Personnel Department Report - August 2018

Placements overall

There were 10 applicants total for the month of September. Two were returning members who requested their former ships (in discussions with those ships’ COs) and so are not included in the rest of these statistics. Therefore, there were 8 applicants where the PDept was responsible for ship placements.

Academy vs Non-Academy

= Requests =
4 (50%) Academy
4 (50%) Main Fleet
0 (0%) Abramsverse

= Placements =
4 (50%) Academy
4 (50%) Main Fleet
0 (0%) Abramsverse

(Everyone was placed in the Academy who requested the Academy.)

Placement Statistics

= Posting Speed Requested=
1 (12.5%) Infrequent
0 (0%) Slow
6 (75%) Average
0 (0%) Regular
1 (12.5%) Frequent

=Posting speed placed=
8 (100%) Average

(There were no available slow ships that could accept the one infrequent request. There are no available fast ships willing to accept new members.)

= How they found us =
Web search engines: 3
Referrals: 3

(Remaining two were returning members)

Departments

= First choice preferences for departments =
Engineering: 2 (25%)
Medical: 2 (25%)
Security: 1 (12.5%)
Science: 3 (37.5%)

= Department Placed in =

Engineering: 2 (25%)
Medical: 2 (25%)
Security: 1 (12.5%)
Science: 3 (37.5%)

Processing Times
Average Processing Time: 18.5 hours
5 applications (63.5%) processed under 24 hours
3 applications (37.5%) processed between 24 and 48 hours
0 applications (0%) processed between 48 and 72 hours
0 applications (0%) processed over 72 hours

Member Tracking
(As of October 10, 2018)
Note: in future reports, we will use three months of data. However, for this report we cannot rely on the July 2018 data as it is skewed by the transition from WeBBspace to Exodus.

=August 2018=

Academy placements: 3
Active: 1 (33%)
Rostered, but AWOL: 1 (33%)
Never posted: 0
AWOL (and no longer rostered): 1 (33%)

Non-Academy placements: 3
Active: 1 (33%)
Rostered, but AWOL: 1 (33%)
Never posted: 0
AWOL (and no longer rostered): 1 (33%)

Abramsverse placements: 0

=September 2018=

Academy placements: 4
Active: 2 (50%)
Rostered, but AWOL:
Never posted: 2 (50%)
AWOL (and no longer rostered): 0

Non-Academy placements: 5
Active: 2 (50%)
Rostered, but AWOL: 1 (25%)
Never posted: 1 (25%)
AWOL (and no longer rostered):

Abramsverse placements: 0

Vacancy Updates

There were 3 vacancy advertisements posted on the Personnel Department board for September:
USS Ark Angel: Chief Medical Officer; JOs in every department (posted September 23)
USS Chimera: JOs in every department (posted September 1)
*USS Manhattan: Chief Science Officer; JOs in every department (posted September 21)

Other Personnel Department Developments

Open items from last report:
MOTD: no new updates since the last report
Implementing PDept’s work into Exodus: Exodus 1.3 saw some useful additions to the completed applications page to help with tracking data for records and reports. Feedback from the PDept will be passed on in October. The application placement tool was also updated in 1.3 to give the PDept more options when rejecting an application. Major implementations will require more substantial work by TECH as many of the items require Exodus to track data that it is currently not tracking (I’ve simplified things here considerably). Therefore, as mentioned in my previous report, this is a long-term project with TECH prioritizing the various items to their own practical timetable.

New items:
In September, the PDept took on the task of taking requests to update member profiles regarding member rank and join dates, with requests posted on the PDept board. The join date requests had an initial surge before becoming quite quiet, and not many more are expected until the WeBBspace archives become available (allowing members who joined after STF moved to WeBBspace to look up when they first posted). Given how much the requests died down by the end of month, for now I don’t plan on changing how requests are made.
I anticipate a discussion shortly - maybe as soon as next month - about the future of the STF Yearbook and related amendments to the PDept bylaw. This is not the only anticipated amendment discussion this term, so stay tuned…
*The PDept’s internal training really kicked off in September… I think successfully. I’ll have more to report about that in my November report after we pass the mid-term mark and my related review of the progress there.

Closing Remarks

There’s one thing I want to bring to the club’s attention, which I’ve also started some discussions with the Academy regarding. It was brought to my attention that more than one new member who joined found it a bit confusing on how to get started. These members were joining non-Academy ships without a mentor request. At least one of them came from a very different RPG background, which explains some of it. But it did bring to our attention that information on how to get started is (a) often buried in the site, and (b) when it is accessible, often suffers from information overload. The information in our email probably falls in the latter, but removing it may not be useful at this point either. This may turn into a project that one or two people may need to carry, but I just want to raise it here for now while some further brainstorming can take place behind the scenes.

Daniel Lerner
Personnel Director