STF

Personnel Department Report - January 2021

Posted Feb. 6, 2021, 9:51 p.m. by Fleet Captain Adam W. (Chief EGO) (Adam W.)

Posted by Vice Admiral Daniel Lerner (Vice President / Procedures Guru / Personnel Director) in Personnel Department Report - January 2021

Posted by Fleet Captain Adam W. (Chief EGO) in Personnel Department Report - January 2021

Posted by Vice Admiral Daniel Lerner (Vice President / Procedures Guru / Personnel Director) in Personnel Department Report - January 2021
Personnel Department Report - January 2021

Membership trends

The trends in changes in membership as of January 1, 2021 can be viewed here. For explanations and cautions about accuracy, please read this post.

Explanation notes: Once a person posts, they are considered a member for the next 30 days. That means that if a person stops posting, they aren’t removed from the membership numbers until the next month. That means: (1) if a new member never posts, they are not counted on this chart, (2) if a person posts once and doesn’t post again, they will be counted as a new member in the month they posted, and then a member who left STF in the following month.

Comments: We are currently still in an overall trend of a net loss in membership in most months which started in August 2020.

Placements overall

There were 4 applications processed in the month of January. All 4 applications were placed by the Personnel Department.

Academy vs Non-Academy

Requests

  • 4 (100%) Academy
  • 0 (0%) Main Fleet

Placements

  • 4 (100%) Academy
  • 0 (0%) Main Fleet

Posting Speeds

Trends of various ship speed data and comparisons over the past two years can be found here.

Posting Speed Requested - Academy

  • 0 (0%) One day a week or less
  • 1 (25%) 1-2 days per week
  • 2 (50%) Multiple days per week, but not daily
  • 1 (25%) 6-7 days per week

Posting Speed Placed - Academy

  • 4 (100%) Medium
Note: The Academy only has a medium-speed ship.

Posting Speed Requested - Main Fleet

  • 0 (0%) One day a week or less
  • 0 (0%) 1-2 days per week
  • 0 (0%) Multiple days per week, but not daily
  • 0 (0%) 6-7 days per week

Posting Speed Placed - Main Fleet

  • No placements

How they found us

  • Web search engines: 3
  • Facebook: 0
  • Referrals: 0
  • Returning member: 0
  • Did not say or provide details: 1

Departments

Trends

  • Two-year trend of department requests and placements can be found here. Well, we ran out of room to place new medical officers - it’s still a popular choice (tied with science this month), but we had to start placing them in other departments (primarily science) because of how popular it has been recent.
  • Two-year trend of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th choices can be found here.

First choice preferences for departments

  • Engineering: 2 (50%)
  • Medical: 0 (0%)
  • Security: 1 (0%)
  • Science: 1 (0%)

Department Placed in

  • Engineering: 2 (50%)
  • Medical: 0 (0%)
  • Security: 1 (0%)
  • Science: 1 (0%)

Note: The next two lists offer a better breakdown of what is happening.

Department Choice Placed In - Academy Placements

  • 1st choice: 4 (100%)
  • 2nd choice: 0 (0%)
  • 3rd choice: 0 (0%)
  • 4th choice: 0 (0%)

Department Choice Placed In - Main Fleet Placements

  • No placements

Processing Times
(Includes all processed applications)

Average Processing Time: 4.0 hours. A two-year trend can be found here.

  • 4 applications (100%) processed under 24 hours
  • 0 applications (0%) 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 February 4, 2021)

Trends: Two year trends for Academy and non-Academy combined, for Academy only, and for non-Academy only.

November 2020

Academy placements: 5

  • Active: 1 (20%)
  • Rostered, but AWOL: 1 (20%)
  • Never posted: 1 (20%)
  • AWOL (and no longer rostered): 2 (40%)
Comments: Since the last report, one active cadet is now AWOL and no longer rostered; one active cadet is AWOL but still rostered

Non-Academy placements: 4

  • Active: 2 (50%)
  • Rostered, but AWOL: 2 (50%)
  • Never posted: 0
  • AWOL (and no longer rostered): 0
Comments: Since the last report, two JOs who went AWOL is active again.

December 2020

Academy placements: 10

  • Active: 1 (10%)
  • Rostered, but AWOL: 1 (10%)
  • Never posted: 5 (50%)
  • AWOL (and no longer rostered): 3 (30%)
Comments: Since the last report, one active cadet is now AWOL and no longer rostered; one active cadet is now AWOL but still rostered.

Non-Academy placements: 2

  • Active: 0
  • Rostered, but AWOL: 1 (50%)
  • Never posted: 1 (50%)
  • AWOL (and no longer rostered): 0
Comments: Since the last report, one JO who hadn’t posted did post, but is now AWOL (and still rostered).

January 2021

Academy placements: 4

  • Active: 1 (25%)
  • Rostered, but AWOL: 0
  • Never posted: 1 (25%)
  • AWOL (and no longer rostered): 2 (50%)

Non-Academy placements: 0

Discord and retention
The Personnel Department has been asked to start tracking how retention might be affected by new members joining our Discord channel. It will take a few months before trends can be determined.

November 2020
New members placed who joined Discord: 7 (78% of placed new members). Number of them active on their ship: 3 (29%) (Comparison: number of non-Discord users who are active: 1 (50%)

December 2020
New members placed who joined Discord: 5 (42% of placed new members). Number of them active on their ship: 1 (20%) (Comparison: number of non-Discord users who are active: 0)

January 2021
New members placed who joined Discord: 2 (50% of placed new members). Number of them active on their ship: 1 (50%) (Comparison: number of non-Discord users who are active: 0)

Open items from last report

Updating static pages: Tabled to next term

Recommendations page: Tabled to next term

Retention: Retention is still an ongoing large concern, with no obvious solutions at this time.

Comments

We had a major slow-down of new member applications. Normally our issue is just retention, but we count on a higher influx of new member applications. January saw a low month of new members all together - our lowest since the problematic months in 2019. When combined with our current retention issue, this could come back to haunt us over the next couple months. Hopefully January was an outlier, since we did not see anything similar in recent months, or any type of gradual reduction in numbers.

Late January saw a slow-ship availability problem. Basically, if an applicant indicates they can only post once a week or less, and there’s no real liklihood for now they can post more frequent than that, we can only place them on a main fleet slow ship. There are currently four slow ships in the club that aren’t alt-RPGs, two of which refuse to accept new members. That just leaves two ships. I had commented on this problem earlier this term (in the context of an increased number of ships refusing to accept new members) and how if not addressed we could run into a problem. Well, we almost did run into a problem when we had a potential member who needed to be placed in a slow ship and our only two available slow ships didn’t have at least an active CO or XO at the time (for just over a week). In the end, that new member wasn’t placed for unrelated reasons, so the issue became moot, but it can - and will - come up again in the future. I have therefore started an active campaign to try to get some more ships recognized as slow ships or to have the slow ships that won’t accept new members to reconsider that decision for the good of the club. I will report next month if there has been any progress.

Daniel Lerner
Personnel Director

My suggestion is to solve this by adjusting the placement policy. I’d have the “once per week or less” first go to slow ships, and then to medium if no slow ships were available. I would prefer to see policy adapt to meet the needs of the ships. It’s fine to reach out and see if a CO wants to make a change, but I don’t see much good in asking for that over and over and over.

This isn’t exactly a frequent problem. Of the placements that have been made in the main fleet, from June 2020 through January 2021, only one has submitted a requested posting speed of one day per week or less.

Adam W.

I guess a couple of points in reply:

1) The placement policy has always been that if someone is going to post less than once a week, they would be placed on a ship that allowed for that so the new member would not immediately go AWOL. I am aware that there was a period of time from 2017 to 2018 when the PDept was not following that policy (or certain other aspects of the club’s placement policy) for reasons that were not clear to me. But it would not make sense to change the policy - again, if someone is going to post less than once a week, placing them on a medium ship doesn’t make sense.

Hmm, interesting. I’m not aware of what you’re talking about and I did the majority of placements in the first half of 2018. As I recall there was one deviation with the placements that I did, which had specific reasoning behind it. But that’s not important for club-wide discussion.

You certainly have a point, however, in my view allowing members requesting to post 6-7 times per week to be placed on a medium ship makes about the same of sense.

2) I’m not aware of anyone asking “over and over again”. The issue about having no slow ships to place anyone came up late January leading to the PDept to raising the issue and finding out ways to solve it.

So far this term I’ve been asked to change my ship to accepting new members on four different occasions. I’m not sure what I have to do to stop being asked this question as thorough explanations haven’t seemed to work. But I can tell you, it is happening and I’ve found it very frustrating.

Adam W.

3) I agree it doesn’t come up often. There numbers are as follows. As per this graph, under the tab Non-Academy Slow Chart, you’ll see in the past year two member who requested the main fleet indicated they would post once a week or less. Over a two year period, that number is four. In addition, we have generally had one or two new members per year who request the Academy but after we give them the option of Academy at once a week or more, or a main-fleet slow ship where they can post less than once a week, they request the latter choice. Those numbers are counted in the non-Academy slow-ship placement total.

Long story short, it doesn’t come up that often. When it does come up, it isn’t great when we have no choices to place the person. Unless the club wants to change its policy and say that to join you must be willing to post at least once a week or more (which I think would be a bad policy since we have ships that accept non-new members at that speed), we need to ensure we aren’t relying on just two ship that have struggled to stay within AWOL limits.

Daniel


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