Services functions realign with manpower and personnel

Two Air Force functions are coming back together, an Air Force official here said recently, but initially the effects won't be felt outside the Pentagon.

When the services and manpower and personnel functional organizations combine, the change will be invisible to those in the field at base-level, said Col. Mike Gamble, chief of strategic planning for Air Force Manpower and Personnel.

"This transformation puts the two career fields under the same roof, in terms of leadership and chain of command," he said. "It really only changes how things are handled here at the Pentagon. Both career fields just fall under the same boss now."

That should come as a relief to those who were anticipating the possibility of combined missions and training, he said.

"Airmen who are working at the fitness centers won't suddenly find themselves working in the personnel office, and vice versa," he said. "There are still going to be separate missions and separate training."

The merge falls in line with Air Force Smart Operations 21, the term given to changes being made Air Force-wide that allow organizations to combine the best parts of several civilian efficiency programs, such as Lean and Six Sigma, to develop Air Force-unique process improvement programs.

"We'll be able to anticipate efficiencies and avoid redundancies," Colonel Gamble said. He said major command headquarters will realign their services and manpower and personnel organizations by June 1.

"Everyone wants to know what is going to happen to their (Air Force specialty code), or whether there will be one personnel and services squadron at a base," he said. "These and other issues will be carefully studied and eventually recommendations will be made to the Air Force A1. We want to be more efficient and operate smarter. We'll figure out if those and other ideas make sense, and carefully implement the ones that do."

The goal is to improve readiness while continuing to strengthen the programs within the career fields, he said. He gave the example of services and personnel Airmen working together in a deployed environment.

"Today we often find our deployed Airmen make their own efficiencies between the two functions. We may have lodging troops sitting right next to the (Personnel Support for Contingency Operations) troops in the same area," he said.

"Both of them need to get a good ID on who is there - one to bed them down and the other so they know who is where - and they share their information and get the job done better and more accurately," he said. "Why not share energy (between the two organizations) and be more efficient across the entire scope of operations?"

Source: U.S. Air Force

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