The Commissioned Corps Isolated Hardship and Hazardous Duty Assignment Support Survey:
Key Survey Findings
Office of Commissioned Corps Operations
A component of the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) principles for Commissioned Corps (Corps) Transformation entail meeting objectives for filling isolated hardship, hazardous duty, and hard-to-fill (3H) assignments. In order to meet these objectives the Secretary emphasized strengthening personal incentive systems, along with developing new approaches for assignment and rotation of officers. Enhancing personal and family readiness will augment Corps goals for maintaining overall readiness, boost recruitment efforts, and improve the quality of life for Corps officers and their dependent/s serving in 3H assignments. Moreover, these objectives boost retention of highly trained and experienced personnel.
Assignments in isolated hardship and hazardous duty locations present officers and their family members with unique personal and professional challenges. The Commissioned Corps Isolated Hardship and Hazardous Duty Assignment Support Survey was designed to gain a better understanding of the needs of Corps officers and their family members in these assignments in order to structure a support system targeted at meeting identified needs, whereby increasing satisfaction with the assignments and career choice. In addition, the survey targeted the need for new or expanded programs to attract and retain officers into these challenging and often difficult-to-fill jobs. Programs include those proposed by the 3H Family Support and Incentives Working Policy and Design Group (WPDG). Furthermore, this foundational survey serves as a baseline measurement by which the Corps can begin to measure its progress in providing assignment support to officers in 3H positions.
Pre-Survey
Prior to embarking on the survey, instrument development started in August 2007. The process included development of dozens of questions, evaluation, and restructuring questions based upon invaluable feedback from the Transformation Team, Senior Leadership, focus group members, and independent contractors commissioned to assist with the project. Dozens of questions were developed about areas such as assignment background, characteristics of the location, assignment choice and experiences, sponsorship, career resources and satisfaction, recent activities, availability and usage of specific services, satisfaction with specific services, rotation plans, education and training plans, awards, readiness, and deployment. Ultimately, survey questions were pilot tested and restructured based upon additional feedback.
To ensure confidentiality of survey respondents our contractors administered the survey, monitored response rate, sent notifications, and analyzed survey results. Utilizing a secure Web-based survey instrument tool, our contractors launched the comprehensive survey for a 3-week time period beginning on 25 September 2007. In total, 1,353 Corps officers currently serving in isolated hardship and hazardous duty assignments received the invitation to participate in the survey. The survey sample ensured for statistical reliability of sub-population breakouts. In addition, the survey was a great success culminating in a 63 percent response rate.
Key Survey Findings
In particular, the survey offered strongest, most broad-based support and insights in relation to the following:
(Findings from the report entitled “The Commissioned Corps Isolated Hardship and Hazardous Duty Assignment Support Survey: Results and Analysis, Final Report, Prepared for: U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps,” The Lewin Group, January 11, 2008, pp. 3 -4.)
- Retirement counseling—One-half of officers (and 46 percent of junior officers) indicate retirement counseling is extremely important and an additional 37 percent reported retirement counseling as fairly important. This service ranked highest in importance by the officers. Yet only 24 percent of these officers were very satisfied or satisfied with the services currently available. This indicates substantial room for improvement.
- Relocation assistance, including peer sponsorship of newly assigned officers— Forty-one percent of officers consider relocation assistance extremely important and of those, only one-quarter are satisfied with current services. In open-ended responses, many officers reported having been “on their own” at the start of their assignments. Only 16 percent report having been contacted by someone from the Corps, other than their supervisor, within their first month at their duty station. Only 16 percent of officers indicated they had a sponsor within their first month of arrival; most indicated they would have used a sponsor had one been available to them.
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Also likely to benefit recruitment and retention, but to a lesser extent or among specific subpopulations, are:
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o Work-life Services
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o Survivor Assistance
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o Childcare Assistance
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o Education Allowance
The survey is also rich in data supportive of other components of the Transformation, in addition to family and officer support: - Career Development and Recognition—Respondents are strongly motivated by career development and recognition, but have mixed feelings about the quality of career resources available. In addition, only 51 percent of Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and Indian Health Service (IHS) respondents reported discussing their career plans with a counselor, mentor or supervisor in the past year. The survey solicits information on awards that officers have received and participation in committee meetings and workgroups affecting the Corps.
- Recruitment—A multi-sector recruitment strategy is important: for example, only 33 percent said they were in a college/university setting at the time they first applied to the Corps. Junior officers, whose interests are likely to resemble to those of recruits, differed from senior officers in a number of ways. Two-thirds said they would be interested in rotating to a new assignment in the future. In some categories, they are more likely to want additional training and education. Junior officers tend to value services of all types more strongly than senior officers.
- Sizing the Corps—Respondents expressed significant concern about poor staffing and consequent heavy workload. For example, when asked to identify three changes that would most increase their satisfaction with their assignment, staffing level was mentioned more than any other factor. To the extent that the Corps is able to mitigate understaffing by delivering additional qualified officers to HHS and non-HHS organizations, it can increase the job satisfaction.
- Compensation—Overall, the results affirm the importance of pay and bonuses to officers’ decision-making and suggest that Assignment Incentive Pay (AIP) will be an important tool for recruitment and retention. For example, among officers interested in rotating to a non-3H position, 38 percent mentioned “higher pay/bonuses” as a change that would induce them to consider a 3H position.
- Functional Groups—Many respondents said they felt isolated from the rest of the Corps and that their clinical duties precluded greater involvement. Although not all officers participating in the survey are clinicians, the Clinical Functional Group can serve as an important vehicle for addressing particular concerns of clinicians at these sites.
- Readiness and Deployment—Communication about readiness tiers and deployment criteria remain a concern.