How to Fill Out the Supervisor’s Employee Brief (AF Form 971)

AF Form 971, the Supervisor’s Employee Brief, is a computer-generated record that Air Force civilian supervisors use to track a subordinate’s personal data, performance discussions, awards, and disciplinary actions. You do not download a blank copy. Your installation’s Civilian Personnel Section (CPS) produces it from the Defense Civilian Personnel Data System (DCPDS) and sends it to you when a personnel action occurs, and it sits as Part 1 of the Supervisor’s Employee Work Folder you maintain on each civilian employee.¹

How You Get a Copy

Because the form is system-generated, there is no fillable PDF on the Air Force e-Publishing site. CPS delivers a printout when an employee first arrives or when a qualifying personnel action takes place — an appointment, transfer, or promotion. If you never received a copy, or if your copy is out of date after a promotion or reassignment, contact your CPS customer service team and ask for a current printout.¹

Part C of the form updates automatically in DCPDS when significant changes happen, so a fresh copy from CPS ensures you are working from current data.²

What Goes in Each Part of the Form

The form has three sections, and knowing what belongs where keeps the record usable when it is time to write an appraisal or defend a personnel action.

Part A: Employee Information

Part A holds the employee’s personal data: home address, phone number, and emergency contacts.¹ Contact details change often. Recording them in pencil on the hard copy lets you update without generating a new printout every time.³ Remind employees to keep their information current in the Emergency Data System as well.

Part B: Supervisor’s Comments

Part B is the section you actually write in. It captures performance discussions, counseling sessions, letters of appreciation, and disciplinary actions.² Record both positive and negative events as they occur, along with the date, what happened, and the guidance you gave. This log becomes the factual foundation for the annual appraisal and for any personnel action.

Part C: Experience, Awards, Performance, and Training

Part C captures the employee’s current position data, grade and series, education history, training records, appraisal history, and awards. Most of it populates from DCPDS automatically, so you generally do not enter this information by hand. When something significant changes — a completed degree, a new certification, a performance award — DCPDS updates Part C, and you can request a refreshed copy from CPS.²

Writing Entries in Part B

Part B is where supervisors most often get in trouble, either by writing too little or by leaving entries in past their retention date. The goal is a clear, factual log a future supervisor or reviewing official could read and immediately understand.

For performance discussions and counseling sessions, note the date, the topic, the employee’s progress or the areas needing improvement, and any follow-up actions you agreed on. Both the supervisor and the employee should sign or initial each entry to confirm the conversation happened.² There is no Air Force-wide rule requiring feedback at fixed 30- or 60-day intervals. The expectation is that you record discussions as they happen, including the initial counseling at the start of a rating period and periodic follow-ups through the year.

Letters of appreciation and non-monetary award justifications also belong in Part B. Filing them is optional, but an employee can keep them in the folder indefinitely because they support future promotion or incentive decisions.²

How Long Disciplinary Entries Stay

Negative entries do not stay in the folder forever. Each category has a defined shelf life, and once it expires the entry must be removed and destroyed:

Oral and written admonishments: keep a maximum of one year. Both the employee and supervisor must sign or initial the entry. Employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) can request a discussion about removing the entry after six months.²
Reprimands: up to two years, then destroy. CBA employees can request a discussion about early removal after twelve months.²
Suspensions: up to two years along with the associated SF-50 (Notification of Personnel Action), then destroy.²
Debt letters: two years if issued.²

If you need to keep a disciplinary entry longer than the standard period to support an ongoing action, such as a removal case, store it in a separate file rather than the Employee Work Folder.³ Leaving expired entries sitting in the folder is one of the most common mistakes supervisors make, and it can undermine a future action if it looks like old discipline was being held over an employee’s head.

Where the Form Sits in the Larger Folder

The AF Form 971 is Part 1 of the Supervisor’s Employee Work Folder. The rest of the folder holds the performance plan and ratings, training records and awards, leave schedules, and pending personnel actions, each in its own numbered part.² Keeping the sections distinct means that when you pull the folder for an appraisal you are not sifting past disciplinary letters or leave schedules to find what you need.³

Who Can See It

The AF Form 971 is a personal and confidential record, and access is limited to people with an official need.⁴ That typically means you as the immediate supervisor, higher-level management reviewing a promotion or reassignment, and HR staff processing a personnel action.

The employee can review the contents of the folder in the supervisor’s presence and get copies of any document in it.¹ The Privacy Act of 1974 backs that right and requires that if the employee wants someone else present during the review, they authorize that person in writing.⁵

Union representatives have narrower access. The AF Form 971 is maintained separately from the Official Personnel Folder and is classified as the supervisor’s personal and confidential record, so a union representative generally needs a specific, documented reason such as a grievance or disciplinary proceeding to see it.⁴

Store hard copies in a locked cabinet or a secure office. Digital versions belong on password-protected government systems. The Privacy Act imposes penalties for unauthorized disclosure.⁵

When the Employee Moves or Separates

When an employee moves to a new position or organization within the Air Force, the entire Supervisor’s Employee Work Folder transfers to the gaining supervisor, not just the AF Form 971. Before handing it off, review the folder, make sure entries are current, and remove any expired disciplinary records. The new supervisor inherits the whole performance history.

When an employee separates from federal service for any reason other than entering military service or as the result of an adverse action, you first transfer certain records to CPS: all performance ratings of record, the performance plan on which the last rating was based, and any documentation related to adverse actions. After that, the rest of the folder is destroyed 60 days later.² Destruction means shredding hard copies and permanently deleting digital files from government systems. The folder contains Privacy Act-protected information, so tossing it in a recycling bin carries the same legal risk as an unauthorized disclosure.

1
Ramstein Air Base. Civilian Personnel Flight Factsheet – Supervisor’s Employee Work Folder
2
Little Rock Air Force Base. Supervisor’s Employee Work Folder
3
Royal Air Force Mildenhall. Supervisor’s Employee Work Folder
4
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Local Supplement Agreement Between 88th Air Base Wing and AFGE Local 1138
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 552a – Records Maintained on Individuals