Working with employees
PSY/435

I/O Commentary on Real World Problems. James T McCoy is the flight line manager of the 41st Aircraft Maintenance Unit (AMU) at Peterson Air Force Base (PAF), California. McCoy’s is required to have any or all of his seven assigned aircraft ready to fly as scheduled. McCoy is responsible for ensuring there is enough qualified personnel, work schedules, training, supplies, vehicles, support equipment and performance reports to name a few. McCoy does not handle all these duties himself, as a Wage-supervisor 13, (WS-13) he has an equal WS-13 that works the other shift, five Wage-supervisors (WS-11), and 10 Wage-leader 12, (WL-12) that he can delegate duties to. On November 28, 2012, James T McCoy sat down with me, Gregory Lambert, and discussed some of the challenges and issues that arise in the AMU. Once, out in the open with the issues I asked McCoy what strategies he has used to address the challenges. After reviewing what we discussed I came up with some recommendations to help James T McCoy deal with situations as they may arise in the future (University of Phoenix, n.d.).
Problems in the 41st AMU James T McCoy is a 27-year veteran of the United States Air Force (USAF), retired, and continues to work for the USAF as a civil servant for the past 10 years. Discussing some issues that arise in his workplace the number one problem is employees. Employees encompasses a big field of discussion, when asked for clarification, James said a few items coming to mind. Qualifications, when McCoy was an active duty member, a new employee was assigned to the AMU with a skill level and knowledge of the airframe assigned. The new employee could have had a little or an enormous amount of knowledge of the particular airframe but he or she would have had some formal and possible on-the-job-training (OJT) on it. As a civil servant, many factors go into the hiring process. Anyone can apply for a job through the USAJOB.gov, the government job posting website (Longley, 2012). A resume is needed, there are knowledge, skill, and ability questions (KSA’s), along with other factors that get a prospective employee an interview. It these other factors that James T. McCoy finds disturbing. Items such as veteran’s preference, points awarded for having prior military, spousal preference, and veterans with disabilities preference can hold back the ability to hire the person with the best qualifications for the job. An example of this is a job for a KC-135R aircraft mechanic, Bob Smith has worked this type of aircraft for four years in the USAF before his enlistment ended, he then started working for the Boeing corporation for 10 years doing modifications and upgrades on this airframe. Bob’s KSA’s were outstanding, and resume was impeccable and verified. James wants to hire Bob for the job but cannot because Tim Jones, a retired F-16 mechanic has a 30% rated disability. Although he has aircraft maintenance experience he has never worked on a KC-135R, his KSA’s are good but not as good as Bobs, and his resume shows that out of the 20 years spent in the USAF as a F-16 mechanic, the last 12 were done as a tool room manager not working on the aircraft itself. Because Tim Jones is a disabled veteran, he has a higher priority and James T. McCoy has to choose Tim over Bob for this reason. James then has to spend money to send Tim to training schools, and assign an experienced employee to train him once he finishes school versus having Bob, with his 14 years on aircraft experience, hit the ground running and start contributing to the mission from day one. James T. McCoy second biggest challenge with employees is getting employees from different backgrounds, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender and age working together as a team, trusting each other and ensuring the aircrafts are safe to fly. In James T. McCoy’s active duty days, there was a rank structure in place that determined who was in charge, and what duties each individual were required to accomplish daily. As civil servants everyone who is a wage-grade 12 (WG-12) is equal, if the two above-mentioned individuals Bod Smith and Tim Jones, were working side-by-side they would be equal even though Bob has more experience. Bob (short for Roberta) is a gay, 30-year-old Caucasian woman and Tim is a 55-year-old, single, heterosexual African American male from the south. Tim has issues with a gay young White woman who is a WG-12 just like him, telling him what to do and will not do what is asked because Tim feels he is being picked on because of his age and race. James T. McCoy does not have enough supervisors or leaders at his disposal to assign to each aircraft, he must rely on his experienced folks to ensure flight-worthy aircraft are available and that his workforce can work together.
Strategies to fix challenges James T. McCoy told stories of how problems arise and what he has done to fix them, most of the fixes accomplished are temporary at best, and the problems subside for a time but often appear later and at the most inopportune times. McCoy has had to turn away potential employees referred to him by current employees with the experience on assigned aircraft. He has been able to get a few of the people he wanted to hire in place but at a high cost. James had to hire the person thrown at him because of a higher preference, the others applicants would stay on file for one year, if the hired employee did not work out during the probation period, he or she would be let go and the next person on the original list could be hired at that point. Often what happened is the hired employee does not work out but the person with the experience has other employment by the time the original person going to be terminated so more time and money is invested to bring the current employee up to standards. Race, gender, sexual orientation, and age challenges have had James T. McCoy looking for help. The above example caused the loss of more than 500 maintenance man hours because of meetings, conferences, and suspension. Roberta was suspended for two weeks because Tim accused her of being racists toward him, making him do tasks he believed were demeaning to a “black” man. Roberta wanted Tim to bring the urinal off the aircraft to be emptied, clean it then reinstall, a job done by every maintainer at or time or another, as she repaired a hydraulic actuator, a task Tim did not know how to do. Tim refused to do what was asked of him and pestered Roberta as she did her task to the point where she blurted out “get your old ass up there and do the job assigned.” Roberta was wrong for losing her temper and using Tim’s age in yelling at him. Because of this incident, 83 employees at the AMU had to accomplish sensitivity training, go to a lecture on age and race discrimination, causing the 500 maintenance man hours to be loss.
Recommendations to help James T. McCoy Some recommendations for James T. McCoy are to do a job analysis of jobs in his work center. The analysis will point him into the direction he needs to rewrite job listings to screen out the average potential employee and list specifics that only a person that has accomplished the task prior could be chosen for the position. By doing initial, mid-year, and annual performance appraisals, McCoy could let new and current employees know what they are doing correctly and where improvement is needed, if the new employee is not meeting standards, letting him or her go when the probation period expires will become easier and not surprise the individual (Spector, 2012.) Race, gender, age, sexual orientation, and religion discrimination has no place in a work environment. The 41St AMU is extremely lackadaisical when it comes to jokes about these subjects. The managers at role call use racial slurs, call the 20-year-olds babies and refer to the older employees as grandpa. The underlings see this being done in jest and nobody seems to be bothered by it. When an employee equal in status to another uses the same terms, joking or not, those with “thinner” skin get offended and complain to the Equal Opportunity Office (EEO), causing disruption in work and destroying the bond between coworkers. A suggestion to James T. McCoy is to use motivation theories to get his people to work together versus trying to funny with discriminating remarks. McCoy must institute a zero-tolerance approach to discrimination, make example of those who continue to carry on in a disrespectful manner (Spector, 2012.)

References
Longley, R. (2012). Government Job Hiring Process Made Easier. Retrieved from http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/2010/05/12/government-job-hiring-process-made-easier.htm
Spector, P. E. (2012). Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Research and Practice (6th ed.). Retrieved from https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/content/eBookLibrary2/content/TOC.aspx ?assetdataid=5f1274cf-f556-4d6d-8753-0740790c2a9d&assetmetaid=86ea458c-8a8b-4a89-8862-73b3e9e2c7d9.
University of Phoenix. (n.d.). Working With Employees: An I/O Commentary on Real World Problems. Retrieved from University of Phoenix, PSY 435 Industrial/Organizational Psychology website.