Minnesota National Guard on the Impact of Technology on Human Performance

The Minnesota National Guard has adopted the Army’s Holistic Health & Fitness (H2F) program to improve the readiness of its service members. The program aims to improve individual training, reduce injuries, improve rehabilitation and ensure soldiers are fully combat ready. To stimulate participation in training and involvement in the H2F programme, the Garda collaborated with Tactical teamwork. We spoke with LTC Carlson to gain insight into how the Minnesota National Guard has utilized Teamworks Tactical technology and the significant impact it has had on their operations.

CHALLENGE

The Minnesota National Guard faced communication and coordination challenges due to infrequent in-person contact with its service members. National Guard members must participate in one weekend of drills each month and an annual two-week training period, usually during the summer. Additionally, most service members hold full-time jobs, so their availability for National Guard training is limited to a few days per month.

“Communicating effectively was a major challenge with 12,000 service members spread across the state. Traditional methods such as group texts and word of mouth were inadequate to share important information and engage them before, during and after training,” explained LTC Carlson.

These communication challenges negatively affected attendance, created a poor experience for service members, and decreased engagement in the H2F program, ultimately affecting their deployment capability and readiness.

Increasing training attendance

With Teamworks Tactical, the Minnesota National Guard has improved presence by strengthening communication and enabling instant updates, eliminating the need for manual text message chains. This also facilitated logistics such as travel arrangements, crucial for training and operations.

“Teamworks Tactical has helped us communicate effectively with our service members across the country to coordinate training. The platform gave them easy access to the latest updates and information, ensuring everyone was in the right place at the right time,” said LTC Carlson.

Stimulating the involvement of the H2F program

In addition to enjoying streamlined communications during training, service members were empowered to easily access the H2F resources they needed to improve their training and capabilities.

“Entries were put to very good use in our recent comprehensive service member fitness course in August. We had sign-ups for 1:1 life coaching, spiritual counseling with our chaplain, and nutritional counseling with our dietitian. Teamworks Tactical has served as a beneficial tool to connect service members with our subject matter experts for personalized support,” noted LTC Carlson.

After training, Teamworks Tactical technology enabled service members and staff to continue to engage with H2F resources, helping to support long-term behavior change and improved health.

Improving training efficiency

Surveys conducted through the Teamworks Tactical platform captured valuable feedback from service members to help the Minnesota National Guard improve training content and curriculum, including that of the H2F program.

“The data collected through these surveys has been instrumental in improving the effectiveness and overall quality of training, ensuring that the needs and preferences of our service members are effectively addressed,” said LTC Carlson.

Understanding the use of H2F resources

The Minnesota National Guard found that working with Teamworks Tactical helped quantify the use of H2F resources in training, allowing them to identify areas where resources could be reallocated to make a more significant impact.

“We now have a system to track the use of the H2F program during training, providing a documented history of sessions, attendance and 1:1 meetings. This gives us better visibility into popular services and areas that need increased support,” explained LTC Carlson.

Looking ahead

The Minnesota National Guard demonstrated how Tactical teamwork helped increase the impact of their H2F program. There is an opportunity to have a broader impact by standardizing the entire National Guard communication and data collection processes for all H2F training programs and beyond.