Air Force Strategic Master Plan explains career field changes Published Nov. 14, 2016 By Paul F. Edwards Air Force Civil Engineer Center I entered the Air Force civil engineer community in summer 2000. It seems like we have been in a state of transformation ever since. That transformation arguably began before that date, but I believe the last 16 years have produced the most radical changes in our service’s human capital history; specifically for civil engineers. Sixteen years ago, you could still find field grade officers and senior civilian engineers who actually spent time in their early years designing whole building systems. With possibly a unique exception here and there, those days are long past us and, quite honestly, it is difficult to know exactly what the future holds with regard to our careers without some guidance. If you haven’t downloaded and read the Air Force Strategic Master Plan, or SMP, and its associated annexes, you honestly might want to do so sometime soon. It helps put a lot of what is going on in our community into perspective. The intended audience of the SMP is, of course, all of the policy makers at higher headquarters, but it never hurts to know from where all these unfunded downward directives are spawned. The SMP, and more specifically the Human Capital Annex, helps convince the average uniformed, civilian and contractor civil engineer of an actual method to the madness. The annex emphasizes that human capital is composed of people and the organization. As described above, the organization piece of the equation has changed significantly over the past several years. Force strength has decreased substantially and organizational alignment, capabilities and responsibilities seem to change almost daily. The people portion of the equation has not changed proportionally in my opinion, other than there are fewer of us. We just keep making it work with the same hardworking personnel, especially in the civilian arm of the workforce. The SMP and HCA specifically and repeatedly tells us that our Air Force must become a more agile, diverse, inclusive and capable force in order to handle a rapidly changing environment. That sounds really exciting, but what does it really mean? I am a huge fan of timelines, progression pyramids and any other visual that helps describe the various paths to goals. Luckily, you can find timelines and objectives in the HCA that describe how the Air Force intends to address recruiting, development, management and retention issues associated with its human capital. My focus in this article is going to be on the civilian portion of the workforce, but there are commonalities with the enlisted and officer corps as well. Aside from our civilian employees in the operations flight, the majority of us are a white-collar workforce. Recruiting the right workforce with the unique skills and capabilities necessary to meet Air Force demands is harder than ever. The white-collar private sector is faring pretty well these days. The HCA has several all-encompassing objectives spread over the next four to five years that tell me the service is on the right track to deal with recruitment issues. Those objectives include analyzing the exact skill sets necessary to meet the civil engineering capability requirements under the agile combat support core function, performing the research to see where those skill sets reside in the civilian populace and devising an execution plan to effectively compete for the talent in those markets. Not a week goes by in my current job at the Air Force Civil Engineer Center that I don’t hear about some incredible, mission-stopping manpower shortage. For some reason recently it always seems to be programmers. I am not sure if there is a more thankless job in civil engineering than a programmer. However, I am optimistic with all the work that is currently going into the CE Human Capital Plan headed up by Robert Rushing, chief of AFCEC’s asset integration branch and a certified planner we will figure out what unique skill sets are necessary for programmers and how to recruit and retain them. Developing our civilian workforce is more important than ever. The threat of a mass exodus of senior civilians is still looming. Developing capabilities in our new and mid-career civilians is essential to filling the shoes that will inevitably be left empty by our senior civilians retiring. My current and many of my previous jobs required some level of interaction with Geospatial Information Systems, so when the opportunity came up for me to get some real GIS training, I jumped at it. I honestly think it might be the most valuable training I have received from the Air Force in the last 10 years. This feeling of enlightenment needs to be the rule and not the exception like it is for so many of us. I am encouraged to see the SMP and HCA focus a great deal of effort on development of new training technologies. Sure, most of that will be geared to the operational community, but I am hopeful some of it will filter down to us. Even if it just means we see something more “developmental” out of the current “sustainment”-focused, computer-based technologies that we use for our annual Total Force Awareness, it will be an improvement. The portion of the SMP and HCA that most directly impacts my career today is the management section. Any civil engineer can read the sections and objectives associated with workforce management and understand where a lot of the current civil engineer management policy changes are rooted. The days of civil engineer leadership at the installation, primary subordinate units, MAJCOMs and Headquarters, Air Force and the Secretary of the Air Force becoming stagnant appear to be long gone. The buzzwords around the “promotion” water cooler these days are “key career positions.” For those who don’t know, these positions are centrally managed by the CE Career Field Management Team at the Air Force Personnel Center. They are designed to develop and network future leaders in the various communities making sure the right person is in the right job with the right qualifications. They also are positions that require a mobility agreement and only last three to four years. It is becoming apparent that anyone desiring to serve as a deputy base civil engineer, deputy mission support group commander, or with any seniority in headquarters positions, has to be mobile. Enter a significant commonality with the senior noncommissioned officer and officer corps. As a civil engineer officer and now as a civilian, I have always been told that mobility and job breadth are the two most important factors in being marketable for better jobs. I believe the SMP and HCA reinforce this philosophy like never before. It is honestly refreshing to see this language in such a high-level document instead of just hearing it from a mentor and wondering if the guidance is still valid. The current SMP and HCA Talent Management Objectives focus on updating career progression models, improving feedback/assessment processes and improving accountability when it comes to diversity and inclusiveness. I believe the implications specific to the CE civilian workforce revolve around finding the competitive, high-potential civilians in the GS-11/13 range and networking/exposing them to as many people as possible so they can lead at the GS-14+ level with an understanding of the entire enterprise and how we all fit into it. When I digest all this information, I come to the conclusion that moving among organizations is the best method of attaining a good level of diversity and breadth of experience. I just spent five years at the base level. I plan on spending a few years at an elevated level in the organizational hierarchy and then looking for another position at a base where I can make a difference. In this type of environment, professional military education and professional registration are as critical as ever in the competitive environment. I am not sure how much the current SMP and HCA have helped the civil engineering civilian career field already. At my level in the community, I would say very little. However, I think these strategic documents have laid the foundation for better changes and tools to come. The next few years will provide better insight into whether these documents are going to be worth their weight in human capital. About the author: Edwards is a general engineer who works on installation complex development and strategic basing analysis.