8.3 Military Associations & Civilian Programs

Military and Community Associations

AFH 1 notes that the greater military community includes RegAF, National Guard and Reserve, retirees, and veterans, as well as spouses and family members, and that many associations exist for lobbying efforts, fraternity, and support.

The critical content is the closed list of activities the Air Force and its personnel may endorse, per the Joint Ethics Regulation (JER), Section 3-210, Activities with Non-Federal Entities: Fundraising and Membership Drives:

1. The Combined Federal Campaign
2. Emergency and disaster appeals approved by the Office of Personnel Management
3. The Air Force Assistance Fund, comprising the Air Force Enlisted Village, the Air Force Aid Society, and the General and Mrs. Curtis E. LeMay Foundation
4. Other organizations composed primarily of DoD employees or their dependents when fundraising among their own members for the benefit of welfare funds for their own members or dependents, when approved by the head of the DoD Component after consultation with the Designated Agency Ethics Official
5. Veterans Service Organizations recognized by the VA
6. Installation-recognized Private Organizations per AFI 34-223, Private Organizations Program

The three Air Force Assistance Fund charities are the most reliably tested element. Note also the constraint buried in item 4: the fundraising must be among the organization's own members — an Air Force organization may not endorse a general public solicitation.

This list connects directly to the ethics rules in AFH 1 Section 1D: Title 5, CFR, Part 2635 bars soliciting or accepting gifts from prohibited sources, and the JER list is the narrow set of endorsements that survive that bar.

Civilian Personnel Programs

The Air Force provides civilian personnel services through installation civilian personnel flights — usually located in the force support squadron — and the Air Force Personnel Center.

Position Descriptions

The framing sentence is testable on its own: "Civilian employees do not have a rank. Instead, the positions they occupy are graded, typically under the General Schedule, based upon detailed written job descriptions." Those descriptions are the basis for determining pay, qualification requirements, performance expectations, and appraisal ratings.

Position descriptions historically covered duties, responsibilities, and supervisory controls; the Air Force has expanded core personnel documents to include qualifications required for recruitment and training requirements for new employees. Supervisors are responsible for core personnel document accuracy and for implementing standard core personnel documents, which save time for supervisors and classification specialists and can serve as templates for unique core personnel documents.

Filling Jobs

Vacancies are filled using recruitment sources and appointing authorities established by the Office of Personnel Management, DoD, and the Air Force. Referral and selection priorities must be observed when filling competitive service positions.

Employees with mandatory selection or priority referral rights normally include those adversely affected by:

• Reduction-in-force
• Involuntary separation
• Demotion
• Transfer of function declinations or transfer of work outside the commuting area
• Overseas returnees
• The spouses of military personnel

Candidates are screened by AFPC, which refers one or more lists of candidates to the supervisor. OPM provides qualification standards written broadly for government-wide application.

Civilian Resource Management

Civilian pay funds cover overtime, awards, bonuses, the student loan repayment program, seasonal and longer-term overhires, voluntary separation incentive payments, and severance pay. Management depends on a team including commanders, senior leaders, human resource officers, financial managers, and manpower officers, using a corporate board structure meeting at least quarterly.

Training and Development

A training-needs survey is conducted annually, but supervisors may request an out-of-cycle training need at any time. References are DAFMAN 36-2689, Training Program and DAFI 36-2687, Civilian Development.

The three primary sources of training — and the priority rule — are heavily tested:

The priority rule: federal regulations require agencies to consider and select government training sources before turning to nongovernmental alternatives — though nongovernmental sources may be considered when agency or interagency courses cannot satisfy the need or when nongovernmental training is more advantageous.

Training conducted away from the work site is requested, approved, and documented on Standard Form 182, Authorization, Agreement and Certification of Training.

Performance Planning, Appraisals, and Awards

Employees learn duties from their core personnel document and expectations from performance plans developed annually at the start of a rating cycle. Performance standards prescribe how accomplishment of a particular element or duty will be measured.

The performance appraisal is the basis for actions to identify and correct work performance problems, recognize and reward quality performance, improve productivity, and grant periodic pay increases. Supervisors rate performance against each element's standards, then render an overall summary rating. Employees who fail one or more performance elements are administered an unacceptable appraisal and are given an opportunity to improve.

Performance awards named by AFH 1: performance cash, time-off, and quality step increases.

Standards of Conduct

DAFI 36-147, Civilian Conduct and Responsibility, and the Joint Ethics Regulation cover mandatory and prohibited activities. All employees adhere to the USAF core values — the same three that bind military members.

AFH 1 notes the Air Force does not attempt to list all possible forms of improper conduct but emphasizes that misconduct will not be tolerated.

Civilian Pay

The 10 steps versus 5 steps and annual salary versus hourly rate contrasts are the standard discrimination items. The reference is AFI 36-128, Pay Setting and Allowances.

Work Hours and Leave

Most civilians work a regular tour of duty — normally five eight-hour days, Monday through Friday. An uncommon tour of duty is a 40-hour basic workweek that includes Saturday and/or Sunday, or fewer than five days but not more than six days of a seven-day administrative workweek.

Two alternate work schedules may be implemented by organization commanders:

• Flexible work schedules — employees start and end work at different times
• Compressed work schedules — 80 hours in a pay period in fewer than 10 workdays; the most common is four nine-hour days each week, an eight-hour day in one week, and a regular day off in the other

Civilian leave:

Leave is charged and taken in 15-minute increments. Illness or injury keeping an employee from work should be reported to a supervisor during the first two hours of the duty day. Jury duty, dismissals for extreme weather, and absences excused by the installation commander are not charged to annual leave.

Unions and Dispute Resolution

Approximately 53 percent of Air Force civilian employees are covered by labor agreements between unions and installations or major commands — and AFH 1 makes the key point that they are members of the bargaining unit even if they are not dues-paying union members. Unions have legal status under federal law.

The labor relations officer or specialist in the civilian personnel section is the usual liaison between supervisors and management officials and union officials, and speaks for management in routine communications.

Dispute resolution splits by coverage: labor-management contracts must include a negotiated grievance procedure for bargaining unit members, most starting with alternative dispute resolution using outside neutral facilitators or mediators. Supervisors, managers, and employees not covered by a collective bargaining agreement follow different grievance procedures, and administrative grievances are decided by USAF officials, usually the installation commander or designee, though outside fact finders may be used.