The new visionary

Volume 48, No. 22, November 30, 2006

TAKE NOTE: New DGPERS-AF AIRCDRE John Hewitson has grand plans for the Air Force’s future personnel environment and will draw on his own career experiences to set goals and targets. Photo by Glenn Alderton

By FLTLT Jade Hartland

A FORMER airman with a long and varied Air Force career has taken over the reins as DGPERS-AF.

Promoted on November 6, AIRCDRE John Hewitson brings to the role a wide range of experiences, including three postings within personnel branch, and a career spanning the airmen and officer ranks.

He takes over from AIRCDRE Lee Roberts, who will take up a new appointment in Canberra.

AIRCDRE Hewitson has a grand strategy for Air Force’s future personnel environment. It is centred on maximising on our skilled personnel, removing unnecessary barriers and becoming a more flexible workplace.

He explained that all of these factors play a major role in the branch’s main focus over the next few years, which is retaining and maximising the current workforce in order to manage the transition to the new platforms Air Force is acquiring.

“We need to understand the needs of the workforce and understand the demands for our workforce, while continuing to build an innovative personnel strategy to make Air Force an organisation people want to be a part of,” AIRCDRE Hewitson said.

He will be drawing on his own experiences throughout his earlier career as well as his vast experience in the Air Force personnel environment. He knows a bit about the DGPERS-AF world and what makes Air Force people tick. He is keen to advance personnel strategies and practices to achieve the goals he has set himself. He has his sights set on some big targets, his main goal being to see Air Force’s separation rate maintained below eight per cent. “It is a big target to set, but it is achievable,” he said.

Achieving the goals he has set and overcoming the challenges facing personnel branch is no small feat for anyone working in the current personnel environment.

“Healthy recruiting will be an ongoing challenge, although it is not a major issue presently as we are already pretty successful in this area,” he said.

“We need to focus more on our internal labour market and monitor our external environment and the pressures they may put on our workforce. The key is to recognise the threats early and then react in an effective and timely manner. If we can achieve this, then we can achieve another of our challenges, which is to grow the Air Force workforce in a measured way over the next 10 years.”

AIRCDRE Hewitson said another major challenge for Air Force is to create, implement and use flexible work practices, and to remove any unnecessary barriers to opportunities for our people. The key to this is the creation of appropriate policies, as well as the implementation and use of them.

“As an organisation, I think we are too rigid in some aspects of our personnel environment. We are too risk-averse in our policies with the number of hoops we make people jump through when they want to do something different,” he said. “If we know the person, we know their background, their performance history and their capabilities then why do we subject them to a series of perceived ‘barrier’ tests? Why don’t we just risk-manage the situation?”

The main message he wants to convey to commanders and managers is that risk management is the key to allowing our people easier access to more opportunities.

He stressed the importance of the command chain is in management and retention of people: “The command chain should be continually looking for talent in its workforce and for those people who have reached their personal milestones in their careers and want to move onto something different”.

He said that one of the great strengths of the organisation is enabling people to have ‘secondary specialisations’ and being able to make it happen.

“We just have to make it simpler for our people, so they can maximise their opportunities and potential,” he said.

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