91st Missile Wing to undergo organizational safety assessment

  • Published
  • 91st Missile Wing Safety Office
MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. --  The recent Air Force Combined Mishap Reduction System survey the 91st Missile Wing completed this previous fall, demonstrated to leadership some areas of safety culture and member concern that may be amenable to improvement.

To further clarify the wing's strengths and challenges, Col. Robert Vercher, 91st MW commander, has requested the Air Force Safety Center to come to Minot to perform an organizational safety assessment and provide recommendations for enhancing safety. Hosted by the wing safety office, the OSA is a preventive tool that offers commanders an objective way to better understand their organization's issues.

"The main goal is to provide commanders an assessment of the safety culture within their units in order to build upon existing risk management efforts, ultimately to ensure the protection of their people and resources," said Dr. Tim Strongin, OSA Team Chief.

The OSA provides the commander with a feedback loop from a combination of AFCMRS data and on-site interviews. This includes objective and subjective information on how much stress people feel, how it is affecting their lives, and how they are coping. Objective information comes from written surveys and subjective information comes from personal interviews by members of the visiting team.

The OSA team is usually composed of at least one aerospace psychologist, flight surgeon, pilot, aircraft maintainer, and ground safety NCO. Key benefits of the assessment include its ability to identify the sources of stress and the symptoms of strain prevalent in a unit or group, and to serve as a reliable and consistent outcome measure to establish the effectiveness of individual or organizational interventions.

A licensed psychologist interprets the results. The wing completed the surveys in the fall and the team will provide the results directly to the wing commander during their visit, said Dr. Strongin.

The main goal of the team's visit moves from the objective to the subjective. The team will conduct one-on-one interviews with squadron commanders to develop an understanding of the organization and to show the commander what their Airmen will experience. This interview often includes several specific questions provided by the wing. The rest are directly related to the safety culture in the organization. Chiefs and first sergeants will also be interviewed in small groups or individually.

Further interviews are conducted in mass meetings, separated by rank (airmen, junior noncommissioned officers, senior NCOs, company grade officers, and field grade officers) and by organization type (maintenance, operations, etc.). No member will be interviewed in the same room as his or her supervisor.

In the end, the data will be analyzed and examined for trends. Findings and recommendations are formulated and given during an out-brief to the wing commander.

The out-brief and data becomes the property of the wing commander to be used locally to improve the safety culture and ultimately the mission effectiveness of the base.