Tracy C Krueger

Company leaders in the U. S. Army have long been recognized as overworked, partly because of the number of requirements imposed on them by higher headquarters. This report is intended to help the Army identify ways to reduce and manage the time burdens on Active Component company leaders in garrison by addressing the challenges of reducing time burdens at both organizational and individual worker levels.

Air Force Special Warfare operators conduct physically and mentally challenging missions. For this career field, specialized assessment and selection of future operators is required. The authors examine the programs for assessing and selecting personnel for AFSPECWAR, identify job-relevant attributes, consider how these attributes should be weighted for candidate selection, and improve the accuracy of raters' evaluations of candidates.

U. S. Air Force Special Warfare (AFSPECWAR) careers are among the most physically and mentally demanding jobs in the military, and finding potential recruits who are both qualified and motivated makes AFSPECWAR's recruiting mission particularly challenging. AFSPECWAR also has an arduous selection and training pipeline, which impacts recruiting goals and objectives. The report authors identify ways to improve AFSPECWAR recruiting practices.

Air Force Special Warfare (AFSPECWAR) prioritizes rigorous assessment and selection to ensure operators possess the qualities needed for demanding missions. The authors evaluate the effectiveness of AFSPECWAR's process and recommend best practices.

Initial skills training is designed to teach warfighters the technical knowledge and skills needed to perform an occupational specialty. However, a focus on training technical skills alone may miss opportunities to develop valuable nontechnical skills that are important to prepare for current and future missions. This report offers a roadmap for systematically integrating nontechnical attribute development into early and initial skills training.

Service members must meet U. S. Department of Defense standards to ensure that they are fit to serve. However, the services set standards for specific career fields. To meet critical needs, the Air Force seeks to better align personnel to certain fields (those with higher technical levels but lower physical demands). The authors explore the implications to Air Force culture of tailoring standards to expand or limit the pool of qualified personnel.