Continued from part 2 ...
REBUILDING A WORKFORCE
Establishing a compensation system that rewards performance could help the agency in its recruiting efforts, which is a main focus right now, experts say.
Two years ago, the FAA centralized its recruiting division in Oklahoma City so it could better focus its resources, Johnson says.
The agency also has opened up its recruiting to the public rather than just going through the military, which traditionally has been its main source of candidates, she says.
The agency now is recruiting through an array of job boards, including Monster and CareerBuilder, as well as using print and radio ads to promote the profession, she says.
“Over the last three years, there has been a lot more attention to branding our overall job campaign,” she says.
The FAA also has increased its efforts at colleges, where it is working to create approved controller training programs. The FAA has established collegiate training initiatives at 23 schools and expects to have 30 to 35 by the end of the year, Trinka says.
While 20 percent to 25 percent of the agency’s hiring pool in the past came from these colleges and 50 percent to 55 percent came from the military, those ratios have not reversed, Trinka says.
The FAA’s HR staff is also making a more concerted effort to have face-to-face contact with prospective candidates as they go through a hiring process that can take months, Johnson says.
Previously, candidates would have to navigate the system of background checks, drug tests and medical exams on their own. Today, the FAA establishes “pre-employment processing centers” where 100 to 150 candidates are processed in a day. Hiring managers throughout the country come in to personally meet the candidates and answer questions.
“This really helps to create a positive view of the agency for candidates,” Trinka says. “They feel like, ‘Oh, they’re really taking care of me and holding my hand through the process.’”
The new recruitment process also is much more efficient, FAA officials say. Time-to-hire is now two to three months, instead of six to nine months.
The FAA has also focused on making its training more efficient, so that instead of taking three to five years for a controller to become fully certified, it now takes two to three years, Trinka says.
The agency has been able to do this largely by relying on new technologies, like flight simulators and computer-based training, but also by revamping the training to be more focused on competencies, Trinka says.
“We have transitioned from a skill-based training program to supplementing it with a competency-based evaluation system,” he says.
Trainees are presented with 13 competencies that a good controller should possess, such as composure and decisiveness, and are then trained to develop those competencies. By setting these expectations, Trinka believes trainees will be more successful.
“Now they know what the standards are from the very beginning,” he says.
Union officials, however, counter that the FAA is “hiring off the street” and rushing these new hires through the training process, which is resulting in more operational errors.
A January 18 internal FAA memo from Billy Cook, district quality assurance manager for the agency’s Washington District, links on-the-job training to a 10 percent increase in operational errors throughout the country during the past year.
The FAA, however, maintains that the system continues to be safe and that it’s having no problem attracting qualified candidates.
“I do believe the agency has the safest aviation system in the world,” Johnson says.
While the union’s focus on public safety may not have a negative effect on the FAA’s recruiting efforts, it is affecting the agency’s ability to retain controllers, who are convinced that it is only a matter of time before there is an accident, former controllers say.
“There is a pervasive feeling among controllers that ‘I don’t want to be there when it happens,’” Gibbons says.
The FAA is doing what it can to retain controllers in high traffic airports where there is a risk of being understaffed, agency officials say.
This year, the agency began offering a formal retention bonus program, by which controllers eligible for retirement can receive as much as $24,000, according to union officials. While the FAA has offered retention bonuses in select cases in the past, this is its first official retention bonus program, Johnson says. The agency would not say how many bonuses it has given out this year.
The problem with offering retention bonuses is that for disgruntled controllers, the issue isn’t just about money, experts say.
“Pay is not a motivator, it’s a satisfier,” Palguta says. “If these controllers are convinced that they aren’t being treated fairly, then that’s going to take precedence over their purchasing power.”
The power of a bonus is also muted by the fact that controllers hired in the early 1980s can retire today with retirement benefits in the range of $70,000 to $75,000 annually with health benefits, so retaining this workforce may actually be impossible, observers say.
The issue that the FAA’s HR staff must address isn’t how to pay people to get them to stay longer, Palguta says, but to attack the root cause of why they are retiring when they claim to love what they do.
“There are controllers at the FAA who love their jobs,” he says. “It’s up to HR to make that the reality for all controllers.”
Taking Flight (Part 3 of 3)
