Town Hall

[32andBelow]

The only logical way to do it is never take into account an employees past exp (ex military, contract tower, etc) and definitely look at the area they reside in currently and then do the opposite. New hire A worked at a VFR tower in PA, well it looks like Oakland Center is the place for you based off of your ATSA score and your gender and color since we use the shit we say we’ll never use and leave out the important shit. What a F***** scam.

The only logical way to do it is to hire locally. The forest service doesn’t hire a Forrest sweeper in Alabama and then assign them to Alaska. They post the job for Alabama.

 

[Peter Gibbons]

The only logical way to do it is to hire locally. The forest service doesn’t hire a Forrest sweeper in Alabama and then assign them to Alaska. They post the job for Alabama.

Agree. Lots of people where these smaller hard to staff places are would be applying if they knew there was a good paying, good benefits .gov job available in thier area that requires no previous experience and doesn't require them to move.

Keep the nationwide bids for people who really really want in and don't mind moving around, but if you offer local bids as well you'd fill lots of the smaller places with people who likely wouldn't be in a hurry to leave.

You are never going to be able to make everyone happy (" there wasn't a local bid for where I wanted!!!") , but if the intent is staffing facilities I don't see why we aren't doing this. I personally know a few people who would have applied had this been an option who didn't because of life commitments, and ties to a certain area.

 

[semperfly]

Keep the nationwide bids for people who really really want in and don't mind moving around, but if you offer local bids as well you'd fill lots of the smaller places with people who likely wouldn't be in a hurry to leave.

Damn good idea, would be cool if the decision makers up top saw this suggestion.

They do it for manager positions on USAjobs. No reason they can't do it for regular positions but just put ots -> academy -> direct to the facility they applied to. Would definitely have to prove you lived there for a while though. Like any other job, no one wants to hire a transient.. Why the hell does the FAA do it?

 

[bravoindia]

The only logical way to do it is to hire locally. The forest service doesn’t hire a Forrest sweeper in Alabama and then assign them to Alaska. They post the job for Alabama.

Sarcasm. No shit they should hire locally. There’s a bunch of weak sticks and washouts that couldn’t do the job to begin with that keep moving up and hosing the rest of us with irrational and incompetent decisions.

 

[Electricfence]

how about close the hard to staff low level facilities that have little traffic? move those certified else where, train them, so that many more facilities will now be well staffed. people notoriously change their mind and want to move anyway. there are just as many current controllers willing to go anywhere as there are that want specific locations. and even if they do want specific locations some of those will want to go elsewhere eventually.

now you are suggesting the government to have double the bids (Local, national) to handle when they barely can handle the one OTS bid they have every 6 months and staff those people on those double bids appropriately? that's pretty foolish.

 

[Mike Kilo]

Why would you want to stop people from being able to work in their small home towns. Not everyone wants to go work a level 12 and prove something. I know plenty of controllers who enjoy the job and like the areas of smaller facilities.
You know the first thing the FAA would do if they closed facilities and forced transfers? They would pull way back on hiring, or just stop altogether. It’s the government, they don’t do what makes sense.
Not to mention some people who transfer would fail the new training program, and now there is a shortage there. Some people would just quit instead of being forced to move.

 

[FightingIrish2012]

I love all three of these ideas. It would improve things greatly, you would think it would be done or at least some discussion of it but no.

1) Keep the National bid for people who truly will work anywhere
2) Open lots of local bids for specific geographic areas
3) Continue to consolidate the level 5 up/downs out of existence then contract out or close all those towers (most do less operations then most current contract towers) and give the controllers a choice to go to any facility that needs staffing

 

[32andBelow]

how about close the hard to staff low level facilities that have little traffic? move those certified else where, train them, so that many more facilities will now be well staffed. people notoriously change their mind and want to move anyway. there are just as many current controllers willing to go anywhere as there are that want specific locations. and even if they do want specific locations some of those will want to go elsewhere eventually.

now you are suggesting the government to have double the bids (Local, national) to handle when they barely can handle the one OTS bid they have every 6 months and staff those people on those double bids appropriately? that's pretty foolish.

This is what I don’t understand. If you opened a bid in a tiny town and offered 80k a year or whatever level 4-5 is wouldn’t every high school senior in that town be applying? What else in these small towns pays as well with no higher ed.

 

[Electricfence]

This is what I don’t understand. If you opened a bid in a tiny town and offered 80k a year or whatever level 4-5 is wouldn’t every high school senior in that town be applying? What else in these small towns pays as well with no higher ed.

Because you can do that as a plumber electrician or mechanic and we still don’t have enough of those around.
And I don’t believe that a workforce hired under a local bid wouldn’t want to go somewhere differently eventually or stay there their entire lives. We’d still run into the same problems.

 

[Peter Gibbons]

now you are suggesting the government to have double the bids (Local, national) to handle when they barely can handle the one OTS bid they have every 6 months and staff those people on those double bids appropriately? that's pretty foolish.

Wait so you don't think the FAA is competent enough to handle a simple usajobs posting done by an hr rep, yet the leadership who put us in this mess to begin with can somehow adequately manage closing, consolidating and contracting out a bunch of facilities without burning current BUEs?

That's some foolishness if you ask me.

 

[32andBelow]

Because you can do that as a plumber electrician or mechanic and we still don’t have enough of those around.
And I don’t believe that a workforce hired under a local bid wouldn’t want to go somewhere differently eventually or stay there their entire lives. We’d still run into the same problems.

I think you can find 15 people that live in pasco that are interested in joining the federal workforce.

 

[Electricfence]

Wait so you don't think the FAA is competent enough to handle a simple usajobs posting done by an hr rep, yet the leadership who put us in this mess to begin with can somehow adequately manage closing, consolidating and contracting out a bunch of facilities without burning current BUEs?

That's some foolishness if you ask me.

no I dont That’s my point exactly.People are suggesting changes that will not change our problems and create new ones and push them down the road having to be dealt with later.

but look at the PPT. Facilities above 85 percent are on the rise, and facilities below 85 are going down....how is this not working? I’m not saying perfectly. I’m not drinking the kool aid It I’m not inclined to make changes that we all will be just as confused with.

 

[Termine]

And I don’t believe that a workforce hired under a local bid wouldn’t want to go somewhere differently eventually or stay there their entire lives. We’d still run into the same problems.

Maybe not, but personally I can see a pretty clear distinction between these two options:

• Oh hey, a job with the FAA! Right in the town where I grew up! That's nice. Of course it's only a level 5... maybe I'll move on in a few years, I don't know. Depends on where my kids are in school.
• Oh hey, a job with the FAA! Maybe I'll get placed back in my hometown! Oh, nope. I'm in a level 5 in Podunkville 1200 miles from home. This sucks. I'm going to ERR out of here the first chance I get.

Obviously just because you grew up somewhere doesn't mean you'll stay there forever. But you can see how the current placement strategy is not really helpful for staffing, if you look beyond the immediate short-term. The majority of people checking out at low level towers are trying to get out ASAP.

Now clearly not everyone can work at the cushy places, or the high-level places, or on the beach at SAN. But even going back to the "pick two states" method would help out quite a bit IMHO. Place people at least in the same time zone as home...

 

[penaltyvectors]

It's way too early to see how many of them will actually make it, but so far the N90 local bid seems to have done what they wanted it to. Most of the trainees coming in now grew up around here, have families here, and wouldn't want to leave even if they could. Whereas we've had trainees that grew up in california or idaho or texas be pretty open about the fact that they don't wanna check out and get stuck here for their whole careers.

This is what I don’t understand. If you opened a bid in a tiny town and offered 80k a year or whatever level 4-5 is wouldn’t every high school senior in that town be applying? What else in these small towns pays as well with no higher ed.

It's a good idea in theory, but I think the problem would be scaling. Those tiny towers don't need 100 new bodies, they need 2 or 3. So you open a local bid for that facility, hire the top 4 ATSA scores, then 1 gets a medical dq and a few fail out in OKC and now you've done all that work to get 1 new body to that tower and you gotta do the same thing all over again. Or they all pass and now you have 4 new trainees in a facility with a CPC target of 9. Would you prevent those local hires from ERRs/hardships, for a couple years or for their whole careers? Plus, in a national bid you can pick the top ATSA scores out of a pool of thousands. In that local bid, you may have a dozen applicants and the highest score is barely above passing. Are you really gonna hire that guy and turn down much higher scores from the national bid? Now all of these could probably be solved if the FAA actually wanted to, but they really don't give a damn about our happiness, so until they actually start to see CPCs quitting over this, they're not gonna go through the effort.

 

[ncssailor]

Slightly off topic but most of the people where I work plan to retire upon reaching 25 years in or age 50 for a multitude of bad missteps by the agency and union. Whether is be NCEPT, staffing issues, horrid trainees coming out of OKC, to much OT, no leave available, bad local FacReps. . A lot of the old timers stuck around for the MRA with that out the window for the most of the current workforce and all these other issues going’s on the staffing crisis will barely be fixed before another mass exodus. Anyone else feel this way?

 

[32andBelow]

It's way too early to see how many of them will actually make it, but so far the N90 local bid seems to have done what they wanted it to. Most of the trainees coming in now grew up around here, have families here, and wouldn't want to leave even if they could. Whereas we've had trainees that grew up in california or idaho or texas be pretty open about the fact that they don't wanna check out and get stuck here for their whole careers.



It's a good idea in theory, but I think the problem would be scaling. Those tiny towers don't need 100 new bodies, they need 2 or 3. So you open a local bid for that facility, hire the top 4 ATSA scores, then 1 gets a medical dq and a few fail out in OKC and now you've done all that work to get 1 new body to that tower and you gotta do the same thing all over again. Or they all pass and now you have 4 new trainees in a facility with a CPC target of 9. Would you prevent those local hires from ERRs/hardships, for a couple years or for their whole careers? Plus, in a national bid you can pick the top ATSA scores out of a pool of thousands. In that local bid, you may have a dozen applicants and the highest score is barely above passing. Are you really gonna hire that guy and turn down much higher scores from the national bid? Now all of these could probably be solved if the FAA actually wanted to, but they really don't give a damn about our happiness, so until they actually start to see CPCs quitting over this, they're not gonna go through the effort.

Administer the ATSA in the tower like they do the MMPI. If you pass the tower can hire you and get you in the next tower class.

 

[bravoindia]

It doesn’t necessarily have to be for the town but I don’t see the problem in having a bid where folks pick states like they used to and another national bid where you get what you get. It doesn’t have to be so specific to town/city.

 

[Shikaka]

Administer the ATSA in the tower like they do the MMPI. If you pass the tower can hire you and get you in the next tower class.

You're assuming a significant amount 9f motivation on managements part.

 

[32andBelow]

You're assuming a significant amount 9f motivation on managements part.

You don’t think a local facility would want to staff their own facility?

 

[Shikaka]

You don’t think a local facility would want to staff their own facility?

Why when you can fill staffing on 6 days and quick turns?

Hiring shouldn't be an individual facility duty, too much could go wrong with that.