Garrison initiates supervisory course

By Heather Huber, Fort Campbell CourierFebruary 13, 2015

Garrison initiates supervisory course
1 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Victoria Zimmerman, Civilian Personnel Advisory Center hiring subject matter expert, takes questions from the attendees at the first resident supervisory development course of the year. The course was revived this year at the request of Garrison Comm... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
Garrison initiates supervisory course
2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Brad Ninness, garrison executive officer, flips through the workbook provided at the supervisory development course. Ninness helped vet all the subjects for the course. He said the most informative part of the course for him was all the other supervi... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. -- Since 2011, the supervisors across Fort Campbell have taken the Supervisory Development Course online every three years. The Civilian Human Resources Training Application System conducted the course, making sure all the important topics were covered.

Prior to 2011, supervisors attended a resident course where they learned directly from subject matter experts with other supervisors of varying experience. Scott Galbraith, training officer, said that while the online course covered all the same topics as the class, it left many people with more questions than answers.

In 2014, during a meeting about a workforce development survey of Fort Campbell, Garrison Commander Col. David "Buck" Dellinger asked why the resident course no longer existed and requested its return.

Galbraith and officials from Civilian Personnel Advisory Center joined to figure out how to bring back the course. They did a survey over AKO to get a better understanding of what training was needed.

"We had to explain to them that this requirement to do the online [training requirement] does not go away. We don't have the right to do that," he said. "But the intent of this is now you get to come into a classroom and you get to see the subject matter expert for each of these topics."

Gailbraith said when he took the online course, it actually left him with more questions than it answered, but since there was no instructor, he had no one to ask. The plan is for this course to fix that by supplementing the online course.

Dellinger also advised that the class sizes be kept small to allow for more interaction between the supervisors and the subject matter experts. The classes cap out at 35 attendees.

"We want to encourage cross talk and dialogue, so we thought the smaller we can keep the class and still getting those supervisors through this," Galbraith said.

After the committee received the survey back, they compared it to the current program of instruction CPAC had for the supervisory course and while many of the topics were already covered, Galbraith said there were enough differences to add on a fourth day to the program.

Those new topics include effective communication, how to deal with Equal Employment Opportunity, Digital Training Management System, Civilian Education System, Automated Time Attendance and Production System, civilian in and out processing and garrison awards processing.

Lawrence Buford was one of two representatives from Education Services' Fort Campbell hub. He said the course was more of a refresher for him, but he still found it very informative.

"I've had some good points clarified, particularly when it comes to the priority placement categories -- the one, two, three -- and how they fit," he said. "I wish I'd gone to it three years ago, but at the time all we could get was the online class."

He said he could tell by the dynamic of the class that it was a mix of experienced supervisors and new supervisors.

"I'm an educator, I prefer face to face," Buford said. "Online you can't see someone raise their hand. Just us knowing CPOL -- we talk to them on email, we talk to them on the phone -- just seeing them face to face is way more beneficial."

Brad Ninness, garrison executive officer, said he felt he was learning more by hearing the questions asked by other participants than anything else.

"I think I've learned just as much from the other people in the class as I have from the actual instructor, because there's a lot of experienced people in the room that have done a lot of hiring," he said. "I think anything that's face to face is much more effective than what's online."

Ninness said he was present when Dellinger was briefed on the new course, so he had a preview of everything attendees were going to learn, but listening to the other supervisors has given him further insight to how the installation operates.

"It's much more personable if it's face to face, it's easier -- online they don't answer questions," he said. "Having the other people in the room to talk about the actual experience and reality. You have a system and you have a process, but the execution and the reality of that process is a lot different."

The first course was this week at the Kinnard Mission Training Complex, but Galbraith said they are planning to host the course three times each fiscal year, with the next planned for May. Each directorate will be allotted a certain number of seats depending on their size, but every directorate will be given a chance to be represented in the course.

"We think there's going to be a great deal of value with the content that's there and the subject matter experts to ensure that the supervisors get these tools and information they need to go back and implement," Galbraith said. "We really think it's going to help with the leadership aspect in the garrison and also the communication aspect."

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