Continued from part 1 ...
CULTURAL CHALLENGES
Many observers thought that 1981 was the low point for relations between FAA management and the union, which at the time was the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. But it seems that the relationship between the FAA and the NATCA, the successor to PATCO, has come close to that nadir in the past few years.
The acrimony stems from a breakdown in negotiations in July 2006, when after 15 months of talks the agency implemented salary caps for new hires, a pay freeze for veteran controllers and a host of work rules that former controllers and union officials say were designed to make their already difficult jobs even more stressful.
The FAA implemented strict mandates on sick leave and vacations, imposed a new dress code and put an end to a contractual protection that said controllers couldn’t work a radar screen for more than two hours without a break.
“I worked behind a gate with armed guards in a dark room that had no exposure to the public and they were telling me that I had to wear Dockers and penny loafers, just because my boss wanted me to,” says Ray Gibbons, an air traffic controller who retired in October 2007 after 25 years on the job. “It really hurt morale.”
FAA officials counter that the purpose of the dress code was to establish a professional environment.
“As a manager, I would characterize those rules as a reflection that this is a highly regarded profession, and that was management’s intent with the work rules,” says Jim Trinka, technical training director for the FAA.
Outsiders, including members of Congress, often visit the towers, so it makes sense to ask controllers to dress in business-casual attire, says Paul Takemoto, a spokesman for the FAA.
For all of the union’s protests about the work rules, their real issue is the pay caps, whether the union will admit it or not, Trinka says.
“Their rhetoric may be all about how they are being treated, but when they go to Capitol Hill it’s all about pay,” he says. “They say one thing and then do another. Every initiative they have gotten behind is about pay.”
Whatever the core of the grievances, the fact remains that morale has gotten worse since the 2006 impasse, former controllers and observers of the agency say.
“I have dealt with controllers and there is a lot of hatred toward management,” says one academic who has studied the agency but didn’t want to be named. “It’s unnatural.”
Employee morale was already bad at the agency in 2006. In that year’s Employee Attitude Survey, 43 percent of FAA employees surveyed said they were very dissatisfied or somewhat dissatisfied with their organization as a place to work.
While the survey is based on responses from a random sampling of 10,000 employees throughout the agency, former controllers say that statistic is probably higher for the controller workforce itself.
FAA officials, however, contend that attrition rates among its controller population are low but are rising now because of the demographic issue.
In 2006, 583 of 1,038 controllers who left the agency retired, according to a March 2007, according to a March 2007 agency report. Last fiscal year, 911 out of 1,622 departures were retirements, according to the NATCA.
“The vast majority of controllers find it a very rewarding career,” Trinka says.
The FAA’s Johnson concedes that morale is an issue, but says that employee survey scores for the past 10 years “have been fairly stable and consistent with what you find throughout government.”
However, each business division of the agency has created plans to address issues brought up by the surveys, and for HR that means improved manager training, she says.
“Our feeling is that better-trained managers are going to be better managers,” she says.
To address this, the FAA has re-instituted mandatory training for new and newly appointed midlevel and senior-level managers. It covers such topics as labor management and leadership training, Johnson says. Every three years, managers have to complete a minimum of 40 hours of training. The agency also has updated its manager training to address current issues, such as dealing with different generations in the workforce, Trinka says.
“Melding the generational cultures is a challenge for any organization,” he says. “So Trinka and his team have been researching the motivators for great performance, regardless of employee age.
“For example, communication is important to employees regardless of what generation they grew up in,” he says.
The FAA’s HR team is also busy with another project: implementing performance-based compensation for air traffic controllers. While most of the FAA has been using some kind of pay-for-performance system since the mid-1990s, the controllers are coming under the system just this year.
Under the new program, there will be an annual pay raise, and then each individual is eligible for another raise based on performance, Trinka says.
While moving toward a pay-for-performance platform may help motivate and engage younger workers, it’s going to be a challenge to implement, given the lack of trust that many air traffic controllers feel toward their managers, observers say.
“You have to first establish a level of trust between the managers and the employees before a performance-based pay system can really work,” says Palguta from the Partnership for Public Service.
Continued in part 3 ...
Taking Flight (Part 2 of 3)
