be possible for Sept. 20.  Military Times III

Usedtabe contracts had clauses with penalties for non-performance – looks like government contractors don’t have them. Nice work if you can get it. (In fairness, the Pentagon is notorious for post-contract changes – if today they  wanted a replacement for a Jeep, by half-way through the build the spec sheet would build a C17.)

Category: Administrative, Air Force, Army