TFN and JH meets the troops in BN today
Not sure how widespread this got distributed up here in BN CTR yesterday but hopefully our "overstaffing" lets me attend today:
Shows they still have no idea!!!
Greg Russell and Jason Harfield will be visting Brisbane on Wednesday the 19th of March.* There will be two sessions held on the day as per the details below.
Time: 11.00am - 12.00pm
Location: Timor Room, Level 1, Brisbane Centre
Time: 1.00pm - 2.00pm
Location: Timor Room, Level 1, Brisbane Centre
While I understand Greg will address staff briefly, the primary purpose of the sessions is to provide an opportunity for staff to communicate directly with Greg and Jason to ensure they understand your issues.*
Will you encourage as many people as possible to attend
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the initiatives and work that the ATC Group will be and is conducting to address the challenges and issues facing the group.
Context
We are undergoing a significant operational remake to position our operational service delivery to ensure we can meet the challenges of unprecedented growth, changing industry dynamics, and demand to further improve safety and efficiency.
Key components of this remake are the changes to our Air Traffic Control service delivery. In the current form and cognisant of global pressures for staff, technology and meeting increasing industry expectations, we will not be properly positioned to maintain safe and efficient services in future operating environments with the challenges these issues pose.
While there has been substantial changes to the ATC technology platforms, this is the first time we have addressed the service delivery, operating, management, training and cultural issues to maximise those technology improvements and to bring further improvements to both safety and efficiency of our service delivery.
Some of the platforms to this re-positioning are:
***Developing a Service Delivery Environment (SDE) where services are tailored to meet the differing requirements of Upper Airspace, High Density East Coast and Regional Airspace;
***A new leadership and management structure that instills management accountability, human resource management, consistency and proactive communication consistent with the changes in the rest of Airservices;
***Development of longer term strategies to address recruitment, retention, and ATC career model and training;
***Identification and introduction of supporting technologies such as new tower and enroute ATC simulators.
ATC Staffing
The staffing situation in the ATC Group is a concern and a number of initiatives have been put into place to address the situation. They are:
***Produced an 18 month rolling resource plan that allows for better recruitment and planning;
***Increased the demand for the ATC skill set for the organisation to just over 1000 to take into account more than just the number of controllers needed operationally (eg transfers, career model, projects, new services, check and standardization etc)
***Given visibility to the Board and Executive Management of the staffing issues
***Review of training and recruitment to stream line the entry process and improving the quality of trainees
***Reviewed the forward operational and capital expenditure program to ensure it aligns with the resourcing requirements
***A review of our operational staff deployment to assure ourselves that operational staff are being deployed effectively and consistently
***Targeted recruitment to address some of the staffing issues on a short term nature
Service Delivery Environment
Over the last 12 months or so the focus of the SDE has been to restructure the operational environment into the various service delivery lines. This has caused considerable angst as the majority of the benefits associated with SDE are not realized or tangible during this period. This makes it difficult for staff to understand or see the answers to why do it? Particularly when these changes are caused pressure on resource numbers in a time of short staffing!
A majority of these structural changes (ie moving sectors between groups etc) have been done and the SDE can move into a consolidate and build phase. This is about focusing on what the SDE is about improving our service delivery. This also ties in with the review of the operational and capital expenditure program.
One other initiative that is being done is a review of some of the SDE design principles particularly how they apply to the Brisbane and Cairns Service Delivery Line.
ATC Group Structural Changes
The ATC Group is also undergoing some structural changes to match the forward challenges.
A Business Support Branch is being created to bring together the resourcing, rostering, financial, human resource information from a national perspective so the information is consistent and utilized by the entire ATC group as well ensuring standardization across the group.
The ATC Capability Branch under Peter Curran will be re-focused on developing the organisations operational requirement. This ensures that the ATC Group can articulate what it needs to improve and deliver the ATC service. This re-focus will also mean that some ATM Capability Specialist in TAS will re-locate to the ATC Group.
A review of the ATC Group system and processes is also being undertaken to ensure the support services of the group support the entire group effectively.
There will also be considerable effort in developing the capability of management at all levels to ensure management is effective as it can be to lead the group but also manage the delivery of our services in the most effective manner.
ATC Group Systems and Processes
In undergoing this reform process the ATC Group has restructured its management structure and operational delivery structure. In continuing this process the underpinning systems and processes that ensure these new structures work effectively need to also be addressed. Therefore the ATC Group is embarking on a program to review and introduce revised systems within the group that support the changes in the way we deliver services. This program is being conducted with the assistance of the rest of the organisation and each of the work streams is being lead by a SDL Manager. The workstreams are:
***Strategy we need to develop a strategic plan that is not just technology based it deals with the challenges we face and how we are going to address them and includes how our staff will address these challenges;
***Training we need to review our training methods and delivery to ensure we are getting the best training and the most efficient training possible;
***Recruitment in the current labour markets we need better targeted and deliberate recruitment strategies rather than a one sixe fits all approach.
***Communications getting the communication channels in the group working effectively;
***ATC Career Model the career model that has been developed needs to be implemented and integrated within the group;
***Endorsements we need to review the endorsement structure and number thereof
***Rostering rostering needs to be standardized and centralized to ensure rosters are produced in line with resource planning for the national operation;
***Check and Standardisation a clean sheet approach is required to determine what do we want to achieve and what is the best way of doing that!
***Front Desk Operations we need to clarify the roles of the ALM and OD in the operations room and what is the best model for operational command authority of the operations room and FIRs;
The aim is to complete the design work and planning by the end of May and no implementation etc will occur until this work is done. It needs to be planned properly and integrated accordingly.