S1 General Guidance

Sir,

I would recommend using an appointment book to schedule ORB updates and to assist your fellow Officers with their assignments. I would have your office setting set up in away that the customer can easily identify who does what function. I place my finance / leave clerk at the entrance of the office to assist and schedule appointments. It is highly recommended that you use a PAC slip that is signed by a Soldiers 1SG, PSG and SDR Leader. By using the PAC slip you can track what customer was assisted and what the nature of the visit is. Hopefully my guidance has been useful. Please let me know if you need any other assistance.

Sir, I would say that a lack of communication is the number one killer. I was commended when I previously worked in a Brigade S-1, and it was for something very small. We had a spreadsheet (of course) to track actions, awards, NCOER/OERs. At the end of the week, I would email that to anyone I could think of. The battalion S-1s, the company 1SG/Cdrs that submitted actions, anyone who could use the information. It let everybody know the status of each action, and more importantly, raised an immediate flag if a unit was tracking something that was not on the spreadsheet. That would prompt a call/email, make sure that our brigade S-1 received the action request, and then add it. Keeping the subordinate units in the loop on where everything is in the process will never steer you wrong sir!