The Air Force Personnel Career Field
The Personnel Specialist
Would you like to work in a job where, regardless of rank, 80 - 90% of the time, you know that you will only work from 0700 1700, Monday through Friday, with weekends and holidays off? Wouldn't that be the ideal work schedule? Well, allow me to introduce you to the Personnel Specialist career field. Two extremely significant aspects of this career field include strength accountability and personnel data processing. Ultimately, my goal is for you to better understand what a personnel specialist does.
The single most important aspect of this career field is strength accountability. Strength accountability means knowing how many personnel are available for duty and of those personnel who can go to war and who can't. And believe me, when you are dealing with well over 3,000 personnel, all with different jobs and skill levels, that task can become much harder than you could imagine. To assist us in accomplishing this task we use two programs: Duty Status Reporting, and Status Of Resources & Training System (SORTS) Reporting.
How does the Wing Commander know just how many personnel are on the base at any given time? Yes, he might know that the 35 Security Forces Squadron (SFS), for example, has 100 people assigned to it. But of those 100 people, how many are on Leave, performing Temporary Duty (TDY), or simply on Quarters. The Duty Status Reporting program allows each squadron to provide a clear picture of what their manning levels really are. Duty Status reporting is basically a way of clarifying the specific duty status of an individual. Different duty status conditions include Present for Duty, Absent Without Leave (AWOL), TDY, Hospitalized, etc
Like most personnel programs though, the Duty Status Reporting Program only works if it is consistently maintained and updated. So now, thanks to the Duty Status Reporting program, the Wing Commander knows that the 35 SFS has 100 people assigned,...
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