Does anyone have a rule-of-thumb or some sort of personal criteria they use when determining whether a member should be transferred to a HHQ unit?
Many members hold HHQ or even NHQ roles while remaining assigned to a lower level unit. eServices accesses are tied to duty assignment level, so any member with a duty at the HHQ will have the HHQ access they need, but conversely, a member assigned to a HHQ can still have a duty position in a lower level unit, too. Logistically, keeping members at the lowest reasonable level simplifies personnel management, but it ultimately seems fairly arbitrary where a member is assigned.
So, what are your thoughts on when/why a member should be transferred to a HHQ unit? Is there ever an operational advantage to transferring a member to a HHQ if they're active at both the local and HHQ levels? Are there any Group/Wing/Region HQs that have a local policy on transfers? There doesn't seem to be any official guidance (at least that I've found), so I'd like to hear some different opinions.
The ghost squadron, as it is often called, is generally where you park people that are inactive, but still paying regular member (not patron) dues. Usually these are long-time members that are just not quite ready to retire.
I've never heard of it being used in any sort of active role, and I can't imagine why an active member would want to be in one or why Wing would want active members in it. Unless their local unit just can't stand them, but don't have a reason to kick them out.
Welp, I somehow got locked out of my account and I'm not receiving any of the the reset emails, so I guess I'm Adam (again) now.
Anyway, I don't mean the reserve squadron XX-000, but rather the HQ unit, XX-001.
The reason people are transferred to the XX-000 Squadron is that when assessing Squadrons for things like QCUA and others, the inactive members often don't have current TLC, Cadet Protection, or up to date ES Quals. When allocating resources to a squadron, and you have 20 Seniors, 10 of whom you've never seen or met, do they get the plane, van, or radios?
Thanks, but again, xx-000 is not the same as xx-001.
Xx-000 is the "reserve" squadron, and is often used as you mentioned. Xx-001, on the other hand, is the HQ unit. A wing Commander, for example, will be a member of 001. Other SMs can be transferred to 001, as well; I'm just wondering if there's any groups/wings/regions have a rule of thumb about when/why that happens.
Some wings have an unwritten policy that directors of key areas (Ops, Finance, CP, etc) be members of the wing HQ unit to avoid any appearances of improprieties.
Are they more effective or different than having someone be ADY as say, the wing DCP? No idea, but if your DCP is assigned to a squadron, and that squadron seems to get all the choice assignments, or the wing DO's squadron always seems to get the new airplane, it may be time to ask some hard questions. Because I can assure you, the folks in the field are asking them.
Interesting. That sounds like a pretty sensible thing to do. I could see how there could be a perception that a squadron member working at the wing level could potentially influence the treatment of their home unit.
In Wings with policies like that, I'm curious if they would still allow the member to retain whatever duty assignment they had at their squadron. For example, could a member transfer to 001 as the Wing's LG, but keep their LGT role at a local unit as an ADY?
Also, while that suggests a reason for transferring someone when they get a Wing duty assignment, are there any compelling reasons against to transferring someone? Administratively, it seems simpler to have people assigned at the lowest reasonable level (keeping squadron-level actions at the squadron level), but are there any other considerations?
I suppose I can offer a bit of context to my questions: I recently had a conversation with my Wing Commander about a member who requested a transfer to 001. They hold active, primary assignments at both the Wing and Squadron levels. Operationally, there's seemingly no benefit to transferring them, but there's also no clear drawback to doing so, either. We eventually landed on the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach and kept them assigned to their local unit. It got me thinking, though, so now I'm curious how other HHQs handle it.