POLICIES REGARDING THE NOAA OMAO ONLINE SAFETY CLIMATE ASSESSMENT SYSTEM (OSCAS)

The following policy components are extracted directly from NOAA Policy 1708 implemented effective 16 SEP 2022.


3.  POLICY
  1. The Safety Climate Assessment Survey is maintained by the Deputy Director for Operations, OMAO and administered annually through third party vendors who provide survey design, analysis, and database maintenance services. All personnel are encouraged to provide feedback to the Chief of Staff, OMAO Operations regarding survey execution.
  2. The survey provides multi-year trend analysis to inform decisions regarding safety and mishap prevention, human factor mitigation, and goals for organizational behavior.
  3. The overall survey process includes the following sub-surveys, targeting specific sections of the organization.
    1. Marine Operations survey - administered at the ship level to provide ship, MOC, and Director, Marine Operations (MO) level feedback. Questions specifically designed to gather applicable data for shipboard concerns.
    2. Aircraft Operations survey - administered to all personnel at the Aircraft Operations Center. Questions specifically designed to gather data applicable to aviation concerns.
    3. Shore-side survey - administered to all OMAO personnel operating in shore-side positions. Questions specifically designed to evaluate workforce climate across the non-deployable and support elements of OMAO.
  4. Survey questions are written to evaluate the following subject areas relating to safety climate: Organizational Processes, Organizational Climate, Resource Allocation, and Organizational Supervision.
  5. Survey responses are handled by the survey vendor in the following manner:
    1. All written responses are sanitized of personally identifying information (PII) that may expose the responders identity unless specifically requested in the response by the individual.
    2. All responses are aggregated according to the following levels:
      1. Individual Ship
      2. Aircraft/Marine Center
      3. All shore-side OMAO personnel not assigned to a ship or Operations Center
    3. Demographic information is collected and retained confidentially by the survey organization and only used to inform the analysis, not to identify specific responses.
    4. Only the individual ship and center Commanding Officers (COs), Deputy Assistant Administrator (DAA) OMAO, Deputy Director OMAO, and Director OMAO should have access to the non-aggregate data and comments for individual commands. Only those comments that represent a clear violation of law or threat to the safety of an individual or command are shared with OMAO leadership for immediate action.
  6. Deputy Director for Operations, OMAO will direct the timing of survey administration by:
    1. Considering a period of operations tempo that is representative of the command’s mission.
    2. Allowing the survey to be open for comments for a minimum of 14 days, or longer if necessary.
    3. Allowing sufficient time to conduct the analysis and provide debriefings to the command and OMAO leadership before the annual debriefing of aggregate results.
  7. Each command designates a survey manager to initiate the survey, monitor completion, and coordinate closing the survey with the survey vendor.
  8. The survey vendor debriefs all ship Commanding Officers; MOC Commanding Officers and Executive Officers; Director and Deputy Director, Marine Operations; and Commanding Officer, Deputy and Chief, Safety Branch at AOC within 14 days of the close of the survey with aggregate results and a list of sanitized comments.
    1. All ship commands provide a summary of their results to their MOC CO and present any significant findings and action items within 30 days of receiving the survey debriefing.
    2. MO and AOC leadership are to notify the Deputy Director for Operations, OMAO if any potential misconduct is reported and requires further investigation.
  9. Director, OMAO receives a debrief from the vendor of all results within 30 days of survey closeout.
  10. Director, OMAO will provide a debriefing each year, generally at the Marine Operations Leadership Summit (MOLS) and the AOC Safety Conference, covering the aggregate results of the survey and any action items to be implemented as a result of the survey. This debriefing will occur within 3 months of the survey closeout, generally by January 31st each year.