NATA Compliance Services Blog

Just entering the transportation industry or new to the drug/alcohol program manager DER position? This month, we bring you the conclusion of some best practices and warnings to help you with your DOT Random Drug and Alcohol Testing Program.

We all like to think no single employee is more important than another, but often times that is not true. Just like star athletes in a team sport, we hate to see one of the leaders of the pack go, fearing the team may never be the same without that person.

We have spent the last few months examining how to find that perfect employee, what impact bonuses may have on achieving that result, and why employees stay or leave. This month, we will take a look at what you can do to keep that key employee on your team.

The pace at which technology moves is nothing short of fascinating. Just over 100 years ago, the though of heavier-than-air flight was as mythical and whimsical as the dragon protecting the princesses’ tower. We can now cross the Atlantic Ocean in an hour, connecting countries in ways never before imagined. We can fly to the moon, and we have revolutionized travel. In the last couple months, we have talked about planes that fly on trash and use solar energy. This month, we take a look at something that was once reserved for video games: pilotless planes.

In May, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sent out a general aviation (GA) safety fact sheet that contained several technologies that the FAA says can help lower the fatal accident rate. The FAA has set a goal of reducing GA fatal accident rate by 10% in 2018, with these technologies, the FAA hopes that their goal is more likely to be achieved. While some inclusions in the list are expected, some are a bit more surprising.

Just entering the transportation industry or new to the Drug/Alcohol Program Manager (DER) position? Over the course of this month, we will be giving you some best practices and warnings to help you with your Department of Transportation (DOT) Random Drug and Alcohol Testing Program.

Misconceptions can be a dangerous thing. From making an organization appear subpar to impacting business decisions, misconceptions are variables that can snow under your business’ objectives. With businesses only beginning to recover and finally see increased margins, these misconceptions need to be minimized. When it comes to fingerprinting services, a common misconception is that all fingerprinting services are the same. Since your employee or student supplies the prints, they would be the main determinant of quality. This, however, is not the case. Not only can the quality vary considerably, but the prints may also not be accepted if they aren’t taken in the right place.

Training is a tricky beast. At first glance, it seems it should be easy. You should only have to tell your employees what is going on, what they need to do, and how to do it, and then be able to move on. However, this is anything but the case. Developing and running your own training program can be quite costly, even more so than your first thought.

Since we have started this blog, my focus has been on one specific TSA program, the Alien Flight Student Program (AFSP). For that, some of our General Aviation (GA) followers might be saying to yourselves, “What about me?” Well, fear not, oh loyal GA population, this post is all about you.

One of the biggest hurdles we see when processing GA fingerprints for a Criminal History Records Check (CHRC) is with fingerprints being collected by a law enforcement office (LEO). It is important to realize that you have a couple choices in where you go to get these fingerprints collected and, while general consensus may be that they are the same, we know that it is not the case. Below, I have laid out just some of the common errors that we encounter when companies choose to have an LEO collect fingerprints.

You followed our advice from a couple months ago and hired the prefect employee. They still work for you; but do you understand why they still work for you? Just as much as knowing what you are doing wrong will help you improve, knowing what you are doing right will also help. And just because the employee still works with you doesn’t mean that you are doing everything, or even a lot of things right. This month, we will talk a look at why employees stay at their jobs.

In the last couple months we have spent some time talking about aviation security training. We have talked about who needs to take training and who is commonly forgotten. This month we focus on more of the economic consequences of training  and what can be done to minimize those.