By NAVAIR Public Affairs

NAVAIR is striving to make the command an employee workplace of choice based on input from the 2000 Quality of Work Life (QWL) survey distributed across NAVAIR, but in order for improvements to continue, employees are encouraged to provide their input in the follow-up survey in early 2003.

As a result of the last QWL survey, focus groups, competency leaders and site commanding officers have been pursuing ways to improve the quality of worklife.

The goal of the QWL survey was to better understand NAVAIR employees’ thoughts on their quality of work life. The participants’ feedback pointed out four major opportunities for improvement within their work life environment at NAVAIR: awards and recognition, leadership and workforce, training and career development, and work and family balance. Since that time, NAVAIR leadership have collaborated with employees and established short and long-term goals to address their areas of concern. Based on the goals, the People Focus Group (PeFG), competency leaders and site commanding officers have been working together to implement command-wide initiatives and local activities to improve NAVAIR as a work place.

Regarding “awards and recognition”, the PeFG took on the responsibility to focus on subject areas most widely reported throughout the survey, such as monetary rewards, recognition of employee contributions, proactive feedback by management, and incentives for employees to excel. Managers were provided an awards toolkit, and quarterly awards ceremonies are encouraged. To increase morale, managers are encouraged to improve their use and timing of informal recognition awards such as “You Made a Difference” coins and NAVAIR polo shirts, along with verbal encouragement and appreciation for a job well done.

Also, leaders have increased their visibility through “walk-abouts” of NAVAIR sites and facilities. Leaders believe that by becoming more accessible and visible to employees, a greater sense of ownership and team workmanship is established.

The 2000 survey respondents also voiced concerns with speed of developing processes by leadership, level of communication between NAVAIR members and leaders, level of supervision, conflicting ideas of what it means to work as a “team” and perceptions of headquarters-centric perspectives. To assist in broadening the link between the workforce and leaders, focus groups were established to allow for employee participation in NAVAIR wide decision-making efforts.

Issues arising from the “work life balance” area concentrated on concerns of heavy workloads, needs for flexible schedules, childcare options, and opportunities for career advancement. Encouraging flextime, telecommuting and employee appreciation days were some of the initiatives established by leadership to address employee concerns.

In respect to training and development, the following concerns were identified: support of individual development plans, quality of mandated training and advancement opportunities for all employees. To assist in resolving these issues across the command, NAVAIR leadership implemented an employee wide development program, and a supervisory success-training program, creating developmental opportunities within NAVAIR.

A second QWL survey will be administered to the NAVAIR team in early 2003. NAVAIR leadership strongly encourages NAVAIR wide participation to continue strengthening NAVAIR benefits and improving the overall NAVAIR work environment.

For more information on the QWL survey, please email [email protected].

NAVAIR provides advanced warfare technology through the efforts of a seamless, integrated, worldwide network of aviation technology experts. From professional training to carrier launch; from sensor data to precision targeting; from aircraft and weapons development to successful deployment; from real-time communication to aircraft recovery NAVAIR provides dominant combat effects and matchless capabilities to the warfighter.