I have just posted news articles about Social Security field offices either closing early or being closed altogether on Wednesdays in three areas of the country, but I guess that this is happening or will happen in other areas.
Let me set this up as an open forum. Do you know of other areas in the country where this is happening? Has some written directive been issued to Social Security's Regional Offices about this? What do you think about it, both in terms of the effect upon Social Security employees and the effect upon those doing business with the Social Security Administration.
Just hit the comment button below to chime in. You can do this anonymously.
Let me set this up as an open forum. Do you know of other areas in the country where this is happening? Has some written directive been issued to Social Security's Regional Offices about this? What do you think about it, both in terms of the effect upon Social Security employees and the effect upon those doing business with the Social Security Administration.
Just hit the comment button below to chime in. You can do this anonymously.
5 comments:
I think it is one way of trying to address growing backlogs. While it does reduce the hours open to the public, it also might make it possible for offices to have 2 people answering the phone instead of just 1 when they are open.
In addition to staff shortages, the agency needs to continue efforts at training the teleservice centers to process more contacts to completion. While the centers do a great job on most of the millions of phone calls they handle each year, the agency is wasting precious man hours having claims representatives in the local offices having to address the thousands of "stand alone events" the teleservice representatives leave open on the system. In many cases it just needs to be closed but there is often additional development needed to complete the action or fix input errors.
I am a service rep in a busy office and currently, desk time is non-existent. We are at the reception desk, interviewing people, or answering the phone nonstop from 9 to 4 (usually longer just to clean up the stragglers who walked in at 3:59). Unless you work credit/comp time, you basically have an hour a day to yourself to do followups, process mail and return phone calls. That is simply not enough for the load we are carrying.
Internet applications and the immediate claims-taking units on the 800# do not save the field offices much work. Internet claims sadly do not process themselves. The ICTUs are good in theory but when people don't want to mail in their birth certificate (I do not blame them) they invariably have a lot of questions during their visit (the same questions they asked the ICTU!). The end result is still a claimant that had to wait in a field office.
I would love to close early just one day per week just to have some time to do my paperwork and return phone calls.
These tiny little "branch" offices with five to eight employees are grossly inefficient and should have been closed decades ago. Reassign the workers to the larger offices where they are badly needed. The "outcry" from Congressmen is no different than when little Post Offices are closed, even in "ghost towns."
This was proposed by Barnhart just before she left. It is a pilot project to judge the effect on backlogs by having "quiet time" for the fo employees to actually get work done. If successful, it would presumably be expanded, unless clueless congressmen intervene. Many offices, such as social services, otherwise open to the public have such arrangements.
Those tiny little branch offices had 15-30 employees decades ago, and still have tens of thousands of beneficiaries to service. when they are closed, the service stops. the larger offices which take over the service areas of the smaller offices do not have the staff to take on the added responsibility.
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