panchbarnes

Appears to be a step in the right direction. Curious to learn more about the new assignment process for the 11F and 12F bubbas. Trust but verify. Leaders, Coming to you with a special communication discussing several exciting changes that are imminent and ongoing to the way we conduct assignments. I apologize upfront for the length of this note, but lots going on for you to be aware of and we believe you and your Airmen will find these as steps in the right direction toward a more transparent and interactive system. Beginning on 18 Jan 18, Commanders/Senior Raters will receive 7-day advance notifications of assignments for their Airmen. All assignments (enlisted E-8 and below and officer O-5 and below) will now go in advance to your servicing Military Personnel Flight (MPF) who will disseminate that information to unit commanders/senior raters 7 days before the official notification to Airmen. The idea was identified during the "Revitalizing Squadrons" effort where commanders discussed being out of the loop and not aware of the assignments being given to their Airmen. The advanced notification will enable commanders, or their delegates, to mentor and discuss the pros and cons of the assignment with their Airmen prior to the Airmen receiving the official notification - ultimately giving commanders more ability to influence retention. On the 8th day, Airmen will be e-mailed their official virtual assignment notification, following current notification procedures. If we're doing our jobs correctly Commanders, more so on the officer side, will have had involvement in the process with recommendations and reviews of officer vectors, preferences, etc. This 7-day period is NOT intended to be a negotiation/reclama period above already existing assignment rule sets. That said, we at the Air Force's Personnel Center will remain attentive and agile to real world changes and adjustments that may need to be made but would expect those to be the exception and not the rule. While we've tested this one I'm still sure we'll run into a few glitches or unanticipated situations, so we look forward to getting feedback from you all. This is intentionally being put in play now to impact all of our upcoming Summer '18 cycle moves. In addition to the new notification, commanders and their representatives will still have access to BLSDM rosters, which are updated every 24 hours with a clear text "as of" date indicating any new assignments for assigned personnel. To aid MPFs/CSSs and Assignment Teams, Personnel Services Delivery (PSD) Guides and Base Service Delivery (BSD) Guides are being updated and news articles will be going out to educate the field on the new process. Assignment Webcasts targeting FSS/CCs, MPFs, AF/DPE, MAJCOM A1Ks, CCs, CSSs, and Airmen will begin on 17 Jan 2018 with exact times and dates listed below. Our POCs are #################### The second ongoing effort is a test of a new officer assignment system we call Talent Marketplace. This new system is currently being tested within our 11F (fighter pilot) and 12F (fighter CSO) communities with ~430 officers set to use the system to facilitate assignments during the Summer '18 cycle. The new system is designed to increase transparency and awareness regarding the positions being filled while allowing greater interaction and communication by the member, losing commander, and for the first time by the gaining billet owner. The technology being used and the system itself are a giant leap forward with a modern feel and interactive features that make it much easier for officers and commanders to make inputs. The system also helps our assignment teams by using algorithms to help develop optimized matches that we'll use as starting points as we apply "art" and our best effort to accommodate all requirements. Our team is working directly with those in these two test communities and we've been underway for several weeks. As we move into February and March and begin making matches, we'll come back out again with more information on test progress and our way forward to include potential expansion into other AFSCs in future cycles. To be clear and avoid any concerns, this system will NOT be a return to the "all volunteer" system we had in the early 90s nor will it magically fix our various officer shortages or retention issues. But it is designed to provide increased transparency and interaction that should lead to greater awareness and satisfaction with the assignment process. More to follow as we progress. The final adjustment to our officer assignment system is a transition from three to two cycles each year. This adjustment compliments the transition to Talent Marketplace and is designed to give us all more time to communicate, interact, and make "artful" assignment matches. Rather than having Spring/Summer/Fall cycles we will transition to only having Summer (report dates in June-thru-September) and Winter (report dates in Oct-thru-May) cycles. Under the two-cycle system we will move the same number of Airmen and Airmen will still move as required throughout the year. The major change is the reduction of one vulnerable-mover-list (VML) each year. For commanders and billet owners, this means one less VML in terms of workload each year. The transition should also increase the amount of advanced notification time officers and their families receive for their move, with some getting as much as 11-months advance notice. The two-cycle system will allow for more interaction and communication with our officers, billet owners, and commanders which is what the Talent Marketplace assignment system is designed to do. We'll begin transitioning later this Spring and will move straight to a Winter '18 cycle following the Summer '18 cycle. More detailed information will follow but wanted you to have a heads up now. Thanks for partnership as we continue to evolve our practices and systems to allow commanders and Airmen a larger role in the talent management process. We look forward to your feedback and questions as we progress with all three of these linked efforts. V/R, BK BRIAN T. KELLY Major General, USAF Commander, Air Force Personnel Center

I think the blame goes to the administration, who sets the overall atmosphere through the SECDEF and secretaries that are put in place. The chiefs are supposed to work with the secretaries to represent and advocate for the men and women in uniform and shield us from political "crap." But it appears the past few CSAFs failed spectacularly at their job. The previous round of service chiefs and secretaries have got to be the worst collection of services managers ever assembled to date. D James, R Mabus, E Fanning, J Amos and M Welsh. Welsh deserves plenty of blame but he was also dealing with James and the NCR politics. Perhaps should have resigned in protest? Moseley started the downward spiral, kudos to him for standing firm on the raptors (even if it's standing on the back of the airmen), but he really got fired by Gates (actually not bad SECDEF) for not providing enough tactical support. The nuke and the Nellis scandals just added gasoline to the fire.

Moseley. Openly said he chose hardware over people. No other services will you hear that philosophy. People is the most important asset in any organization. Not arguing Raptor's capabilities, but it wasn't an either or problem. Didn't want to rock the boat too much. Still got fired at the end.

Without any insights to NCR's thinking... To me this proposal along with other programs floated by HAF serve two purposes: 1. Collect data now in case they need to quickly ramp up pilot production in case of a national emergency (draft?). 2. Knowing these programs won't lead to any meaningful retention results, they can tell congress that they've exhausted their options to retain pilots, and the only choice left is stop loss (as mentioned previously by others on this forum). Just a theory

Is the AIM-54 making a comeback?

sssssshhhhhhhhhh......

My reference to IG was a general statement and not necessarily applicable to the Dyess situation (maybe/maybe not). It was just depressing reading about this one and the Langley AMXS situation over the weekend. When you include previously known incidents of AF toxic managers and IG investigation, there is a trend of real changes coming after the stories became viral via social media platforms. For the amount of time and money the AF pours into leadership development (PME, Phoenix programs, and etc.), social media/public shaming is the only way to get AF's attention. Now you see people going to social media (for small/big issues) as the first option because of lack of trust. I suppose this is just the era we live in, but totally not what I had envisioned when I took that first oath. I hope this clears up my post up a bit, sorry for the confusion.

Am I the only person that is saddened by the fact that social media and public shaming are pretty much the only ways to get the 4-stars to address toxic AF management? Yeah the IG system is broken and you can't trust anyone to do the right thing anymore. What a shit show. This comment is better reserved for What's wrong with the AF thread.

To be or to do...

Just a bit angry because of the people I know that were affected by the 2014 force shaping fiasco. Good dudes getting passed over, RIFed, told to volunteer outside of duty hours in order to be on the RIF protected list. It all could have been avoided. Debbie James came from SAIC and was known as a downsizing specialist, so to prove her worth she decided to make the cut in one year, instead of doing it incrementally, because what worked in the private sector must work for the government right? Sure there are political pressures from the top to make the downsizing happen, but she could have stalled or at least make an appearance of trying to fend off the wolves. She was more than happy to "swing the axe" (borrowing Gen Goldfein's term). I say fire the people involved with the the downsizing because they didn't talk sense into the SECAF and they did a horrible job of planning and executing the downsizing. On a related note, I understand many flyers on here just want to fly and not do staff time because it's a shitty job. However, the "Staff" can use more the "Been There Done That" flyers to lead or guide the planning and execution of plans and strategies. You don't want to only push HPOs or unqualified folks into certain critical staff jobs for a year and move on. We would have no credibility in the Joint world and it would be detrimental to the fighting force.

cough *stop loss* cough CH did warn people a while back... Edited to add: Snide remarks aside, it's a pretty insulting move to the people who busted their ass to progress to the next level. Congratulations, for the majority of you folks, it doesn't matter how hard you worked to get that strat, you are no better than the person in the next cubicle over. The few HPOs know who they are and won't be affected. What matters is the AF will have plenty of "selects" to send to the various lower tier NAF/MAJCOM/Joint staff billets to appease the screaming commanders, who've had to hire extra contractors, and approve UFRs as stop gap solutions. At the end, these "selects" will likely not advance to O-5 and be happy to retire as O-4s. Air Force solves the manning problems it created and everyone is happy. This is just another example how you and I are just a number in the big blues' eyes. One solution fits all, which is natural for a large bureaucracy. It'd be interesting to see the number of people who decline the promotion opportunity and just leave the service. All I gotta say is the people, civilian or military, who were been involved with Force Management policies since the Debbie James days, needs to be fired immediately. But we all know that will never happen. Accountability is not one of our Core Values and is only a theory taught at Maxwell. Or maybe, they are doing this in anticipation of major event(s) happening throughout the world in the near future...but what do I know? CH was right all along... /Rambling off

Sad thing is, in my corner of the USG, key info are often withheld from the O-6s/GOs by their deputies (GS-15/O-5), for fear the boss will get mad. I just don't understand this line of thinking. Whenever I try to alert the boss to potential bad news on the horizon, the deputies will quickly jump in and stutter something meaningless and change the subject. It's like we are not allowed to talk about issues in a meeting unless it's absolutely positive. Just kick the can down the road until it blows up and blindsides everyone. WTFO?

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Pyongyang-provocation/Japan-prepping-for-evacuation-of-tens-of-thousands-in-South-Korea https://nypost.com/2017/09/04/japan-planning-possible-mass-evacuation-amid-north-korea-threat-report/

I wonder if sitting in the school house vice being at one of the test squadrons working on sexy programs made your PRF less competitive? In my experience, the FTEs and even the human factors O-4s did well from having that ops stink.

FWIW, our O-6 recently mentioned to us that they are now looking for combat/deployment time on the Lt Col board PRF.

Well...that's next week!

Actually, I thought the promotion board exercise was flawed and outdated. As of few years ago, we were still doing paper exercises that led to the conclusion that a coffee making/party planning USAFE staff/exec was more accomplished than someone who deployed a lot. Also the cadre was perpetuating the myth that the board only had ~30 seconds to review/score before moving on to the next package (STS), despite showing everyone a separate AFPC video highlighting the updated computer scoring system and how the O-6s had much more time to scrutinize and deliberate the PRFs/OPRs. people really need to learn to get away from the cool acronyms and dumb down the bullets for the masses...

Nothing is worse than partying with good dudes at SOS and then finding out they got RIFed while at SOS. Flight morale went into the tank and shit got awkward real fast.

Danke!

Asking for a friend... Is it possible to extend DEROS more than once for officers? If so, would you have to do a PCS within local area to make it legal? Family reason. Thanks. PB

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Mandatory wins...

4+ PT failures even if you have 20+ yrs TIS will result in a separation action. You'll have to ask for a retirement waiver with AFPC to receive retirement benefits.

Try this... AF Portal -> search SAF/IA -> Search for the SAF/IA roster hidden in one of the SAF/IA pages

We've seen how this played out before..."You are all top performers to me, what separates you from your peers will be how much volunteer work you do. Also, everyone is getting 90s on PT tests, you need to get a perfect score to be #1 in my secret Excel spreadsheet."