Johnson hosts first town hall as executive director

ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Ill. - Melanie Johnson, Army Contracting Command-Rock Island executive director, held her first town hall as the center's leader Feb. 12.

Following an awards ceremony and a presentation on Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention, Johnson focused on the results from the ACC-RI Anonymous E-mail Program. The program began in October.

"I have personally read every single email that has come in and we take these seriously," Johnson said. "We are going to move on those that can be easily answered and solve those. For those that aren't, we?'ll have to do a collaborative effort to pull people in and come up with some kind of workable solution."

As of Feb. 12, 60 emails were received. Within those came 102 suggestions on varying topics, including 31 regarding process, 25 regarding morale and 23 regarding quality and training.

"If you add those up, there are more than 60, but that's because there are crossovers," said Johnson.

As a result of the input, the ACC-RI Policy Branch is already working on a process change intended to reduce staffing burden while increasing quality assurance, said Johnson. There are several considerations that are being evaluated as a part of this process change, and formal changes will be communicated with the workforce in the near future.

Training was also an oft-mentioned concern. To address this, Johnson said the Policy Branch is developing video and smart card training on a variety of topics. These products are scheduled to be available on the policy Web page by the end of March.

In addition to using these training products being developed, Johnson said employees can help the center -- as well as their own careers -- by entering information about their work histories into the ACC-RI competency matrix.

"If we don?'t know who has what skills or has worked in what areas, or has what experience, it makes it very difficult to do any type of succession planning," said Johnson. "(The competency matrix) can also be used for those who are looking for different experiences and promotions."