Cody to airmen: Speak up before you burn out?

2015-02-16T16:35:03-05:00

ORLANDO, Fla.-- The words "I can't" are generally not in an airman's vocabulary, but airmen need to let their chain of command know if they are overworked, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force James Cody says.

"It is essential — and I tell you, supervisors should be paying attention enough that they know it themselves," Cody said Thursday at the Air Force Association's 2015 Air Warfare Symposium here. "There's no doubt that they should be paying attention to how hard their airmen are working and if what they are asking them to do reasonable and sustainable. If they're not, we need to have a conversation with them, too."

The Air Force is the smallest in its history as an independent service, yet the requirements being asked of airmen have not diminished.

However, airmen still need time to rest and reconnect with their families, Cody told Air Force Times.

"It can't be: I go to work for 14 hours a day and I go home and pass out to get up to work for 14 hours a day tomorrow," he said.

Cody stressed that airmen not in a combat environment need to let their leadership know when their workload is unsustainable instead of trying to work at a burnout pace because they feel the mission would fail otherwise.

"That needs to be elevated to the right level of leadership within that organization," he said. "I promise you: At some given point in that chain of command, someone is going to say, 'Knock it off; that's not healthy; that's not sustainable and we're not going to do it.'"

Cody said that he and Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh have both let airmen know that they have the "top cover" to let their chain of command know if their work schedule is unreasonable.

"Both Gen. Welsh and I have said this over and over and over again: 'Tell us what it is that you're going to stop doing,'" Cody said.

One symptom of the Air Force being overworked may be that 16 percent of airmen reported on the most recent Periodic Health Assessment that they do not get the minimum amount of exercise per week that is recommended by the U.S. government.

Two airmen told Air Force Times that they do not have enough time during the day to work out because they routinely work more than 12 hours.

But Cody said he does not feel the Air Force needs to have mandatory physical training because commands are already supposed to provide airmen with time enough to exercise three times a week.

If airmen are not getting that much time to work out, they should talk to their chain of command, Cody said.

"The direction of the Air force is they should be provided an opportunity to PT for 90 minutes, three times a week," he said. "So, 'should,' is not a suggestion. It means: Unless impossible, that should be taking place."

http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2015/02/13/air-force-chief-cody-to-airmen-speak-up-before-you-burn-out/23353399/

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Do you think Airmen (capital "A") will actually take this to heart?
Will supervisors/leaders actually do something with it?

Response by CMSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 16 at 2015 6:39 PM

2015-02-16T18:39:30-05:00

CMSAF Cody was at MacDill last Wednesday and I had an opportunity to hear him speak and meet him briefly.

I admired that he spent only a few moments doing the introductory stuff, then spent the entire remainder of his All-Hands taking questions from the Enlisted audience. His words were inspiring and encouraging. He blew no smoke, and spoke directly to the larger concerns of the Airmen. Truly a leader!

Response by MSgt Robert Pellam made Feb 16 at 2015 7:38 PM

2015-02-16T19:38:37-05:00

hmm. Knock it off? Tell your Supervisor? Take care of yourself. Since I don't know Chief Cody I will reserve my opinion of him, but honestly I can not remember the number of times leadership has said similar things while I was in.

Top up leadership can give lip service all they want, but its the actions that speak the loudest. So many leaders have said the exact same thing as Chief Cody yet turned around yelling "Why haven't our Jets flown? Well put more men on it!"

As a Deployed Shop Chief, and as a home station Shop Chief when i was in I took care of my people. I stepped on toes and even made some supervision nervous but my peoples safety came first, then the mission. Simple. You can't do the mission with out people. And I the E-7 had to be the one to take care of them.

If Chief Cody wants to make an Impact. He needs to speak directly to the E-6 Through E-9's and all the O's to let them know our Airmen are working themselves into an early grave, or a catastrophic accident.

While I hope Chief Cody's initiatives take hold and change the culture to the point where everyone is working the same; I won't hold my breath. It reminds me too much of the "Quality Air Force" Initiative back in the 90's. They brought all the E-1s through E-4s into this great Quality Air Force theme classes, so when the Airmen went back into their sections to make changes, all the leadership just scoffed at them because their was no leadership buy in.

Response by Maj Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 18 at 2015 7:40 PM

2015-02-18T19:40:08-05:00

While I think it is an excellent idea that we empower people to speak up it is more important for leadership to open their eyes and acknowledge that the "do more with less" mentality is already stressing everyone out. I keep hearing "We aren't going to do more with less" but we still are. How do you ask an A1C to "speak up" to a SSgt who has no authority to say "okay, let's put this job off until tomorrow."

It's frustrating because even deployed, working seven days a week for year, those of us asking for a day of here or there for one of our troops was seen as a weakness and/or bitching. We just needed to suck it up.

So, while it's great that this is "out there" I know that Airman have already publicly spoken and no one is listening.