KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany –
At the request of the 405th Army Field Support Brigade, two subject matter experts on the new Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army from U.S. Army Sustainment Command at Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, traveled to Europe and provided IPPS-A training to the brigade, Jan. 29 to Feb. 2.
Representatives from the 405th AFSB’s four battalions from the Netherlands, Italy and two locations in Germany – as well as the brigade headquarters in Kaiserslautern – took part in the IPPS-A training presented by representatives from ASC’s directorate of personnel and administration (G-1).
According to the official IPPS-A website at https://ipps-a.army.mil, IPPS-A provides essential capabilities to the Army in total force visibility, talent management and auditability. The Army’s legacy human resources systems and databases were stove piped and mostly did not talk to each other. IPPS-A modernizes Army HR by managing talent, reducing information technology and military pay costs, and improving Soldiers’ lives through transparency and mobile capabilities.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Katrina Watkins is the senior HR technician at ASC G-1. She traveled to Germany with Master Sgt. Timothy Fisher to present the training to the 405th AFSB. Watkins said having this face-to-face, hands-on interaction with the 405th AFSB and its battalions during the week-long training helps bring continuity from the headquarters at ASC down to the HR teams on the ground here in Europe.
“I believe us being here is extremely important. We’re here showing them that we are in this together, we’re a team, and we can build our base of knowledge on IPPS-A and be better together,” said Watkins.
“I’m grateful to be here,” she said. “I’m glad the 405th asked us to come here. This is a great opportunity to meet the brigade and battalion HR specialists face-to-face because a lot of our interactions previously have been on MS Teams or over phone calls. Now that we are here in person, by being here they can ask us all the questions they need, and the communication and comradery have been awesome.”
Watkins said the transparency IPPS-A offers to everyone is one of its greatest attributes.
“Any action that’s happening – from leaving the Soldier’s hands and going up the chain of command to HRC to get approved – it’s all being tracked,” said Watkins. “Back in the day, sometimes an award would get left in a Soldier’s desk or lost. Or a pay action would get lost in the system, or somebody forgot to process it and send it up.”
With IPPS-A, everything is tracked, Watkins said. Everything is accounted for, and there’s visibility for the Soldiers to see where their awards are or where their actions are going. Commanders can now approve an award or action on the spot, and when it’s approved the award or action goes straight to the Soldier’s Interactive Personnel Electronic Records Management System, or iPERMS.
“IPPS-A is efficient, it’s transparent, and it provides visibility to everybody,” Watkins added.
IPPS-A is an online HR system that provides integrated personnel, pay, talent and data capabilities in a single system. The system gives Soldiers the ability to view, track and initiate HR transactions, and it supports readiness and talent management. IPPS-A improves records accuracy and auditability, and Soldiers have 24/7 access via a website or mobile app.
The 405th AFSB is assigned to ASC and under the operational control of the 21st Theater Sustainment Command, U.S. Army Europe and Africa. The brigade is headquartered in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and provides materiel enterprise support to U.S. Forces throughout Europe and Africa – providing theater sustainment logistics; synchronizing acquisition, logistics and technology; and leveraging U.S. Army Materiel Command’s materiel enterprise to support joint forces. For more information on the 405th AFSB, visit the official website at www.afsbeurope.army.mil and the official Facebook site at www.facebook.com/405thAFSB.