Taking the "safety pulse" of your squadron

Approach, March, 2002 by Robert Figlock, Anthony Ciavarelli

The CO has been in place for a couple months and is getting a grip on the squadron's op tempo, work ethic, and safety climate. But, are the CO's impressions correct? Is the CO's finger on the pulse of the squadron? How can COs know when their perceptions are accurate? How do they gauge success of current, well-established programs within their units? Gut feeling? Intuition? While these may play a role, most COs rely on more traditional approaches, such as staff feedback, performance measures, personal observations, and now, Command Safety Climate Assessment (CSCA) Surveys. The CSCA process is a new, web-based tool for COs to survey the perceptions of their aircrews and maintainers and access feedback. To date, over 24,000 surveys have been submitted by more than 270 aviation units.

These surveys are one of the newest tools in the continued efforts to reduce the naval aviation Class A flight mishap rate. It has declined markedly over the past fifty years, but the proportion of mishaps due to human error has remained at a stable 80 percent. Over this period, many intervention efforts addressed crew-station design, operational training, and aircrew selection. Unfortunately, little attention was paid to organizational factors that affect safety performance.

That changed following the F-14 crash near Nashville in 1996. Senior naval-aviation leaders chartered a human factors quality management board (QMB) to analyze processes, programs, and systems. The QMB focused on analyzing mishap data, benchmarking best practices, and assessing safety climate.

QMB support led the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) to study squadron organizational safety. UC Berkley had already researched high-reliability organizations, identifying attributes that reduce risk in hazardous operations. Since such attributes are difficult to observe and measure, the NPS developed a model that was tailored to aviation squadrons. The model included: process auditing, reward systems, quality control, risk management, command and control, and communication and functional relationships. This model became the basis for the CSCA surveys.

CSCA Surveys

The CSCA on-line surveys are the Command Safety Assessment (CSA) aimed at aircrews, and the Maintenance Climate Assessment Survey (MCAS) aimed at maintainers. These surveys are available via the NPS School of Aviation Safety website. The surveys assess an organization's ability to conduct flights and maintenance in terms of leadership, culture, standards, policies, procedures, and practices. Each survey takes approximately 15 minutes to complete.

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Privacy of Data

Participants remain anonymous. This permits their unbiased inputs to reach the CO without fear of retribution. Squadron survey results are available only to COs, on the web via password. Unit results are combined with those from other organizations to form a database. It allows COs to compare their unit by such categories as aircraft type and community. Access to individual command results is restricted to unit COs. Only compiled survey results for aircraft type or community are available to group, wing, and type commanders. COs can use the responses to adjust their perceptions and to be proactive in their squadrons. Similarly, upper-echelon commanders can make adjustments to provide broader support on community-wide issues.

Sample CSA Survey Results

A sample CSA question is, "The Aviation Safety Officer position is a sought after billet in my command." The image below shows how it would be viewed using the CO-access option. This view compares the unit's data (the blue bars, 60 responses) to the entire CSA database (gold bars, 4,904 responses). After comparing the two response distributions, they appear to be a "reverse image" of each other. Results like this will raise questions in a CO's mind as to why the squadron data differs from the aggregate database. Reviewing other survey items relating to the squadron's safety department may provide further insight.

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Higher-Headquarter Access to Survey Data

Higher-headquarter (HHQ) COs also can access the aggregate database for comparing aircraft types and communities. The image below shows sample CSA data for item No. 23, "Command leaders permit cutting corners to get a job done," as it would be viewed using the CO-access option. Note this item is negatively worded, so disagreement is desirable. The view is for all aircraft categories, which includes the entire database. Should naval-aviation COs be satisfied that nearly a fifth of the aircrew finds command leaders permit corner-cutting? Results like these raise a question in a group or wing CO's mind, "How are my squadron COs communicating their safety message?"

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Sample MCAS data is shown below for item No. 11, "The command recognizes individual safety achievement through rewards or incentives," as it would be viewed using the CO-access option. This is for all aircraft categories. It shows that fewer than half of the responding maintainers found the reward system to be in place to recognize safety achievement. This is an area where a CO has complete control. Results like these may have a wing or group COs ask, "Should my COs provide greater recognition for safety efforts?" The CSCA surveys help identify problem areas. Although they don't provide the "why," they clearly provide a starting point.