Racial Disparity Root Cause Analysis for the Department of the Air Force: Refining the Way Forward

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Conley, Raymond E.

Contributor:

Bauman, Melissa

Cochran, Shawn

Denton, Sarah W.

Emslie, Paul

Hall, Kimberly Curry

Keller, Kirsten M.

Oliver, Stephen W., Jr.

Scott, Lynn

Language:

English

Other Title:

Racial Disparity Root Cause Analysis for the Department of the Air Force

Place of Publication:

RAND Corporation 2024

Summary:

The Department of the Air Force (DAF) released three reports in 2020 and 2021 discussing the disparities it identified for minority groups and women. Eliminating documented, persistent, and unwanted disparities requires sustained commitment at all DAF organizational levels, rigorous and regular analysis, well-coordinated comprehensive implementation of well-crafted solutions, and dedicated and consistent resourcing. The DAF is taking many actions to address the disparities; however, this project was designed to assist the Air Force's Force Management Policy Directorate in refining its way forward. The authors developed a framework to assess how DAF policies drive leaders' actions at strategic, operational, and tactical levels and to help identify policy gaps at each level. The team explored exemplar practices in other organizations to identify those that could help address the DAF Inspector General's findings regarding human capital management. The team conducted seven workshops with representatives from various communities that have roles in the DAF's human capital cycle and conducted additional analyses to address gaps identified during the earlier tasks. Next, the team developed dashboards that the DAF could use to routinely execute barrier analysis to analyze and improve patterns of representation and promotion within the different career fields. Finally, the authors created recommendations targeted at three distinct groups: human capital management policymakers, wing and squadron leaders, and senior DAF leadership.