Implementing and Monitoring CRM Training Essay

Introduction

The central aspect of aviation is focused on safety; it should be noted that has been an endless adventure of human beings in pursuing their wish to fly and take advantage of air transportation for decades. The development of technologies has improved safety to some extent, but has not been able to eliminate accidents and incidents in aviation. There has been undoubtedly the contribution of human factors in such events, as noted by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) (in press), “The late 70’s ,the 80’s, and 90’s will undoubtedly be remembered as the golden era of aviation Human Factors, Cockpit (and then Crew) Resource Management (CRM), Line-Oriented Flight Training (LOFT), Human Factors training programs, attitude-development programs and similar efforts have multiplied, and a sustain campaign to increase the awareness of human error in aviation safety has been initiated. But much to the consternation of safety practitioner and the entire aviation community, human error continues to be at the forefront of accident statistics” (p. 1).

There has also been a shift from the focus on human factor to a socio-technical system in aviation, stressing close interdependence between a technology and the human resources (individual, group, and organizational) being necessary for its use (Pidgeon & O’Leary, 1994). The organizational psychology, being relatively new “last frontier” in aviation safety during 1990s, includes issues, such as corporate culture and its influence on individual behaviour, the issues of safe and unsafe culture, the impact of organizational design on operational performance and the contribution of strategic decision makers. Recently, the concept of culture and its influence on aviation safety has received increasing attention from both, researchers and practitioners.

CRM concepts are considered to be common in the aviation field; CRM training has evolved over time and addressed particular needs of aviation organizations. This paper will address the issues of implementing and monitoring CRM training toward the goal of incorporating CRM concepts into operational behaviour.

Theory of CRM & Training

One should say that CRM programs have always been aimed at reduction of ‘pilot error’ accidents. The primary focus of CRM was the development of discrete non-technical skills, such as communication, leadership, decision-making, conflict resolution, as well as, stress and fatigue management (Helmreich & Wilhelm 1991).

It should be noted that Foushee and Helmreich (1988) outlined three basic determinants of aircrew performance: ability, personality, and attitude. CRM assumes technical ability, and focuses on social skills that may interfere with the optimal use of technical skills. Personality does not change during an adult’s life and, as a result, CRM cannot and should not try to change an individual’s personality. It was found out that attitude is the determinant of crew performance where CRM courses can be most effective: a lasting attitude change may lead to behavioral changes over a period of time, and that is the basic goal of CRM training programs incorporating CRM concepts into operational behavior. Aviators’ attitude, that needs rapid challenges, covers such aspects as, poor communication and teamwork (Ruffell-Smith, 1979), poor understanding excess stress managing (Sloan & Cooper, 1986), poor understanding of their own limitations or the limitations of their fellow crew members (Mellor, Undated), and other factors discovered by business management researchers in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Development of CRM Training

At the United States’ National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) workshop in 1979 labelled Resource Management on the Flightdeck; it should be noted that Helmreich, Merrit, & Wilhelm (1999) published a paper to summarize the development of CRM training afterwards. Such growth can be divided into the some phases:

• The first phase was initiated by United Airlines in 1981 on Cockpit Resource Management. Training programs focused on management skills with the goal of fixing the “wrong stuff” captains. First generation courses were psychological in nature, with a heavy focus on psychological testing and general concepts, such as leadership.
• Second and third phases were introduced between 1986 and 1996 and emphasized on Crew Resource Management, the successor of Cockpit Resource Management in the first phase. Training programs dealt with more specific aviation concepts, such as decision making, teamwork, and leadership. The second phase’ training programs heavily focused on the cockpit; the key improvement of the training scope has been broadened into other groups within airlines such as flight attendants, dispatchers, and maintenance personnel during the third phase.
• The fourth phase was known as the phase of integration and proceduralization. FAA introduced a major change in the training and qualification of flight crews in 1990 with the initiation of its Advanced Qualification Program (AQP: Birnbach & Longridge, 1993). AQP is a voluntary program that allowed air carriers to develop innovative training fitting the needs of the specific organization; one of its requirements was that CRM concepts had to be integrated into technical training, and CRM and LOFT have to be provided for all flight crews.
• The fifth phase of CRM was introduced in 1997. The main theme at that moment was focused on return to the original concept of CRM, being considered as a way to avoid error (Merrit & Helmreich, 1997).

This stage was known as the period of Error Management; training programs were focused on managing human errors, and were built around the concept of error avoidance strategy. Human error is a ubiquitous, inevitable, and a valuable source of information. CRM can therefore be seen as a set of error countermeasures with three lines of defence: 1) the avoidance of error, 2) trapping incipient errors before they are committed, and 3) mitigating the consequences of those errors which occur and are not trapped. This strategy which was also known as The error troika, is shown in Figure 1.

• The latest phase in CRM training started in 2001. Threats and Error Management (TEM) has been a key theme of this 6^th CRM generation. Training programs have focused on building and enhancing the ability to identify threats that could lead to errors and to develop strategies to manage threats and reduce errors.

This TEM, or the latest generation of CRM training, has been receiving attraction from both researchers and practitioners. The characteristics of TEM training are 1) threats to safety can vary across air carriers and 2) training needs to be based on data from airline’s own experience. CRM provides countermeasures against threats and errors as well as supporting basic aspects of effective teamwork and leadership. In this context, TEM serves as a critical component of Human Factors/CRM training.

Challenges for CRM Training

It should be noted that, despite the fact of CRM training being essential and widely used, organizations can find several challenges in implementing CRM. Firstly, CRM does not reach everyone; a small subset of pilots has rejected the concepts of CRM (Helmreich & Wilhelm, 1991). Secondly, acceptance of basic concepts may decay over time due to broadening of training, lack of management support for CRM, failure by evaluators, such as line check airmen, and the evolution from one generation to another. Thirdly, CRM does not export well. It is necessary to stress that according to research, courses imported from other organizations, had less impact than those, that were developed to reflect the organizational culture and operational issues of the receiving carrier. Next, airlines often face economic and operational constraints when implementing CRM programs (Chidester, 1993).

Issues Relevant to Implementing CRM Training

Key success factors of CRM training

The research developed by Helmreich, Chidester, Foushee, Gregorich, & Wilhelm (1990), and funded by NASA, have come up with the following recommendations which can be considered as key success factors of CRM training in general:

1. organizational commitment,
2. program goals,
3. assessment,
4. customization,
5. designing exercises, and
6. training phases.

Organizational commitment is concentrated on demonstration program management. It is strongly suggested that the organization should communicate why the program is needed, and that commitment to the program derives from the highest levels of management. The organization should also state from the outset of the program being intended to do, and should continue with updates describing curriculum areas. Next, assessment of the organization states prior to designing the program should be carried out. This is essential to the next step which is based on organizations’ need to customize training. Going further to detail, exercises and activities should be built around real incidents or slight variations from real incidents and being presented in the form of factual presentation, moderated group discussion, and behavioral exercises. Furthermore, training phases should be completed consisting of initial training, practice and feedback, and reinforcement. As recognized by the FAA, a single awareness phase seminar will not be sufficient for long-term behavior change.

It is interesting to note that once a training program has been established, other, long-term success factors should be well developed covering the following aspects:

1. integration CRM with LOFT,
2. emphasis on the critical role of check airmen and instructors,
3. selection of check airmen and instructors who support CRM concepts,
4. deployment of quality control for CRM and LOFT training,
5. consideration of similar training for cabin crew and other parts of the organization, and
6. creation of provisions for CRM rejecters.

CRM training should be put into the cross-cultural context; while resources vary from country to country, fellow crew members – the primary resource – are reasonably constant across international aviation.

Phases of CRM training

FAA, based largely on the work of Helmreich and Foushee, in 1989, has recommended the idea that training programs were broken into three phases:

1. an awareness phase, (crew members complete group exercises to learn about the basic CRM concepts);
2. a practice and feedback phase (crew flying a realistic simulation featuring aircraft problems in the manner they would occur on the line, and receive feedback on their performance);
3. a reinforcement phase (CRM concepts become a part of the organizations’ overall training and operating practices.)

For maximum CRM-training value, it is critical to identify the interactive behaviors necessary for effective CRM in the target community before designing the training scenarios. The scenario developer must also be intimately familiar with the missions and with the crew members’ individual tasks. The FAA guidelines were given in five major categories: scenario overview, objectives, realism, role of facilitator, and technical tips (FAA, 1990). Helmreich, Chidester, Foushee, Gregorich, & Wilhelm (1990) have argued that reinforcement by supervisors can quickly determine whether CRM skills are embraced and applied by crew members.

Building the program

Wilkinson (n.d.) advised on how to build a program, through the appointment of a project manager who must be committed to CRM and be willing to learn. Also, the project manager must have creditability from both management and air crew. The project manager should become familiar with Aviation Psychology subjects, and build awareness of cultural differences to the problem of teaching CRM, which must be dealt within the aviation organization. Next, the Project Manager should appoint a Steering Committee to oversee the construction of the course, noting that it is essential to have the aircrew involved in the design and construction of the course from the start. It is also recommended that all interest groups, such as unions, to be provided the opportunity to participate.

It is important to highlight the point that the content of the course will greatly depend upon the proposed length and the results expected to address problems of the organization. There are however some core concepts which should be included in any CRM program: 1) decision making, 2) communication, 3) attitudes, 4) leadership, 5) followership, 6) teamwork. Additional topics can be added such as stress management, arousal prioritization, human information processing, situational awareness, personality types, and cross culture behavior. Besides, there are several practical implications which must be considered for the training such as course size, venue, cost, time, and resources like human and training aids.

Training the trainers

It is a preferred choice to use facilitators to guide courses through the process of discovering CRM concepts instead of using instructors to teach those concepts. CRM course facilitators should be selected from volunteers with a special interest in CRM and the presentation of training courses in general (Wilkinson, n.d.). The training of the captains, check airmen, and LOFT instructors should be in a great deal of preparation, and at least cover the following areas: 1) CRM concepts, 2) Recognition of CRM concepts, 3) Running LOFT, and 4) LOFT construction.

Integrating the training

It is a recommendation that CRM training should be integrated into the entire training environment. This means that CRM can be effectively introduced into new hire training, promotional training, endorsement and cyclic trainings and checking.

Monitoring

One should state the key question of CRM training effective fulfillment of its key purposes of increasing the flight safety and efficiency, can lead to a complex answer. The most obvious validation criterion, the accident rate (for example per million flights) cannot be used, because the overall accident rate is very low and training programs are so variable. It is, therefore, impossible to suggest any conclusions about the impact of training during a finite period of time (Helmreich, Chidester, Foushee, Gregorich, & Wilhelm, 1990). It was found out that the two most accessible and logical criteria are behavior on the flightdeck, and attitudes showing acceptance or rejection of CRM concepts (Helmreich, Merritt, & Wilhelm, 1999).

An objective index of cockpit management attitudes is the Cockpit Management Attitudes Questionnaire (CMAQ: Helmreich, 1984). The scale contains 25 items chosen to measure attitudes being either conceptually or empirically related to CRM. A revised version of the scale (Helmreich, Wilhelm, & Gregorich, 1988) replaced 6 items that had little response variation or little predictive utility. CMAQ is helpful because it would provide an evaluative pre- and post-training “snapshot” of the organization, identify areas that may need extended attention during the training process, and be useful for evaluating the impact of CRM training. Further evaluation can be achieved by surveying both crews and instructors during LOFT. The NASA/University of Texas LINE/LOFT evaluation form can be used for this purpose.

Case Study: CRM Training at Malaysia Airlines

Starting the analysis of CRM training at Malaysia Airlines, it is necessary to stress that in a seminar on Human Factors training organized in Bangkok on April 22, 2008, Aziz Al Rahim Hussin of Malaysia Airlines (MA) has delivered a brief summary on “Cabin crew HF trainings in Malaysia Airlines.” At the time the speech was made, MA has over 450 flights departure a day flying to more than 100 destinations spanning across 6 continents. MA has crew strength of 4171 persons of which there are only 166 foreign. There have been three types of CRM training in MA. The first type is CRM Initial which is mandatory for all new cabin crew. It is a basic one-day training covering all main topics including culture, teamwork, communication, situation awareness/stress, problem solving, decision making, and financial defense, informing crew on the potential stress arising from financial problem. The second type is Culture Familiarization Course which was designed for all foreign crew prior to operations. It is a basic, one-day training on understanding culture differences in Malaysia. This training is essential because MA possesses multi-racial and multinational crew. The third type of CRM training in MA is CRM Recurrent which is a must for all cabin crew. It is a one-day training annually. It covers the latest generation of CRM, the Threat and Error Management (TEM). In addition to such above trainings, a full three-day CRM training participated by all crew addressing all CRM elements including TEM was also organized at MA.

It was also noted that MA was recognized by the award “World Best Cabin Staff” in 2007; and CRM trainings appeared to be an appropriate effort that MA could benefit from. MA is one of aviation organizations who have effectively implemented CRM training as part of their operation.

Conclusion

The research conducted demonstrated the fact that CRM training has evolved over time, and its latest generation is all about Threat and Error Management (TEM). The analysis has shown the key to successful implementation of CRM training is all about good project management which has to be accompanied by a thorough preparation in the training resources such as human, capital, time, and training aids. It is a strong recommendation that CRM programs should consist of three phases: introduction, practice and feedback, and recurrent to ensure the streamlines of the training. It is not acceptable to export the “optimal work processes” from one model of one performance to another. One size does not fit all. Instead, a detailed examination of all the relevant input factors and the desired outcomes, will determine the design of those optimal processes. Some airlines, such as Malaysia Airlines, as studied in the paper, have also integrated the culture component into their CRM training.

The fact that training in crew coordination may result in behavior changes does not cast any doubt on the importance of personality traits as independent determinants of flightdeck performance. There are a number of ways to provide such trainings, but lectures, media presentations, and self-study programs are less than optimal approaches because they fail to demonstrate challenges and responses to individuals’ ingrained beliefs; because they do not examine the linkage between attitudes and behavior. The most effective approach should probably include factual presentations on the body of empirical data now available, moderated group discussions, and behavioral exercises, including the use of full-mission flight simulators designed to present problems requiring close coordination (Helmreich, 1984).

What is of special importance, is aimed at the improvements in line performance expected to result from corresponding enhancements in crew process. To that extent, we can rely on some survey which was designed to “measure” attitudes of participants such as CMAQ, revised CMAQ, or FMAQ to learn about an indicator or pre-and post-training’s reflection of participants to monitor the impact of the training and recognize areas having room for improvement. Therefore, the long-term effectiveness of formal CRM training and the effect of crew attitudes on process variables and line performance, remain issues in need of further investigation. The paper disclosed the fact that CRM programs should be practical, ongoing, corporate wide and culture-sensitive to help strengthening and, if necessary, adjusting behavioral skills of aviation operators.

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