Fit Vs. Fill

By MGySgt Joshua Smith

Each military service has its unique practices in meeting its manning requirements. I have always held to the truism that experience counts and pays the most dividends within the aviation world. However, being a Marine and in a different service, it was not until my latest assignment to the Naval Safety Center (NAVSAFECEN) that I became aware of how the Naval Enterprise met these manning requirements for their aviation squadrons. As part of the NAVSAFECEN’s assessment team responsible for conducting comprehensive safety centric looks of all the aviation squadrons for the Navy and Marines, I observed it was not abnormal to see Navy squadrons where many of their journeymen-level Sailors were new to their platforms. With an outsider’s understanding of the inner workings of Naval manning, I admit I found this practice was foreign to me and a bit alarming as I observed the challenges work centers and maintenance departments faced when many of their journeymen-level Sailors did not possess prior platform experience in their current aviation platform. I learned the primary causal factor in this originates with the ongoing manning process of “filling” the aviation manning requirements with Sailors of like rate but not necessarily staying within the same platform “fit.” In some cases, this meant not even staying in the same rotary or fixed-wing community. So from the outside observer’s perspective, I must ask the question of what is more critical to a healthy maintenance department, filling the manning within a unit to the maximum extent or having the right “fit” of personnel? As a senior enlisted member on the assessment team, I make it a habit to ask this very question to the senior maintenance leadership on every unit assessment. To date, 100 percent of the maintenance Master Chiefs of those respective units indicated they were more concerned with their Sailors having platform experience and being the right “fit” vice filling every staffing requirement; simply put, quality over quantity.

A senior enlisted perspective from an outsider’s observation

They made a point of mentioning success usually came down to having the right personnel with the right qualifications and experience and how they are effectively employed within their unit. This inclination was something I give credence to, as I was unable to observe a definitive correlation between a purely maximized staffing level and a successful and effective unit.

During our assessments, I observed some maintenance departments with 80 percent manning levels, while possessing the right “fit” were running seamlessly and operating on all cylinders while some other units closer to the 100 percent level were not. Of these struggling maintenance departments, I observed in the more extreme cases some work centers only had about 15-20 percent of their journeymen-level Sailors with previous platform experience and these were struggling with having to carry the load on their shoulders.

Additionally, beyond this question regarding “fit/fill” is how those impacted journeymen-level Sailors are affected by this manning strategy where they transfer to a different type of aviation platform based upon their rate rather than their platform experience. To date, less than 10 percent of the journeymenlevel Sailors I encountered and queried favored this practice and garnered any benefits from it. The vast majority felt they had been transferred into a new platform with a disadvantage, as they were no longer working on becoming subject matter experts in their original platform in which training and resources were allocated. They felt a tremendous amount of stress to get up to speed with peers or meet paygrade expectations, but had to start over again, regain their qualifications and become trusted and skilled assets within their new platform. They believed their journeymen level was not the place to grow more well-rounded with this type of exposure but that these moves should be made at the more senior level as they would reap more benefits with these type transfers as it becomes more about managing people, programs and communication.

At the day’s end, there can be no argument that any Service has adequate manning for every facet and it comes down to a careful balancing act of filling staffing requirements but at the same time not sacrificing having the right “fit.” There are unique and undeniable challenges, no matter the direction a Service leans toward accomplishing this feat. However, I must repeat the question I asked previously of what is critical to a healthy maintenance department, filling the manning within a unit to the maximum extent or having the right “fit” of personnel? I think it’s a bit of both, but you must have the right “fit” to achieve any degree of measurable success within your unit. You must have the right “fit” of personnel to have an adequate number of people to properly train, cover all shifts and detachments.

Training is the basis of setting up the next generation of journeymen-level maintainers for success.