Jpa

[tacadmin]

Dear All,

I have been out of trade for the past 2 years (in an AFCO). I left my last job in a PSF about 7 months after JPA rolled out. Whilst there, I was on the Unit Change Team, and attended several meetings, briefs, presentations etc. And the general feeling was that people were very concerned about the loss of manpower, especially as JPA created a lot of extra "unforeseen" work for us shinys.
I'd even heard that several clerks had PVR'd stating JPA as the "final straw"!

I'll be back in the admin world next year, and wanted to know how much peoples perceptions had changed (if at all) over the past 2 years.

In your opinion, are we still undermanned? Does JPA do everything we were told it would be able to do?

I certainly don't hear many complaints from those I speak to on a regular basis, so i'd really appreciate your thoughts and feelings so I can 'prepare' myself accordingly!!!!

Cheers

 

[muttywhitedog]

1. Clerks are very thin on the ground at my unit. That is mainly a combination of pregnancies & DWRs hitting at the same time. I'd like to think it will get better but the ever-shortening DWR turn-round times mean that we'll be short for the forseeable. Add to that the lack of SACs and you have a unit where the HR is struggling to stay afloat.

2. JPA has got better, but I would say that absolutely none of it is down to training from on high. I've spent the last 2 years using it and have played around with stuff until I have found how I can make it work for me to achieve results. It is very rare now that I am stumped by what JPA does as I reckon I've seen the worst of it already and it can only get better.

3. The A1 Ops support have done nothing wrt JPA support IMHO. All I seem to get from them is another round of bloody check-sheets, OOA prep-signals and links to JPA bulletins that I'm quite capable of reading myself when I log on. They would be better served using that post(s) to create a cadre of people who understand how to interrogate JPA to its maximum potential, and then do so. Instead, we still rely on one man to get round to the never-ending round of queries and requests when he has time. A typical example would be Harmony Days, which JFH continally breaks, and as such MPs are constantly wanting stats. Although my pay chit gives me my LSA Count every month, there is, as yet, no way of me interrogating JPA to provide a report of how many days away people at Cottesmore have done in a certain period of time. I have to resort (and rely) on an excel spreadsheet started on 1 Apr 06 and is now at column "DZ" or something like that. This question is asked about 4 times a year by an MP, and the whole Admin hierarchy get their knickers in a twist when it gets asked, but still we wait for JPA to be able to give the answer at the press of a button.

In sum. We are getting there, but more emphasis needs to be put on writing queries that are routinely available to all TG17 personnel, not just the select few.

 

[Boarderlyne]

1. Clerks are very thin on the ground at my unit. That is mainly a combination of pregnancies & DWRs hitting at the same time. I'd like to think it will get better but the ever-shortening DWR turn-round times mean that we'll be short for the forseeable. Add to that the lack of SACs and you have a unit where the HR is struggling to stay afloat.

2. JPA has got better, but I would say that absolutely none of it is down to training from on high. I've spent the last 2 years using it and have played around with stuff until I have found how I can make it work for me to achieve results. It is very rare now that I am stumped by what JPA does as I reckon I've seen the worst of it already and it can only get better.

3. The A1 Ops support have done nothing wrt JPA support IMHO. All I seem to get from them is another round of bloody check-sheets, OOA prep-signals and links to JPA bulletins that I'm quite capable of reading myself when I log on. They would be better served using that post(s) to create a cadre of people who understand how to interrogate JPA to its maximum potential, and then do so. Instead, we still rely on one man to get round to the never-ending round of queries and requests when he has time. A typical example would be Harmony Days, which JFH continally breaks, and as such MPs are constantly wanting stats. Although my pay chit gives me my LSA Count every month, there is, as yet, no way of me interrogating JPA to provide a report of how many days away people at Cottesmore have done in a certain period of time. I have to resort (and rely) on an excel spreadsheet started on 1 Apr 06 and is now at column "DZ" or something like that. This question is asked about 4 times a year by an MP, and the whole Admin hierarchy get their knickers in a twist when it gets asked, but still we wait for JPA to be able to give the answer at the press of a button.

In sum. We are getting there, but more emphasis needs to be put on writing queries that are routinely available to all TG17 personnel, not just the select few.

Our trade in a nutshell. The only point that I will disagree with is point 2 as I know that our Instructors have gone the extra mile and done the roadshow for edificating us in wot the komputah can do fur us!

My only lament is how the feck do you do the old leave print now that we are JPA?

 

[TrebleB]

3. The A1 Ops support have done nothing wrt JPA support IMHO.

That is not the A1 Ops Support Role at my unit - I am one person still running around fixing the bl**dy medic's computers, sorting out civvies who can't understand basic instructions and then, only then, being able to train the remaining few TG17 in best practice etc. etc.

I agree with the rest of your post, the training was laughable - not the fault of our instructors I might add, but the fault of those overseeing the introduction of JPA.

In answer to the OP, JPA has improved and now does what is expected of it, the MI interrogation does need to get better and not remain the purview of the FP at Innsworth. JPA is a tool at the end of the day and it is how it is used to best effect that will only make the situation better.