Document created: 18 November 03
Air University Review, September-October
1974
The United States,” according to Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “is now committed to the lowest military force in strength since 1950.” The “all-volunteer force” will have significant impact in the military and will require rapid and revolutionary changes in the nature and extent of our training, education, and management. Changes are necessary because many of the volunteers will be entering the military from disadvantaged backgrounds. While a number of “people-oriented” programs have been inaugurated, we must continue to examine other management and training developments thoroughly for new ideas.
The developments to which I refer are those used by industry in employing people from disadvantaged backgrounds and those by which industry has transformed its objectives into productive training. Supervision of persons with disadvantaged backgrounds in the military, just as in industry, requires a better understanding of handicaps, capabilities, and attitudes of the disadvantaged and could be a significant step in “getting the job done with less.” This article, based on the experience of more than twenty companies, will discuss their various programs” and what lessons Air Force managers and supervisors can learn from their approaches.
In our society, there are a number of nonproductive people. The most obvious are the very young, the very old, those who by reason of age are not able to contribute, the physically handicapped, etc. In the past few years we have recognized another large body of nonproductive individuals: the uneducated, the untrained, and those who are capable but have been screened out by hiring and promotion procedures. In this article, this group will be referred to as the disadvantaged. The Department of Labor defines a disadvantaged individual as:
One at the poverty level of
income, who is partially or completely unemployed, and has one or more of the
following additional characteristics: a school dropout, a member of a racial
minority, less than 22 or over 45 years of age, and physically, mentally and
emotionally handicapped.1
Approximately 13,000,000 Americans are encompassed by this definition. They constitute the tail end of the employment queue. Many of them have abandoned the search for work.
During the past ten years, companies have become subject to the provisions of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, and Executive Order 11246. This has resulted in a revolutionary change in hiring and training procedures. Now, the challenge is how to “screen in” a number of those who have been considered disadvantaged. This has required the replacement of many of the current concepts and methods of training with new ones designed to meet this challenge of change and continue to produce at a profit. These changes did not come about immediately. For example, the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, but it was not until 1968 that federal nondiscrimination regulations had any impact on most businesses. During the 1970s, after companies had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on nondiscrimination cases in the courts, changes in hiring practices were implemented.2
What was learned by industry about the disadvantaged? Prior to the late 1960s very little was known about the disadvantaged. Except for an occasional esoteric article appearing in learned journals, they were not a topic of discussion. Today’s personnel and training officials realize they are the “ugly poor.” They are seen as people with few or no marketable skills, under or overweight, unshaven or with hair too long, clothed unconventionally, using slang, wearing sunglasses, maybe with poor hygiene.3 Mr. Jack Mulkey, Director, Woman’s Job Corps Center, Guthrie, Oklahoma, described them as people who have never seen a dentist and never used a handkerchief. The average age of incoming corps-women is 18½ years; average reading level is 5.8 years; average math level is 4.6 years. The chances of their achieving anything in a society made up of “institutions of exclusion, not inclusion” are remote. In spite of the tendency to generalize, it was also discovered that the disadvantaged constitute a large and diverse group with widely differing degrees of hardships and handicaps. It is not a monolith with identical characteristics. The disadvantaged still had to be treated as individuals and could not be stereotyped; programs for their improvement had to be shaped to the individual.
Industry soon realized that to cope in their environment the disadvantaged need intelligence and certain skills. Industrial officials found that the handicaps of the disadvantaged did not necessarily lie in any lack of intelligence but in environmental problems. Their handicaps result from having a different set of “coping skills,” skills that are effective in their own environment but a handicap in another. Edward Chave, second vice president of Equitable Life, stated his company’s test showed that one-fifth of his company’s hard-core hirees had IQ’S of 120 or more, a percentage higher than that found among the normal U.S. population.4
An effort to transfer the skills of the disadvantaged into meaningful employment is essential. Consideration must be given to the socially unacceptable individual. This includes the third-generation welfare recipient, the pimp, the prostitute, and the pusher because these individuals, to an important degree, are the natural-born entrepreneurs of their culture.5 Some examples to illustrate this point were recently cited by Edward L. Field, vice president for Employee Relations, Federated Department Stores, Inc. In a speech before the American Bar Association he, by a few vignettes from his experience, convinced disbelievers that the disadvantaged are in fact employable. He told of an itinerant trumpet player with a sordid police record who is now in his second year as one of the top record salesmen in Los Angeles; of a tough, hostile high school dropout who was a member of a hate “whitey” group and who today is employed as the assistant to a Milwaukee coordinator of minority affairs; of a group of twelve women whose common denominators were having children out of wedlock and never having been gainfully employed—yet six of the group are satisfactorily holding customer contact jobs in Cincinnati.6 Obviously, these success stories are the exception rather than the rule. They do, however, prove an important point: if positive efforts are made to alter the courses of poverty, crime, and unemployment, and if appropriate training and opportunity are provided, success can be realized.
Efforts in these areas may not be as difficult as they appear to be. We in the military recognize the need—the obligation—to intensify efforts to manage personnel resources effectively. The Air Force, for example, is making a great effort to meet the tough social challenges posed by the difficult years ahead. We spend millions on training and personnel planning. But will our efforts be blocked? Would quality be sacrificed if we were forced to take on a disproportionate number of disadvantaged recruits? What would the alternatives be? Industry almost unanimously agrees that skill training is not enough. It found that to make the disadvantaged individual employable, he must be taught certain skills that were fundamental to members of the majority groups. Many of their recruits did not have a basic enough knowledge of reading, language, and arithmetic—even though many had completed 12th grade—to understand direction signs, safety signs, or verbal and written instructions. It was necessary to provide instruction in the three R’s before job training could begin.
Because of the traditional values and family organization in the urban ghettos, the disadvantaged lacked orientation-to-work discipline. They became bored easily and did not stay at their desk or the assembly line for the required periods of time. For them, time had no significance, and many had no clocks at home. In one project 25 percent of the trainees could not tell time; many could not deal with personal problems, and this affected their work habits. They needed help in dealing with credit, transportation, and even health and nutrition problems. Kodak found that many of its trainees did not know the procedures for cashing or depositing checks. Philco-Ford Job Training Center discovered that many of its girls did not eat regular meals; as a result, even when the temperature was 80 or 85 degrees, some of them complained of being cold. Hiring and training the disadvantaged reveal that such problems, unless recognized, can be frustrating to a supervisor, cause communications to break down, and hamper success in both training and supervision. Companies like Kodak, Martin-Marietta, Ford, and Samsonite realized that you cannot simply hire disadvantaged workers and leave it at that. As one executive put it: “We hired them like they were so many Cinderellas who only needed invitations to the ball. We forgot they didn’t have any fairy godmothers to get them dressed in time and onto the right bus.”7
After some pre-job training, companies could begin technical or job training. There appeared to be no set way of providing for the variety of training demands, but this was necessary in that training was tailored to individual needs. Once the trainee was able to get to and from work, understand simple instructions, and read safety signs, skill training was initiated. Almost from the day the disadvantaged trainee was born, his educational development had been based on those things necessary for survival. In many instances, to change this pattern proved to be fatal; therefore, new goals were sought and instituted. Redefining basic education targets, for example, meant that a clerical training course that included English, arithmetic, and perhaps history now teaches only secretarial English; or if the trainee is being taught a technical trade, the secretarial English and history courses are eliminated, and shop mathematics and blueprint-reading are taught. Overall, training had to be relevant; training became relevant when the trainee was hired and not just promised a job. A few companies have instituted “exploratory programs,” which enable the trainee, while taking shop mathematics, to explore various technical areas until he finds the field he is interested in. When a trainee expresses an interest in a specific area, training is then oriented toward that particular job. Even when he selects a field incompatible with his capabilities, he is persuaded by the instructor that he has not failed. Dr. Yamahiro of the Martin Company succinctly states that “perfunctory programs are meaningless, an individual will succeed only if the company wants him to be successful.”
Since the trainees, in most cases, are high school dropouts and have already related their classroom experience with failure, on-the-job and work-study training has proven to be more motivating. Instructors take a distinctly adult approach to the disadvantaged trainees. They are addressed as “Mr.” or “Miss” or “Mrs.” The trainees are reminded that they are being trained not just for a certain job but “for promotability as well as for more responsibility.” As one instructor explained to me: “I constantly tell my students that he or she is ‘good’ and that eventually my job will not be secure.”
How does industry deal with the historic background of these problems? Experts in the field of training and management recognize that training alone is an attempt to cure chronic long-term problems by dealing with symptoms and not causes. Many company officials, seeking to deal with causes, have launched a number of innovative programs designed to upgrade the disadvantaged while they are still in their schools and communities. Because most of these company programs are remedial, it is necessary to get to the disadvantaged child before he is eligible for employment. One way of doing this is to help the school. Dr. E. Grant Venn, Associate U.S. Commissioner of Education, puts this idea in historical perspective:
I would suggest that we begin
thinking about doing the same thing for the kids in the city that, two
generations ago, we did for the farm child. At that time, we took a national
look at the farm problem, decided that the disadvantaged were on the farms, as
they were. It’s time we begin to mount such programs for the disadvantaged
youngster in the city and give him the same kind of pertinent education.8
Today industrial representatives are visiting schools not just during the
recruiting season but throughout the entire school year. There are attempts to
strengthen public education now and for years to come. Companies are providing
funds and assistance for purposes such as counselors, technical education,
teachers, tours to cultural facilities and college campuses, etc. One industry
conducted a charm course for tenth-grade girls, and another established a model
employment office to prepare students in the procedures involved in looking for
and finding a job. Others have instituted teacher-manager interchange programs
and factory-schools in the communities.9
Education and training of management can be as difficult as training and educating the disadvantaged. Dr. Anthony C. Campbell, assistant to the president of Responsive Environments Corporation, made this comment:
. . . I never met anybody who was
hardcore until I met social scientists, teachers, personnel directors,
“manpower specialists” who are really hardcore—failures, that is, in reaching
stated goals with specific populations. We are the unchanging, stubborn,
difficult ones who need to be seeking new solutions. They [the disadvantaged]
wait; we describe.10
While this description of management does not fit every executive, manager, and supervisor, it does apply to a number of individuals in responsible positions. The interesting point here is that, when the federal government committed itself to the cause of equality, many executives went to their personnel men and told them to hire and train the disadvantaged. There were no guidelines detailing how this was to be carried out productively or successfully. Only when companies recognized that hiring the disadvantaged, like antitrust matters, was likely to be a matter of top management concern for many years were they aware of the commitment necessary on their part. Today most major industries have made it clear that they support Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) programs. Supervisors have been informed that they are being rated in their performance as supporters of such programs. Further, they are aware of the fact that their future bonuses, merit increases, and promotions rest on their ability to do a good job in this “special assignment.” Supervisors are relieved from the responsibility of obtaining immediate full production by their personnel, are not forced to train/supervise more than one or two disadvantaged trainees, and are provided the assistance of trained counselors to deal with special problems. In the meantime they are trained in the special skills needed to understand, supervise, and train the disadvantaged, including minority history, equal employment opportunity, Affirmative Action programs, and the avenues open to managers to express their own grievances.
How are these programs evaluated? Traditionally, success of new programs was measured by the retention and productivity of new employees. It has now been decided that concentrating on attrition does not measure the success of such programs. One observer summed up the point in this manner:
Turnover is often the process by which people become familiar with work and jobs. A young man who uses his job experience to get a better job is obviously not a program failure. The important thing is to help the disadvantaged from abandoning his desire or intention to work at all.11
Since there are no set evaluative methods available to determine the impact of employing the disadvantaged, a number of companies sought to concentrate on what impediments block the success of the disadvantaged and cause them to leave. The major problems fell into the following categories:
Double standards. The charge of “double standards” is sometimes raised by workers as a device to resist training the disadvantaged. While it is true that the disadvantaged trainees require extra time and attention, the other workers must be shown that a “double standard” has always existed—only in their favor. One long-time industrial relations man evaluated the so-called “double standard” by making a comparison with other ethnic groups.
Every ethnic group that’s ever come into our plant has had some effect on what rules we have and how we enforce them. Every group has some special holiday that we have to adjust our production for and some special day when we wink at the schnapps on their breath. Why should the [disadvantaged] be any different?12
Competition from the ghetto. The problem here is that the “soft core” individual who is willing to work has already been influenced by the poorly motivated man, the man convicted of crimes, and the psychologically disturbed man. A major problem is to convince the individual who really wants a job that the hustler, the numbers racketeer, and the petty criminal, “those who live off the ghetto economy,” are not really better off. In other words, business can’t meet the wages of the successful hustler. Some companies have attempted to combat this situation by assigning another employee, one who came from the same background but who has been integrated into the work force, as a “coach” or “buddy.” The job of the coach is to function as liaison between the trainee and the “world of work.” With the help of professionals, a successful coach, provided he is dedicated, will eventually prove to the trainee that working is better than hustling.
Corporate racism. Despite the high-sounding policies of most businesses today about equal opportunity, the minority executive has not advanced beyond the position he was in during the 1960s. James S. Spain, President of the Council of Concerned Black Executives, made the following point regarding blacks and supported it statistically:
The plan for Progress, in 1963,
included 441 major American corporations. These 441 companies employ 9.7
million people of whom one million are black. According to the latest [1970]
published figures, these companies have a total of 936,152 managers and
officials. Of that number 1.1 percent are black. The companies also employed
884,492 professionals. Of this group, 1.4 percent are black.13
Most minority executives are in positions such as public relations, community relations, and industrial relations, where the emphasis is on mere visibility rather than real impact on the corporate economy. The problem with such jobs is that the minority executive will not be selected for special training programs to groom him for upper-level management, nor will he be rotated through the variety of jobs necessary to familiarize him with key aspects of the company’s operations. Unless there are successful minorities, visible in the company’s hierarchy, it will continue to be very difficult to convince the disadvantaged hiree that he should change his life style and become a part of the “system.”
Many of the programs mentioned in this study are too new to be systematically evaluated, and many areas and questions challenged are still being interpreted by the courts. However, the Air Force supervisor or manager can and should begin considering the concepts developed by industries, as a gauge for his own success and the success of his subordinates.
Traditionally, we begin with the basic assumption that we are all Americans. Our recruitment, training, and education programs are geared to this concept. It is true we are Americans, black, white, and brown, but in the areas mentioned we are dealing substantially with cross-cultural problems. These problems, when combined with prejudice and racial discrimination, many times result in supervisors’ alienating their personnel, many times without knowing why. Middle management becomes frustrated because programs do not produce expected results; consequently, imaginary problems are raised, and the real ones are often overlooked. If there are lessons we can learn from the experience of industry, these lessons are in the area of bridging the cultural gap.
The problems associated with bridging the cultural gap are nothing new for Air Force personnel. We have been training foreign students at U.S. and overseas installations since 1950. Bridging the cultural gap had particular significance in Vietnam in the 1970s when we sought to make South Vietnam self-sufficient. The Job Performance Aid (JPA) manuals, which were written in both Vietnamese and English, demonstrated many of the techniques used by industry. For example, these manuals also relied on simpler language, more illustrations, learning by doing, and making use of cultural values to motivate. Since thousands of Vietnamese were trained in record time, it is obvious that instructors were not inhibited by cultural gaps.14 If such success can thus be realized abroad, why can’t equal success be realized at home with the disadvantaged? Can it be that deep down we expect them to be stupid, lazy, and inferior? If this is true, we must make special efforts to prepare ourselves to deal with their problems. With a few changes in our perspective, we can pave a different path in training and motivating the disadvantaged.
What changes in perspective are necessary in order to help the disadvantaged make the transition to the Air Force way of life? At present all Air Force recruits are generally treated alike in training and motivation, regardless of background. The Air Force must make a concerted effort to assess individual behavior; in this way a determination can be made of the cultural variables normally invisible. We must recognize the tremendous pressures, real and imagined, which the disadvantaged recruit faces in a new work situation. Since many are overly sensitive to supervision and prone to distort even helpful criticism into hostile attitudes, the use of titles emphasizing respect and dignity is necessary. More important, the approach taken by the military to humble every recruit by stripping him of his civilian habits and behavior traits and then attempting to engender or sharpen in him a new dimension may not work with the disadvantaged. Because he is a stranger in a strange and, in his opinion, hostile environment, stripping him of his “security blanket” may be more than he can bear. His way of life has protected him during infancy and nurtured him through successive years of discrimination and racism; asking him to be humble and submissive may leave him fearful, shattered, and resentful, never to recover again.
The approach to the disadvantaged should be to know his goals and appreciate his need for involvement in the group process. Instead of asking him to reject his culture, we must seek to use his culture to motivate him. One way this can be accomplished is by identifying the informal leaders and utilizing them to communicate the values of the formal group. Once we have determined what motivates the disadvantaged and have come to understand his behavior, we can begin to integrate his goals with those of the organization. The success of this approach is limited only by the extent of our involvement.
Involvement means more than making policies and demands understood. Involvement dictates that we get to know our subordinates as individuals, as persons. For the Air Force supervisor this means putting forth an effort to find out what the disadvantaged subordinate seeks in life and helping him achieve his goals. This involvement cannot be approached sincerely without compassion, empathy, and total awareness of the disadvantaged airman’s point of view. Formal and informal conversations establish the foundation of mutuality from which the necessary empathy and compassion will develop. Conversations with the disadvantaged satisfy his need for assurance that the supervisor is interested in helping him make a meaningful and worthwhile contribution of his abilities and skills. Involvement, therefore, encourages the disadvantaged and also helps the supervisor learn some of his motivational factors. The communicative skills of the supervisor encourage enthusiasm and foster an atmosphere in which the disadvantaged airman will seek new experience and can then make contributions resulting from his personal improvement efforts.
I am not trying to give the impression that civilian firms are paragons of organizational virtue. Historically, military leaders have contributed immeasurably to management philosophy. In fact, the history of military organization reflects both give and take in personnel management techniques. Doing a good job of supervising and managing people is not accidental. Unless we learn to know our people, we will probably adopt some approach that will lead to our thinking of “we” and “they.” Such thinking will lead to one group’s understanding what is expected of it and why its participation is necessary, while the other group experiences a sense of irritation and discomfort and becomes restive in the unit. The individuals who fall into the latter category, in the military just as in the civilian community, create problems, inhibit mission effectiveness, and, worst of all, make no contribution to society or the military. In the final analysis, a nation’s survival depends on the intelligent use of all its resources, the most important of which is human resources.
United States Air Force Academy
Notes
1. Manpower Administration Order No. 2-68, February 8, 1968.
2. Ruth Shaeffer, “Nondiscrimination in Employment: Changing Perspectives, 1963-1972,” The Conference Board, Inc., 1973, p. 3.
3. Anthony C. Campbell, “An Unsentimental Journey into the Hardcore,” The Conference Board Record, 1971, p. 9.
4. Education, Training, and Employment of the Disadvantaged, Studies in Public Affairs, No. 4, 1969, p. 4.
5. Darwin W. Bolden, “Black Business Development—Its Role in the Minority Economic Empowerment,” speech before the American Bar Association, Sheraton-Hotel, Chicago, April 1969.
6. Ibid.
7. Allen R. Langer and Ruth G. Shaeffer, A Research Report from the Conference Board, No. 219, 1970, p. 5.
8. Studies in Public Affairs, No. 4, A Research Report from the Conference Board, 1969, p. 8.
9. “Industry’s Aid to Education,” Studies in Public Affairs, No. 1, 1969.
10. Anthony C. Campbell, The Conference Board, Inc., 1971, p. 9.
11. A Research Report from the Conference Board, 1969, No. 4, pp. 11, 58.
12. Ibid., p. 56.
13. James S. Spain, “Black Executives: The Darkie at the Bottom of the Stairs,” MBA Enterprises, Inc., 1970, p. 36.
14. Captain Drue L. DeBerry, “Vietnamese Air Force Technical Training, 1970-1971,” Air University Review, January-February 1973, pp. 43-51.
Captain George H. Wayne (M.P.A., University of Colorado; M.A., University of Denver) is Instructor of History, U.S. Air Force Academy. Formerly a senior master sergeant, he taught at Strategic Air Command Senior NCO Academy. He has served as an instructor in the Armed Forces Air Intelligence Training Center, Lowry AFB, Colorado, and in intelligence and operational positions in Europe and Asia.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this
document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression,
academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official
position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air
Force or the Air University.
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