TSA sleeping on the job

By Prof. Alan (Avi) Kirschenbaum*

And now the firings are happening at another airport! This time security employees at Newark Airport were caught on video “sleeping on the job or failing to follow standard operating procedures for screening checked bags.”

Nothing surprising here about not complying with the rules – recall the results of the BEMOSA findings where bending, breaking and even going against the rules was commonplace!

But what should interest security and airport managers is the charge of “sleeping on the job.” While the details are not available, could it be that employees were” resting” in between flight arrivals/departures when no bags were in need of examination, or was it during actual periods of baggage flow?

More likely they utilized what we discovered in the BEMOSA ethnographic study as an effective system of work performance where employees paired into “idle-active” small groups, rotating from active to idle that allowed each employee to gain needed physical/mental rest from a stressful but routine job. This allowed the partner to be fully focused on his/her job when in active mode.

Let me put this into perspective: employees refer to these types of jobs as “being bored out your mind.” We are talking about routine jobs where the perceived probability of something terrible happening is extremely low. And this is how most airport employees see threats, mainly as false alarms and not likely to happen.

In our case of baggage handlers, checking inanimate lifeless bags constantly flowing by on a conveyor belt – picture Charlie Chapman in Modern Times – and making rule-based security decisions based on the technology (which most do not trust); where an alarm would mean stopping the flow, opening bags and/or recalling the passenger for a security interview (all at a price and underlying threat of being dismissed if too many false alarms are made!) could certainly justify employees going into the “idle-active” mode.

Until those who watched the “big brother” cameras and caught the “dissident workers,” the flow of bags and security levels seemed to work just fine.

So will firing baggage handlers who “sleep on the job” lead to increased airport security? Very doubtful. But putting more stress and pressure on employees to comply with the rules without taking into consideration the social work environment and adaptive ability of workers to cope with such work conditions, the outcomes will likely lead to more mistakes, more human errors and reduced security. So instead of firing them, perhaps it might have been a better idea to learn from them!

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The writer is the initiator and coordinator of BEMOSA (Behavioral Modeling of Security in Airports).*

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Related Workshops
Open workshop On airport security

BEMOSA's next workshop to focus on aviation security training program for airport personnel

The BEMOSA consortium will hold a special workshop in Brussels on July 10, 2012 focusing on the managerial implications of the intermediate findings of extensive research conducted in European airports.

The workshop is the third and last workshop in a series of events devoted to applying human factor and the principles of social networking to airport security. At the first workshop the general conclusions of the study were presented. At the second workshop specific case studies have been provided and discussed, especially their implications for airport security operations in general and false alarms and manager-employee relations in particular.

The third workshop will discuss the implication of the findings of BEMOSA in daily airport management and training programs on enhancing security decisions by airport employees.

The workshop will focus on translating the groundbreaking findings into guidelines for a novel training program for airport personnel. The training program will be based upon unique behaviour models developed by BEMOSA.

The BEMOSA evidence-based simulation and training program will eventually lead to reduced false alarms, increased passenger satisfaction and improved labor relations, ultimately leading to improved profitability.

The workshop will be held in the offices of DG Research of the European Commission in Rue du Champs de Mars 21 in Brussels. The event is free of charge but registration is obligatory.

Florida airport’s TSA firings send workers the wrong message

By Prof. Alan (Avi) Kirschenbaum*

The latest episode of being negatively rewarded for not following airport security rules has hit the headlines once again with reports on the firing of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers at Southwest Florida International Airport for failing to perform random screenings.

This, of course, will lead to security being tightened, not out of concern for aircraft and passenger safety but out of fear of being fired. The result: longer lines, more frustrated passengers and loss of revenue for airports.

So what is the big fuss about if, as TSA spokesman David Castelveter said, “It’s the random secondary that did not happen. At no time was a traveler’s safety at risk and there was no impact on flight operations”? The logic of this somehow escapes me, but it does point toward an inherent problem in how security is viewed and practiced.

Just as we found in the BEMOSA Project, bending, breaking and ignoring the rules is part of the normative behavior of security employees. In this case, only 15 percent of the roughly 280 TSA employees at an airport were caught and either fired or suspended. And what was the reason? They did not perform “random checks” of the passengers which, as we have heard, do nothing to enhance security but might make it “a little more difficult” for the bad guys to disrupt air transportation. Of course, this begs the question of “how much more difficult” as against decimating your work force and increasing the frustration of passengers.

Here again we see the overdone imposition of rules as against the judgment and experience of security personnel. Rather than imbed and enrich employees with skills that go far beyond what technology or its related rules can offer, we are sending the message to “keep a low profile,” “don't rock the boat,” “don't take initiative” – just be the robot the engineers and security managers have designed you to be.

And why is this critical to making security decisions?

By treating passengers as sterile cogs who are seen as a threat, we logically must apply the engineering model of airports designed as a mass production high risk facility (akin to a prison). But what if we start to view airports as service providers where passengers are customers?

Well, not unexpectedly, the BEMOSA results have revealed an important clue. Those security employees who considered the security and safety of passengers to be high on their priority list were the ones who tended to bend and break the rules. Those who really didn’t care that much about passengers were the compliant bureaucratic rule keepers.

Just ask yourself: to whom would you rather trust your lives?

The writer is the initiator and coordinator of BEMOSA (Behavioral Modeling of Security in Airports).*

BEMOSA's next workshop to focus on airport security management and training

The BEMOSA consortium will hold a special workshop in Brussels, Belgium on May 15, 2012 on the managerial implications of the intermediate findings of extensive research conducted in European airports.

The workshop is specifically designed to meet the needs of airport security professionals, airport management officials, human resources and operations personnel, providers of airport security services and technology, providers of airport security training services, public officials and policy makers.

The workshop is the second in a series of workshops devoted to applying human factors and the principles of social networking to airport security. The workshops will discuss the basic findings of BEMOSA, their implications on daily airport management and training programs to enhance security decisions by airport employees.

At the first workshop the general conclusions of the Study of Airports were presented; at the second specific case studies will be provided and discussed, especially their implications for, among others, airport security operations in general and false alarms and manager-employee relations in particular.

The unique behaviour models developed by BEMOSA will be applied to the case studies as well, and will form the basis for the development of a novel training program for airport personnel.

BEMOSA’s researchers will analyze the study’s findings with a focus on group decisions, informal social networks and deviations from rules and procedures.

The workshop will be held in the offices of DG Research of the European Commission in Rue du Champs de Mars 21 in Brussels. The event is free of charge but registration is obligatory.

TSA critics aim at the wrong goal

By Prof. Alan (Avi) Kirschenbaum*

In soccer and other sports, we have occasionally witnessed the anguish of a player making a “self goal.” It appears that some of the critics of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), charging it with “ineffective tactics and treating travelers rudely,” are really saying the obvious to all of us who have gone through security screening. Nothing new here! So why all the fuss about how we feel as passengers going through security screening? Remember, these are politicians talking!

So let’s look at this criticism in more detail and really get down to the core of the security issue for passengers. And, don’t forget, airport security not only includes passengers but cargo, maintenance, outsourced employees and, not surprisingly, the shops and malls. But for the moment let us focus on passengers as potential voters – for politicians on election day and also as customers who can choose (or not) to fly certain airlines and select airports.

How do passengers fit into the flying game? To answer this it is important to distinguish airports as a flow-through production which has recently been transformed into a large shopping mall and hotel complex that happens to be serviced by aircraft. Simply put, a supermarket found within a factory. Despite this transformation, airport design remains based on industrial engineering principles and “bottom line” results – and security based on technology. Perhaps it’s time for a reevaluation?

As most airports are private enterprises, profits are a driving force that also has direct implications on determining how airport security will be framed. As a production unit, this has meant getting us through the security process as quickly as possible, spending more time at the shops (a money generator), and minimizing flight delays (also very costly). However, despite the rational and logical designs, passengers are still getting annoyed and angry.

But viewing airports as a service organization, airport managers would seek to attract us to use their services by making security as flexible as possible. This would minimize “friction” and simultaneously increase passenger flow with entry into the shopping mall made as effortlessly as possible thereby increasing purchases of goods and services. In other words, good business.

There is no getting away from the fact that passengers are the key component in making airports profitable. Security screening as it is today, whichever way you look at it, does not make many customers happy. The result can easily bring about (and has, according to a recent US report) a large loss of customers and revenue.

What can be done? Lots! Making the passenger happy starts with the simple interaction of security guards and passengers.

The BEMOSA Project has demonstrated that in many cases security guards are focal points for information and help, bending and even breaking the mandated rules if the situation calls for it which, in the eyes of the passenger, makes sense. It’s a difficult job for security employees, but if included in their training are some of the basics of “customer service,” not only will the employees be rewarded by more friendly passengers-customers but the bottom line profits of airports will rise. Result: happy customers and many happy airport shareholders.

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*The writer is the initiator and coordinator of BEMOSA (Behavioral Modeling of Security in Airports).